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Noble Realms → General Discussion → "A Course in Miracles"? Yay or Nay?
Anyone read this book?
It came up twice so far in my week, out of the blue, which tells me I should perhaps read it, heh, but I have so many books to read it's not even funny.
Wondering if anyone can give me a few shortcuts. 
Im sorry I live somewhat of a shelterred life, what do you mean by "short cuts?"
If you are referring to the book by Richard Thomas 
, then I haven't read it, but have listened to it on cassette tape. It's very peacefule 
, tranquil 
, and full of thought. I really enjoyed it, From seeing some of your other well written posts on here, Blackbox, Im sure you would enjoy it to. 
I have yet to read it, esp textbook version, however I do own a copy of the book, bought it off of eBay (which is the first place I'de check--retail I think is like $25 or $30!) The book came to me in a book set; I had originally just bought the Darwin Awards (hehe) ironic, I know...so I have yet to read the actual book myself, but the tapes were very good. 
Thank you Abrashea (beautiful login name I must say ) for the complement. I try to express that I have a soul! Hehe.
And since you say it's a good read, I will definately go buy it. Sigh, I'm working on improving my reading speed up to 10,000wpm so I can finish the amount of books I have already bought and still haven't read...but I guess that's why we manifested the summer? Or at least for youngens like me that get to go back to my family's place in hiatus from school.
Anyways, thanks for your post.
Hi BlackBox,
I have the volumes sitting in my mom's basement. I read it in the late 80s i think but never felt the need to look at them again. So if you'd like to pay the postage i would send them to you. They're just sitting there....
jane
Thanks a lot jane, I can feel the "love".
I'm actually in the process of moving back to Vancouver for the summer, so if anything I'll let you know, but thanks for the offer in any case.
I'd be more interested in seeing what you think about it...is it worth the read?
I would have to do a re-read. At the time i read it i don't remember gleaning too much. I think I had blocks up, distracted by a prejudice that might have been a cultish or privileged feeling I felt from it.
jane
Hey All...
Recently I was lent a copy of "A Course in Miracles." I've seen it dozens of times of the shelves, but never picked it up because of its Christian ties (I grew up Mormon and then had my membership cancelled).
I trust the person who lent it to me--although I think she's invested her energy in a few false beliefs.
I've read maybe twenty pages, and am very wary and yet my intuition tells me there is truth in it (but it is not all truth).
It has overt traces of the Love 'n' Light song-and-dance, and at the same time, it has thoughts of this world as a dream world that I recognize as true knowledge.
It does a place a strange emphasis (strange to me) on "real" and "unreal." It makes sense to me--I 've come to more than understand the virtues of discerning illusion from what is--but the book seems to urge (so far) a kind of dispassionateness that I don't like or I'm perhaps unready for. I comprehend the difference between ignorant attachment/addiction and real love--love that lets its object be free.
Is it silly to love this world? I'm not talking attachment...I mean, love. Is it stupid to love what you know isn't "real" (but a part of the Matrix)? Things like mountains and pine trees and wet sand?
-Dreamosis
That detachment is part of the process of "Enlightenment".
I have also been struggling with my fear of it.
I realized this is why:
I had come to think that Desire=Pleasure.....
See, for years I desired something, went after it, and sometimes got it. Then there was a brief satiation before the desire returned.
So this set up a misunderstanding that I needed to have desire or else I would never experience pleasure/happiness/joy.
But this is my conditioning.
That detachment is about a stillness, remaining non-reactive in the face of life's ups and downs.
It is necessary in order to maintain connectedness with the identity of the True Self, the Witness, the Eternal self.
It is necessary to recognize that we are not our desires....
We come to identify so closely with our desires that we think that losing them is losing the self.
I became celibate for a while....partially because it TERRIFIED me. I realized I had some unbeneficial attachments to sex if the thought of not getting it brought up so much resistance, terror (literally), sadness, frustration, anger.
Meanwhile, much later on, I have come to understand that rising above the desire and become detached actually makes room for real, constant joy that is not contingent upon the satiation of animal desires.....
I'm still working this through, but it's getting better and less scary.
Ra Un Nefer Amen (who writes about Kamitic--Egyptian--wisdom) explains that Ausar Man (God-realized man) is like a zombie....dead to this world. But this doesn't mean Ausar man cannot experience joy. On the contrary, Ausar man, being FREE, is in constant joy.
Also, Ausar man does not become disconnected from his fellow-man. On the contrary, because he experiences the deeper, eternal connectedness, Ausar man is MORE connected to humanity.
I would love to build on this with people (and hear refutations) because this concept is really still work-in-progress for me.
Thank you, tillibullu, for your response...
What you said about realizing we are not our desires had a reawakening effect upon me. ...From doing meditation and imagery work, I have found that many people--first awakened to the fact that they can control/create/destroy their fears and desires--become addicted to just controlling fears and desires, and forget to just identify with that part of us that is BEYOND fears and desires (attachments).
Because of my programming, I often feel that when I am simply sitting in the awareness of my Higher Self, that I am not "doing anything." My programming continues to compel me to engage my subconscious contents and "work on myself." I do think it has merit--in that eliminating false (MCS-originated) picture-programs offers you a passive protection from further manipulation, but it is easy to get lost in efforting.
You also reminded me, tillibullu, of another work-in-progress understanding of detachment that I am developing. ...The times that I feel I have experienced it, what I felt detached from was judgment. I had emotions, I had love and anger and all manners of emotions, but I didn't attach judgment to them--I was neutral. I didn't say label my emotions right or wrong, and so I wasn't reacting to them, just letting them flow. So that's one of my working understandings of detachment--that perhaps neutrality (a state of suspension of judgment, not emotion) fosters what mystics call "detachment."
You hit the nail on the head...Detachment is not non-feeling, or non-engagement in life. I think the word you used was that it is "non-reactive."
Thanks again...
-Dreamosis
Actually, I feel I am in a similar place. The other day I had a thought which I have not had in a long while: Maybe I need to stop trying so hard. I'm "already there!" Effort gets in the way....
My writing is best when I am relaxed and not judging it.
My art is best that way as well....
so is my dancing, singing, laughing, joking, smiling, hugging, talking sh*t, communicating....
As soon as I judge or label something, it becomes crystallized, stagnant. It cannot evolve, it's been labeled and frozen in time, dead.....
without judgement I can just experience it....and then allow a deeper wisdom to discern what is beneficial/worthwhile and what isn't....
Great posts. I'm struggling with the desire to be free from desire. I've got a suspicion that having a desire, saying "I want..." is actually programming the subconscious that something is lacking. This sense of lacking actually attracts more of the same, like attracts like. I'm not talking about going into positive or "abundance" thinking in order to attract prosperity. I like Maharshi's advice to turn it all over to God. The efforts, the work is still there, but not attachment to outcome. I still have a strong residual ratrace mentality, sometimes I use it to judge myself harshly as a failure, as I have had a lot of losses in recent years. Working through a lot of fears. A simple life is best I believe.
Yeah, yeah--I get what you're saying about saying "I want..." to the subconscious is programming it to feel incomplete, inadequate, lacking.
I have heard that is beneficial to use "Now" and "I am" with autosuggestions.
Another interesting idea--and one that I'd like to hear more about if anybody has any input--is the idea that the subconscious doesn't register grammatical negatives. Meaning, it hears "I am BLANK" and "I am not BLANK" as the same thing. So that, in the spirit of this post, if you say to yourself "I am not judgmental" you might actually be attracting the energy of judgment, and it amounts to still engaging the judgment energy.
So what's the opposite of judgment? ...I am neutral...? I am detached...?
This brings to mind some thoughts about healing I recently encountered, too (through Carolyn Moss). She emphasizes emphasizing on positive energy patterns in healing, rather than always seeking and destroying the traumas. She advocates looking for the traumas as well, but warns against becoming too "weakness" minded. ...I do believe that one heals through identifying with strength, not weakness.
Any thoughts?
-Dreamosis
Yeah, yeah--I get what you're saying about saying "I want..." to the subconscious is programming it to feel incomplete, inadequate, lacking.
I have heard that is beneficial to use "Now" and "I am" with autosuggestions.
Another interesting idea--and one that I'd like to hear more about if anybody has any input--is the idea that the subconscious doesn't register grammatical negatives. Meaning, it hears "I am BLANK" and "I am not BLANK" as the same thing. So that, in the spirit of this post, if you say to yourself "I am not judgmental" you might actually be attracting the energy of judgment, and it amounts to still engaging the judgment energy.
So what's the opposite of judgment? ...I am neutral...? I am detached...?
Yes, during the course of my yoga training I learned that it's better to use affirmative statements. Rather than saying, "Don't hold your breath" it's better to say, "Expand your breath" or "Open your breathing."
This brings to mind some thoughts about healing I recently encountered, too (through Carolyn Moss). She emphasizes emphasizing on positive energy patterns in healing, rather than always seeking and destroying the traumas. She advocates looking for the traumas as well, but warns against becoming too "weakness" minded. ...I do believe that one heals through identifying with strength, not weakness.
Any thoughts?
-Dreamosis
Just this week I was thinking:
"Rather than focusing so much on my deficiencies I ought to release this attention and focus on the positive, focus on my strengths, identify with my growth and progression."
Sometimes I get caught in the trap of trying too hard to arrive.....
If I just calm down and center myself and stop getting ahead of myself, it's all herenow.
But the ego plays a funny trick. Ego's existence is strengthened when we stay small and selfish. So it will trick us and distract us to keep us from just BEING, just letting go of attachment and being satisfied with our present beautiful self.....which is just one of an infinite number of stages of unfolding.
For example, some days I find myself spending hours doing chores and busying myself when all I really wanted to do that day was artwork. When I finally sit down hours later and become absorbed it feels so good and then I wonder, "What took me so long to get here?"
Well, Ego is afraid of that state of relaxation where creativity flows.....because in that state the ego dissolves. So my ego and superego trick me into taking care of chores like a "good" girl to keep me distracted from doing something (creative) that will cause them to dissolve....
I find this pattern to be worse when I am living in a city than when I live in the countryside.
The funny thing is, generally the concept of Ego is thought of as the thing which tries to make us BIG. But most of what ego does keeps us small and weak.
Dreamosis and Tillibullu, I recognize where you are, and laughed at myself as you described so much of what I 'do'.
I'm not even going to quote anyone, as I would be simply copying the whole thing 
I came to this thread to see what you thought of ACIM.
I got further than 20 pages in ... The first attempt a few years ago, I managed to do about 180 lessons. Last time, about 2 years ago, I completed all of the lessons. PHEW 
I've also read much of the other two sections - but have dipped into them in rather than reading them consecutively.
I think to someone who isn't familiar with any spiritual concepts, this book might sound like nonsense, but I found the commentaries at the beginning very thought provoking. The lessons themselves, while I didn't spend as much time on them (on a daily basis due to family commitments) as recommended - did lead seem intended to lead the student in a sequential way to take one from total ego consciousness, to a trust in one's inner connection with Godself.
I have followed a recent link to this site:
http://www.urantiagate.com/conspiracy.html
It has become undeniably obvious that Helen Schucman, the woman who "channeled" or "scribed" A Course in Miracles (ACIM) was very likely unwittingly deeply immersed in the CIA's MKULTRA activity during the years she "scribed" ("channeled") the Course.
This threw me into a bit of a panic, wondering if I'd naively absorbed some disinformation. But after Auendove settled me down (:)), I realise that ACIM actually helped me move forwards from a stuck place, to a place where I began searching again. It gave me a daily spiritual routine that I needed to get back in touch with my inner Self.
My ego still, like you guys, avoids sitting down and allowing me to simply BE 
, but I am more in touch with my inner, peaceful self more often these days, and I am determined I won't be beaten by the ego!
Anyway, just my comments to continue this thread for anyone who's still interested.
Cipher.
Cipher, nice to read your reply.
Have you seen Dreamosis's other post, "Does the Ego have to go?" under Spirituality and metaphysics?
http://noblerealms.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1459
There are some great thoughts about ego and it's place....from the necessary, positive aspects of ego to the aspects that trap us into being petty or prideful....
Noble Realms → General Discussion → "A Course in Miracles"? Yay or Nay?
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