A Course in Miracles presents a clear picture of the nature of God's reality and His Kingdom of Heaven. Nevertheless, understanding the nature of God continues to prove difficult for many people, including most students of ACIM. Many people have theories about what God and His Creations must be like, how they relate and interact. But too often these theories are incomplete, confusing, or even completely mistaken. This had led to profound levels of confusion and misunderstanding, and a tremendous distortion of the teachings of A Course in Miracles.
In this groundbreaking book, Paul - an ACIM student and teacher with over 20 years experience, casts aside all confusing guesswork and presents a very clear and logical explanation of reality. Using simple logic that's easy to follow, and starting at the very beginning with God Himself, Paul draws astonishingly obvious conclusions which make complete and total sense. The book is structured in such a way that each chapter builds upon the ones before, gradually fleshing out a consistent and clear picture of the ultimate truth.
Many people attempt to find the truth by starting at the bottom and working backwards, reverse-engineering the bigger picture based on small glimpses of insight found in the dark. This is like trying to assemble a puzzle without the picture to reference. In this book we do the complete opposite, starting from the top down and assuming nothing. Step by step you will see that God's inherent nature automatically leads to the creation of His Kingdom, the sharing of everything with his Creations, and the beautiful extension of Himself through co-creation. This puts everything in its proper place, seen in its proper light as the only possible truth.
This book can be also said to be a theory of everything, since it spells out precisely and accurately the true nature of ultimate reality. The logic in the book has been designed to be "bullet proof" and irrefutable, so impeccable and precise that it cannot be argued with. The conclusions drawn are not opinions or interpretation but factual outcomes and consequences. We ask the logic to tell us what must be true, and we listen.
It just so happens, as you will see, that the independent conclusions that we arrive at also happen to completely and perfectly align with the teachings of A Course in Miracles. This validates that A Course in Miracles is logically completely true and is giving us the actual truth about our lives. In turn, this book is further validated because A Course in Miracles, a renowned and deep spiritual text, tells us that the exact same truths are true, and nothing else is true.
If you are done with all the confusion, arguments about whose interpretation is right, the inconsistencies and sense of difficulty trying to unravel the depths of ACIM's teachings, then this is the book for you. Put aside everything you've learned and let's take a fresh and extremely clear look at the truth together. Let's brush off the sea of opinions and cast aside the logical errors which are so prevalent in the thoughts of many. There can only be one truth and this is it.
This book will lay a new foundation in your mind, a background and firm footing, on which to build and draw further conclusions. It will act as a beacon of light in your mind to help you to compare and contrast what is true and what is not. It will sharpen and clarify your grasp of A Course in Miracles profoundly, and will lay to rest untold amounts of wasted time and frustration. If you want to know what Jesus is really telling us about the nature of reality, of God and his creations, and ultimately about yourself, this is the book for you.
The book is 283 pages, and almost 58,000 words. The size of the book is 6" wide by 9" tall. Large print edition is 8.5" x 11" at 297 pages.
This book is available in e-book, paperback and hardcover versions. The book is printed on demand so is always in stock. There is also a second paperback version which is the large print edition, at 50% larger size.
Paperbacks and hardcover are available from Amazon, including country-specific Amazon sites such as amazon.co.uk.
The e-book is available on Kindle via the same amazon sites, through a kindle device or free kindle reader app. A kindle device is not needed - you can install the Amazon Kindle Reader App on your desktop computer, laptop, tablet or phone (PC, Mac, Android, iOS).
You can "look inside" or "read a sample" of the book on the Amazon websites. Note that the Kindle edition sample is longer than the paperback sample.
Most stores include Kindle e-book ($6.99), paperback ($17.99) and hardcover ($25.99). Prices shown here are approximately the regular paperback prices. I typically make only a few dollars from each book sale due to Amazon fees.
Amazon.com (USA) ~$17.99 USD.
Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom)~15.71 UKP.
Amazon.de (Germany) ~18 EUROS.
Amazon.fr (France) ~17.79 EUROS.
Amazon.es (Spain) ~17.49 EUROS.
Amazon.it (Italy) ~17.49 EUROS.
Amazon.nl (Netherlands) ~18.33 EUROS.
Amazon.jp (Japan) ~2916 YEN.
Amazon.com.br (Brazil) Unknown.
Amazon.ca (Canada) ~24.62 CAN.
Amazon.mx (Mexico) ~447.07 PESO?
Amazon.com.au (Australia) ~34.32 AUS$.
Amazon.in (India) Unknown.
Amazon.pl (Poland) Unknown.
Amazon.se (Sweden) Unknown.
Dedication
Author’s Note
Introduction
1. Absolute Truth
2. Aspects of Reality
3. Permanent Perfection
4. Possibility
5. Inclusion and Wholeness
6. Omni-Presence
7. Holographic Reality
8. Unlimited Sharing
9. True Equality
10. The Golden Rule
11. Inclusive Logic
12. Creation Means Sharing
13. The Power to Create
14. God is Alive
15. The Act of Creation
16. Co-Creation in the Kingdom
17. The Premise of God
18. Cause and Effect
19. Permanent Creation
20. Free Will
21. God is the First Cause
22. The Awareness of Knowledge
23. The Vision of God
24. Real Relationships
25. The Machinery of Mind
26. Unlimited Power
27. Joy and Happiness
28. Permanent Peace
29. Unconditional Love
30. Absolute Freedom
31. Worth and Validity
32. Willingness
33. The Freedom to Deny God
34. The Potential for Miscreation
35. The Light of Truth
36. Gratitude
37. Innocence and Holiness
38. The Good and The Positive
39. The Expansion of the Kingdom
40. Giving and Receiving
41. Multiple Wholeness
42. The Attraction of Meaning
43. Symbiotic Relationship
44. Communion and Prayer
45. Every Soul is Christ
46. The Sonship as The One Son
47. The Family of God
48. The Brotherhood of Christ
49. Super-Natural Miraculousness
50. Oneness
51. The Father-Son Relationship
52. God is Greater Than You
53. The Creation of Your Kingdom
54. Independence
55. Immortality
56. The Holy Spirit
57. Angels of God
58. Final Word
To heal is to liberate totally. We once said there is no order in miracles because they are all MAXIMAL EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE. This has no range at all. The non-maximal only APPEARS to have a range. This is because it SEEMS to be meaningful to measure it FROM the maximum and identify its position by HOW MUCH IT IS NOT THERE. Actually, this does not mean ANYTHING. It is like negative numbers in that the concept can be used theoretically, but it has NO application practically. It is true that if you put three apples on the table and then took them AWAY, the three apples are NOT THERE. But it is NOT true that the table is now MINUS three apples. If there is NOTHING on the table, it does NOT matter what WAS there in terms of amount. The "nothing" is neither greater nor less because of what is ABSENT.
That is why "all" and "nothing" are dichotomous, WITHOUT A RANGE. This is perfectly clear in maximal test performance and for EXACTLY the reason you emphasize. You cannot interpret AT ALL, unless you assume either MAXIMAL motivation or its COMPLETE ABSENCE. Only in these two conditions can you validly COMPARE responses, and you MUST assume the former, because if the LATTER is true, the subject WILL NOT DO ANYTHING. Given VARIABLE motivation he WILL do something, but you CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS.
The RESULTS of tests are evaluated relatively, ASSUMING maximal motivation. But this is because we are dealing with ABILITIES, where degree of development IS meaningful. This does NOT mean that what ability is used FOR is necessarily either limited OR divided. But one thing is certain. Abilities are POTENTIALS for learning, and you will apply them to WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN. Learning is EFFORT, and effort MEANS will.
You will notice that we have used the term "abilities" as a plural, which is correct. This is because abilities began with the ego, which perceived them as a POTENTIAL FOR EXCELLING. This is how the ego STILL perceives them and uses them. It does NOT want to teach everyone all it has learned, because that would DEFEAT its purpose in learning. Therefore, it does not REALLY learn at all. The Holy Spirit teaches YOU to use what the ego has made to TEACH the opposite of what the ego has LEARNED. The KIND of learning is as irrelevant as is the particular ability which was applied TO the learning.
You could not have a better example of the Holy Spirit's (this) unified purpose than this course. The Holy Spirit has taken very diversified areas of YOUR past learning, and has applied them to a UNIFIED curriculum. The fact that this was NOT the ego's reason for learning is totally irrelevant. YOU made the effort to learn, and the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for ALL effort. He ADAPTS the ego's potentials for excelling to potentials for EQUALIZING. This makes them USELESS for the ego's purpose, but VERY useful for His.
If different abilities are applied long enough to one GOAL, the abilities THEMSELVES become unified. This is because they are channelized in one direction, or in one WAY. Ultimately, then, they all contribute to ONE RESULT, and by so doing, their SIMILARITY rather than their differences is emphasized. You can EXCEL in many DIFFERENT ways, but you can EQUALIZE in ONE WAY ONLY. Equality is NOT a variable state, by definition.
That is why we once said that papers will be easy to write when you have learned THIS course. To the ego there appears to be no connection, because the EGO is discontinuous. But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict free, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal. Your vigilance does NOT establish it as yours, but it DOES enable you to use it ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS.
When I said, "Behold I am with you always," I meant it literally. I am not absent to ANYONE nor in ANY situation. BECAUSE I am always with you, YOU are the Way, and the Truth, and the Light. YOU did not make this power any more than I did. It was created to BE shared, and therefore cannot be meaningfully perceived as BELONGING to anyone AT THE EXPENSE of another. This perception makes it meaningLESS by eliminating or overlooking its real and ONLY meaning.
In the beginning of the ACIM Workbook, we're instructed to look around the room and tell ourselves, indiscriminately, that this thing we're looking at doesn't mean anything. And we're asked not to be selective in what we apply it to, applying it to everything equally. This EQUALIZING is what's important.
I'm finding that this basic idea is core to the process of mind training in order to awaken from this world. Basically, our minds have become very used to fragmenting everything into separate boxes, with separate labels.
We become blinded by perception of form, and we take the form of something to determine its meaning. Yet we've given it all the meaning it has. Differences and shifts and changes all seem to stand out as separate and exclusive. One thing is not another etc. And before you know it we have 1000 different responses to 1000 different things and never are we simple unconditional.
But the mind is not supposed to be in this kind of viewpoint, with a massive complicated hierarchy of illusions, with multiple different reactions and responses, treating one thing differently to another, adapting and changing based on circumstances etc. These are all unnatural for the mind which must be unconditionally constant in order to be healthy.
As we peruse the room and identify that one different seeming object is really to be treated no differently than another, we're beginning the process of collapsing the hierarchy of illusions, undoing the belief in separation, dispelling the illusion that one thing is NOT the same as another, and are gradually reprogramming the mind to be less conditional.
For me a huge way this has recently come to light is in the idea of the death of a body. On the physical level the ego world says that a body has been utterly destroyed and irreversibly erased from existence. But on the spiritual level the person still persists in eternal life. And they can't both be true.
Given that God would never allow one of his immortal creations to ever be destroyed, and there is no power greater than God's to overthrow his will, death is an absolute lie. The body's demise means absolutely nothing. It does not mean a person is dead, it does not mean God's son is destroyed, and it does not imply anything. Death is ultimately meaningless.
"The death of an illusion means nothing."
So then if you look at this closely and see that death cannot have a meaning, it causes nothing and has no effect, it is completely meaningless. And this then means that it doesn't MEAN anything DIFFERENT to a living body. And both of those bodies do not really mean anything.
"Nothing I see means anything."
It's in this erasing of the MEANING of separation, whereby you isolate something and give it a different unique meaning compared to something else, that the mind begins to split and fragment. Believing in separation plays out as believing the seeming messages we get from separate different objects.
It's as though the whole of physical unreality is screaming constantly to tell you that this one thing IS NOT another thing, this thing is NOT the same, this thing has unique properties, this one's red and that one's green, this one's bigger, that one's smaller etc. All constantly tempting you to believe that EVERYTHING is separate. And this couldn't be more OPPOSITE to how the mind is supposed to function.
When we see objects meaning something unique we are deceived by illusion, blinded by form, deceived by temptation, lost in a dream, and find our mind to be imprisoned. When we EQUALIZE forms and give them the SAME meaning, recognizing they have NO meaning of their own, that's when mind is entering a state of unconditionality, which means love.
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."
So then we look at a body that seems dead and we do not assign it any meaning. And we look at bodies which seem alive and we do not assign them any meaning. And we recognize that both types of bodies are not really different in their meaning, or in what they are. They are both illusions, both unreal, both in ONE category.
Consider then that the mind in this state is a very cohesive whole unified mind. It's not a mind that goes putting labels on everything, putting things in separate boxes, emphasizing differences, or thinking of the things of the physical world as unique.
It's a mind that has ONE state, one feeling, one undivided will, one power, one wholeness, one unconditional action. It treats everyone and everything with the same singular completely still peaceful loving relationship. It responds to everything in the same way, and sees no "orders of difficulty".
Such a mind is not deceived by forms. Such a mind does not really pay any special attention to things which seem different, more important, less important, more serious, less serious. It has learned to see that both living and dead bodies are the same one illusion, the same one lie.
On a way then, the waking mind is finding a way to be whole and unmoved by the world, always constant and honest, always peaceful and loving. It doesn't buy into any temptations, it doesn't fall for the appearance of something seeming easier or harder, bigger or heavier. It finds a way to transcend all differences. And it really is about psychological transcendence. Completely disregarding the appearance of any differences of form whatsoever.
Such a mind isn't finding a way to see that the forms are ONE, or that God is the forms. It isn't finding oneness in them as such. It's transcending them toward the oneness that is behind and beyond them, a oneness that the forms don't even touch or influence in any way.
Because mind becomes whole and unified and loving and disregards differences, it sees in a sense a "reflection of heaven" - a unified transcendental perception - looking upon the physical separate objects still but NOT believing them, NOT falling for their forms, NOT blinded, NOT regarding them as truly different or true at all. But seeing them with a unified mind can't help but see unity IN PLACE of the differences, reflected there.
Cars are still separately driving down separate roads. Bodies are still separately walking down separate streets. Dogs are still barking at separate cats. But the healed mind is not deceived by how any of these things look. The healed mind becomes transcendental of all separate forms, all separate labels, all separate distinctions and differences.
So really in the start of the Workbook we're basically in at the deep end, starting off running, because we're already practicing this simple idea - getting the mind to wean off interacting with the world from a complicated chaotic jumble of vantage points, and shifting toward a singular vantage point which pays no attention to form whatsoever.
Its an odd idea really. Adopting a state of mind which is centered on a singular oneness, and unchanging wholeness, an unconditional love, rather than being 1000 separate things to 1000 separate people. Just being you, knowing thyself, unmoved and unchanged and unaffected. Simple and unified. Ignoring all separations and divisons. Having no belief in the false illusion of the material world at all. A wholeness of mind from another world.
"And what more transcendent aim can there be than to recall the Way, the Truth and the Life, and to remember God?"
"Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."
"The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father?"
"Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body."
"Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind."