A Course in Miracles is a modern holy book that many people in recovery from various problems in living, including addictions and “mental illness,” have found to be psychologically and spiritually nourishing. First published in 1976, it includes three volumes: a Text, a Workbook, and a Manual for Teachers. The entire Course addresses a major impediment to working through conflict and attaining peace by finding, accurately naming and letting go of our ego. The inflation and arrogance of ego is the opposite of humility.
The following are quotes from the Course that reference humility. These quotes are out of context from the flow in the Course, which is more circular than the conventional linear approach that we are used to reading and that we have incorporated in this book. We recommend that the reader study the Course itself to fully understand what these individual quotes say. We include them here as food for thought.
Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere. The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them truer perception. (T 4,1.12.2) (T=Text, 4=Chapter 4, 1=chapter section. 12=Paragraph, 2=Verse)
True empathy is of Him Who knows what it is [referring to the Holy Spirit]. You will learn His interpretation of it if you let Him use your capacity for strength, and not for weakness. He will not desert you, but be sure that you desert not Him. Humility is strength in this sense only; that to recognize and accept the fact that you do not know is to recognize and accept the fact that He does know. (T16, 1.1–4)
Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you. Your difficulty with the holy instant arises from your fixed conviction that you are not worthy of it. And what is this but the determination to be as you would make yourself? God did not create His dwelling place unworthy of Him. (T18, 4.3.1–5)
Humility consists of accepting your role in salvation and in taking no other. It is not humility to insist you cannot be the light of the world if that is the function God assigned to you. It is only arrogance that would assert this function cannot be for you, and arrogance is always of the ego.
True humility requires that you accept today’s idea because it is God’s Voice which tells you it is true. This is a beginning step in accepting your real function on Earth. . . . “I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here.” (W61.2;2, 3 and 5). (W=Workbook)
To think that God made chaos, contradicts His Will, invented opposites to the truth and suffers death to triumph over life; all this is arrogance. Humility would see at once these things are not of Him.
Today we practice true humility, abandoning the false pretense by which the ego seeks to prove it arrogant. Only the ego can be arrogant. But truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all encompassing, God’s perfect gift to his beloved Son. We lay aside the arrogance which says that we are sinners, guilty and afraid, ashamed of what we are; and lift our hearts in true humility instead to Him Who has created us immaculate, like to Himself in power and in love.
The power of decision is our own. And we accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God. To recognize God’s Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false. Their arrogance has been perceived. And in humility the radiance of God’s Son is gentleness, is perfect sinlessness, his Father’s Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as our own. (W152, 7–10)
All false humility we lay aside today, that we may listen to God’s Voice reveal to us what He would have us do. . . . And if He deems us worthy, so we are. It is but arrogance that judges otherwise. (W186, 4)
In silence and in true humility I seek God’s glory, to behold it in the Son whom He created as my Self. (W211, 2)
Let not the truth about ourselves today be hidden by a false humility. Let us instead be thankful for the gifts our Father gave us. (W239, 1)
And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn His Own curriculum. (W14, 5:10–11)
For an introduction to the similarities between A Course in Miracles and the Twelve Steps, see also Appendix D on page 159.