A Course in Miracles is one of my favorite books. It sits on a bookshelf in my home reserved for spiritual classics like the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada, The Imitation of Christ, the Tao Te Ching, The Prophet, the Masnavi, and The Gnostic Gospels.
I read something from A Course in Miracles every day. The Course has been part of my daily spiritual practice for the past 20 years. I take it with me when I travel, on my iPhone and computer. Like all great literature, the more I study it, the better it gets. Whichever page I turn to, the words are always relevant and helpful. I still come across passages that seem brand new, as if they’ve been downloaded into an edition especially revised for me.
A Course in Miracles is a big book. It’s more than 1,200 pages and 500,000 words long, and its size alone is too imposing for many. Also, it’s written in old-style Christian English and is full of iambic pentameter, which is the meter that William Shakespeare often used. Each page is infused with a mix of rich prose, spiritual poetry, powerful aphorisms, and beautiful prayers. My hope is that in Holy Shift! I give you a taste of this mighty work while still being faithful to its power and grace.
The story of how A Course in Miracles was written is a miracle in itself. It involves Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, both professors of medical psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Helen described herself as a “psychologist, educator, conservative in theory and atheistic in belief.” Bill was the head of her department. They were anything but spiritual, and their relationship was anything but peaceful. One day, Bill declared he was tired and angry about their antagonism and that “there must be another way.”
Bill’s outburst triggered a chain of events that neither would have predicted. Over the next three months, Helen experienced a series of vivid, highly symbolic dreams. Then, one day, she heard an inner Voice that said, “This is a course in miracles.” Helen confided to Bill her most unusual experiences. It made her feel very uncomfortable, but Bill was highly supportive. Over the next seven years, Bill helped Helen to listen to what the Voice had to say. In a short preface to A Course in Miracles, Helen says:
It seemed to be a special assignment I had somehow, somewhere agreed to complete. It represented a truly collaborative venture between Bill and myself, and much of its significance, I am sure, lies in that. I would take down what the Voice “said” and read it to him the next day, and he typed it from my dictation. I expect he had his special assignment too. Without his encouragement and support I would never have been able to fulfill mine. (Preface viii)
Helen Schucman is described as the scribe of A Course in Miracles. She did not want her name to appear on the book because the Voice that dictated the words was not her own. So “who” is the Voice? The Voice introduced itself to her as Jesus. Helen struggled with this, but she could not deny the truth and beauty of what she heard. Also, Jesus continually encouraged Helen to see that the purpose of the Course was to direct readers to their own Internal Teacher—to the Christ in all of us. Helen made sure that at her funeral no mention of the Course was made. She wanted the Course to stand on its own.
What is A Course in Miracles? It consists of three books: a 669-page Text, which explains the philosophy of miracles; a 488-page Workbook for Students, which offers 365 daily lessons for living the philosophy; and a 92-page Manual for Teachers, which includes a Clarification of Terms. It also has two supplements: Psychotherapy and The Song of Prayer. The whole work offers a system of spiritual psychotherapy and an invitation to experience inner peace and freedom.
I began my study of the Course by reading the Text. Initially, I found it difficult to understand. I’d get halfway down a page and be so full of poetry and mind-blowing principles that I could barely stay conscious. I even typed out the Text on my PC in an effort to “get my head around it,” so to speak, but that hardly helped. I then switched from the Text to the Manual for Teachers. Here’s where I read that, “a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.” After that, I decided to focus on the daily lessons in the Workbook, and this has been my main focus ever since.
Although the Course is written in Christian language, it is studied by my friends who are Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish, because it offers a spiritual philosophy that reflects perennial wisdom. I found the Course in an old esoteric bookstore at a mind-body-spirit festival held in Central London. I bought it on a whim because I liked the title and also the idea of miracles. The Course describes a miracle as something you experience when you are willing to shift your perception from a psychology of fear to a psychology of love.
A Course in Miracles encourages you to look at everything afresh. “Instruction in perception is your great need,” teaches the Course, in a section of the Text entitled “The Problem and the Answer.” The goal of the Course is to help you know yourself. “This is a course on love, because it is about you,” it states. It offers a system of mind-training that helps you undo the blocks to love—conditioning, judgment, and fear—so that you can enjoy and participate fully in the miracle of existence.
“There is no conflict that does not entail the single, simple question, ‘What am I?’” states the Course. The Course wants you to see that you are more than just a small, separate ego set apart from creation. “You are not an ego,” and “you are not a body,” says the Course. The body is simply the dress code for the human experience. The holy shift, as I call it, is the recognition that you are a spiritual being having a human experience and not a human being who has occasional spiritual experiences. In other words, you don’t have a soul; you are a soul.
Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God.
—Manual for Teachers. 15. 1:12.
The Course describes the perception of separateness as “a tiny, mad idea” that causes a “great amnesia” that leads you to live “a little life beset with fear.” Albert Einstein described separation as “an optical delusion.” The Course says, “In you there is no separation.” The goal of studying the Text and practicing the lessons in the Workbook is to make an “exchange of separation for salvation.” This exchange is described as an inner shift.
The Course is a love letter written from your soul to your ego. In this love letter you are asked to let go of your separate self-image, made of pain and fear, in order to experience your wholeness again. Your self-image is full of unworthiness because it is not worthy of you. “You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed,” says the Course. You are created whole, there is nothing missing in you, and any unworthiness stems from conditioning and a mistaken identity.
In a section in the Text called “Seek Not Outside Yourself,” the Course encourages you to stop searching for the happiness, peace, and love you long for. It’s because we believe that happiness is outside of us that we’ve made the world into a giant shopping mall. It’s because we believe that peace is outside that wars are fought every day on this planet. It’s because we are looking for love, instead of being the loving presence we truly are, that we live in a world where love is so hard to find.
“There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.” That’s quite a statement. What does it mean? “Your concept of the world depends upon this concept of the self,” explains the Course. How you see yourself is how you see the world. For example, if you perceive yourself as separate, then everything you want (like happiness, peace, and love) is also perceived as separate from you. You experience life as “a tiny you and an enormous world.” However, when you remember your wholeness, your oneness with everything, the world withholds nothing from you.
“There is no sin,” says the Course. Now this really is a holy shift! A Course in Miracles states that nothing you do can ruin or alter your holy innocence. No matter how lost you are in the “detour into fear” and no matter how many wounds you experience in your “personal repertory of horrors,” your holy innocence remains intact, waiting to be witnessed again. The Course says, “Its central theme is always, ‘God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.’”
“There is no need to suffer,” says the Course. Here is another holy shift in perception. The Course invites you to consider the possibility that because God is unconditional love, God does not punish you, cause you pain, or make you suffer (even for a good cause). “And so your innocence has not been lost. You need no healing to be healed,” says the Course. Any pain you experience is the pain of the ego and not of your soul. Therefore, all pain is a form of mistaken identity, a call for love, and a prompt to remember who you really are.
How do we experience a holy shift? How do we undo the illusion of separation? How do we experience a Self without guilt? How do we create a world with no war? The ego is a “poor choice as a teacher,” the Course says, because it never sees the big picture. “Resign now as your own teacher of salvation,” the ego is told. We are called to listen instead to the Holy Spirit, which offers soul guidance directly from our holy self. It’s with the Holy Spirit’s help that we learn about forgiveness. Forgiveness is the great undoing that translates perception into knowledge, fear into love, and pain into miracles.
The Course teaches that forgiveness is more than just positive thinking, an emotional reframe, or the overlooking and forgetting of a specific event. Forgiveness is a spiritual path, according to the Course. It is the holy purpose of our life on earth. “Forgiveness is the home of miracles,” says the Course. Through forgiveness, we remember who we are. We learn that, in truth, there are no dark nights of the soul, only dark nights of the ego. Forgiveness helps us, therefore, to choose again, to find a better way, and to create a future unlike our past.
“This course is not beyond immediate learning, unless you believe that what God wills takes time,” the Course tells us. We can experience a holy shift in our life at any moment and in a single instant. How do we do this? Miracles require no suffering, no sacrifice, no penance, no money, and no special effort. The key is simply “a little willingness” to see what reality is like when you are not lost in fear, guilt, and thoughts of sins. Your little willingness is “powerfully supplemented by the strength of Heaven,” says the Course.
The holy shift is our Atonement. “The offer of Atonement is universal,” says the Course. “It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances.” Miracles are available to everyone who shows a little willingness. “A miracle is now. It stands already here, in present grace,” says the Course. Therefore, in any holy instant, our weary egos can experience the grace and healing that is on offer from our soul, which is in Heaven and in a state of perfect oneness and wholeness.
My hope is that Holy Shift! helps you experience a year of miracles. I’ve chosen an excerpt from A Course in Miracles for each day of the year. I encourage you to set aside time every day—between 1 minute and 15 minutes—to reflect on each message. Each entry is an invitation to a deeper inquiry. Be sure also to take the message with you into your day. Holy Shift! is offered as an aid; it is not meant to replace the main work. That said, the main work of A Course in Miracles is not to arrive at just an intellectual understanding of the words; it is to identify with the love that brings these words to you. In truth, you are this love.
Robert Holden
London, October 2013
A Note to the Reader: Each entry in Holy Shift! is taken from either the Text, the Workbook, the Manual for Teachers, or one of the two supplements: Psychotherapy and The Song of Prayer. The references for each entry belong to the 3rd Edition, Combined Volume, of A Course in Miracles, published by the Foundation for Inner Peace in 2007. Here is an example of how to read the reference:
Text-18. VIII. 13:1-8.
Chapter 18, Verse 8, paragraph 13, lines 1 to 8.
Workbook-p II. Lesson 360. 1:1-7.
Part II, Lesson 360, paragraph 1, lines 1 to 7.
Manual for Teachers. 14. 5:1-7.
Chapter 14, paragraph 5, lines 1 to 7.
Psychotherapy-3. III. 8:9-13.
Chapter 3, Verse III, paragraph 8, lines 9 to 13.
Song of Prayer-1. I. 1:1-7.
Chapter 1, Verse 1, paragraph 1, lines 1 to 7.