Is A Course In Miracles for YOU?
We have, within us, multiple intelligences, all of which can mature and evolve over time. By far the most important line of intelligence available to us is the one that we ignore, or are in ignorance of, or that conventional religion made us turn away from: our spiritual intelligence.
If you are instinctively drawn to explore your spiritual intelligence and are wondering if A Course in Miracles might be the right path for you, ask yourself the questions below. Adopt an inward gaze and give yourself a little space to really contemplate the questions raised – go behind the words. Don’t rattle through the questions as if this were a test or a quiz. Slowly read each item on the list, close your eyes and allow the answer to be delivered by your whole body and not just your thinking mind:
Have you ever felt that there is something distinctly odd about this world? Maybe a vague but persistent awareness, somewhere deep in your subconscious, that this world you seem to inhabit is not your real home?
Do you feel that, no matter how much ‘success’ you have achieved in worldly terms, there is still an empty feeling inside, a realization that nothing and no one provides the deep peace and happiness that is the call of your soul?
Have you suffered enough yet to finally conclude that there has got to be a better way to live?
Are you able to put aside your beliefs, lay down your defenses and, with a truly open mind, contemplate ideas that will turn your worldview upside down? Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?
Are you tired of being ruled by fearful thoughts, by a mind that is out of your control, addicted to the voice in your head that pulls you constantly out of the present moment of your life and into the imaginary world of the past and the future?
Are you willing to accommodate the idea that there is another mind in you, one that you have covered over and obscured with your own, concocted monkey mind, a Big Mind that is infinitely greater than your own little ego self?
Do you feel the tiny spark of light within you, like a dimly remembered connection to your Source, an intuition that you are more than a manufactured, personality self?
Do you really want the Love of God, the peace that passes all understanding? Are you willing to allow your mind to be completely unwound so that the light within you outshines the darkness of the fearful ego thought system?
Can you be still and receive?
Be honest with yourself. If, for example, you would rather be right than happy, then hanging onto your belief systems is important for you at this stage of your life. If forgiving feels like too much of a stretch, or you are not willing to make room for silence and stillness, that’s fine, but these all mean that ACIM isn’t for you.
If, on the other hand, there is a little pilot light within that gets lit by the implications of these questions, if there’s a stirring of excitement at the prospect of finding a better way to live, of handing over all control to the power of the Holy Spirit in you, then maybe this is your way Home, home to Oneness. Maybe you sense at some level that all your suffering is caused by a mind that thinks it is separate and alone, that needs to control and manipulate events. Maybe you feel the pull of your soul to be reunited with the Love from which you were sourced. The Source is what we can call God, or Love, or the Oneness of all things.
It doesn’t really matter what we call it because the Love that we are pointing to is beyond all conceptual understanding. Words are inherently dualistic but they’re hard to avoid when writing about this non-dual teaching. That is why you were invited in the beginning to bring the energy and attention of all of your Being to meditate on these questions. If they resonate in deep dimensions within you, A Course in Miracles could be your key to ultimate freedom. This is the freedom from identifying as a puny little ego self to stand in your real power and reclaim your home in God, the real Self that you never really left.
