Aspect I Text/Study: Part 1 – Studying the Teaching
The very first thing the Course confronts us with is a massive text. The Text is both the first and the largest volume of A Course in Miracles. Its 669 pages contain 31 chapters, subdivided into 243 sections. Not only is it the longest volume, it lays the foundation for the other two volumes. The Workbook and the Manual for Teachers simply apply, amplify and clarify themes already elucidated in the Text.
The Text is a masterpiece of spiritual thought. Reading the Text takes us on a transformative excursion through realms of thought that we never expected to traverse. By the time the Text is finished it has turned upside-down nearly every idea which holds together our conventional reality and personal identity. Its flow of discussion ranges from the heights of philosophic and metaphysical truth down to everyday concerns about bodies and relationships, and inward to private thoughts of guilt and specialness. It echoes ancient, universal truths, while heading off in bold new directions of its own. Many of its statements immediately grab us, challenging our dearest attachments and lifting our sense of what is possible. And as we go into it more and more deeply, it continues to reward us with more profound truths, and broader and subtler tapestries of meaning. All the while it addresses itself personally to “you,” the reader, seeking to get inside your mind and engage you in a personal dialogue about the central issues of your existence. Indeed, all of its words, ideas and images are designed with a single objective in mind: to transform your foundational picture of what is, and so to redeem your global experience of what is. It is difficult to imagine a book that was a more powerful instrument of mental change.
The place of the Text
Students are often very puzzled about what to do with the Text. Many students find it to be a mind-expanding tour de force. Other students find it to be inaccessible: convoluted, overly abstract and hard to penetrate. Some feel that the Text is the heart of the Course. Others feel that it is expendable, that the Workbook or Manual should be favored instead.
The real question, however, is: How did the author of the Course see the place of the Text? What role did he see it playing in his course? The answer is no great mystery. The Text in A Course in Miracles plays essentially the same role as a text in any educational course. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a textbook is “a book used by students as a standard work for a particular [subject] of study,” “containing a presentation of the principles of [that] subject.” Put simply, a textbook presents the ideas that a course attempts to teach.
A Course in Miracles sees its text in much the same way. In one place it says that its text provides the “theoretical foundation” (W-pI.In.1:1) of the Course. In another place, it says the Text presents the “abstract level” (M-29.1:7) of the Course. Both of these quotes say the same thing as each other and as the dictionary definition: the Text presents the ideas that this course is trying to teach its students.
The Course itself places great importance in the Text. The very size of the Text suggests this—it contains nearly two thirds (62%) of the total words of the Course. This importance continues to be emphasized in the other two volumes. The Workbook, in its opening line, states that its foundation is the Text. And both the Workbook and Manual often refer back to ideas explained in the Text, thus underscoring the importance of those ideas and of the Text itself: “Perhaps you will recall the text maintains…” (W-pI.153.6:3) “Let us remember what the text has stressed…” (W-pI.170.9:2) “We have referred many times in the text…” (M-6.2:5) “This thought is surely reminiscent of our text, where it is often emphasized.” (W-pI.161.6:2) In fact, many of the major concepts of the Course are discussed almost exclusively in the Text. These include special relationships, holy relationships, the holy instant, idols and the attraction of guilt.
Why is the Text the Course’s foundation? As we said in the Introduction, the Course’s whole purpose is to teach us, to instill in us, its thought system. Its entire goal is to lead us to the total realization of its teaching. And the Text sets forth the teaching.
The role of the teaching
To understand the importance of the Text, then, we must understand the role of the teaching in the Course. It is a popular idea that mental concepts are not conducive to, and are even incompatible with, spiritual awakening. In this view, the Course’s nearly endless train of words and concepts can appear to be nothing more than an elaborate intellectual escape.
The Course, however, claims that it has nothing to do with such an escape. Over and over it says it not concerned with “intellectual feats,” (W-pI.39.1:3) “logical toys,” (W-pI.39.1:3) elaborate definitions, (W-pI.66.3:3) “precise terminology” (C-In.1:1) “senseless arguments,” (W-pI.66.3:2) “sectarian controversies,” (M-24.3:5) “theological considerations,” (C-In.2:4) “philosophical speculation,” (C-In.1:1) and “tangential issues.” (T-4.V.6:4) The Course portrays all of these as “a defense against the truth in the form of a delaying maneuver.” (C-In.2:3) It therefore urges us to consciously avoid them.
The Course has other plans for its ideas. Instead of seeing them as means of escape, it views them as powerful instruments of transformation and healing. The following sentence is an important one, for it perfectly encapsulates how the Course views its ideas:
For the ideas are mighty forces, to be used and not held idly by. (T-16.II.9:5)
We often think of ideas as weak, superficial forces that lie above our deep, gut-level emotions. And in one sense, we are right. Many ideas are more or less powerless in our lives. Ideas, for instance, about who shot John F. Kennedy, or how gravity works, or what kind of car is best, or what sort of bathroom cleanser to use, have little effect on our basic condition. The Course has zero interest in such ideas.
Yet underneath these superficial beliefs, and underneath our emotions, lie the ideas that carry the real power in our experience. These are our fundamental notions of who we are and what reality is. At the center of our entire condition lie ideas such as “what you think you are, and what you believe the relationship of others is to you.” (M-In.3:1) According to the Course, such fundamental ideas are not merely potent forces in our lives. That would put it much too weakly. Rather, they are the sole cause of our entire realm of experience. They guide our words and behavior. They direct our interpretations and perceptions. They actually dream into place our specific life events and situations. (T-21.II.2:5) They even construct physical “reality” itself. But most important of all, they produce our emotions.
A Course in Miracles teaches that our painful emotions are not forces in themselves, caused by external events or internal biology. Rather, they are caused by our thoughts. Plainly put, emotions are effect> and thought is the cause. The Course states: “It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions….” (M-17.4:2) In other words, behind each unpleasant emotion lies an interpretation—a thought—which actually gives rise to that emotion. Emotions are mere effect. Thought is cause.
Let us look at some examples. Behind the emotion of guilt is the thought, “I have done wrong and am therefore bad and deserve punishment.” Imagine yourself getting rid of that thought and believing absolutely in your innocence. Where would your feelings of guilt go? Behind fear is the thought, “I am vulnerable and something is going to hurt me.” If you dropped that belief and became absolutely convinced that nothing could hurt you, would you feel any fear? The Course says that behind anger is the thought of “function unfulfilled as you perceive the function….When you are angry, is it not because someone has failed to fulfill the function you allotted him?” (T-29.IV.3:1, 4:1) If you discovered that someone you were angry at had actually fulfilled his function perfectly in every way, could you still be angry at him?
Thus, each of these emotions is merely the experience of a certain thought. You could say it is the flavor of that thought. Put cinnamon candy in your mouth and you will experience a certain flavor. In the same way, put a certain thought in your mind—and believe it strongly enough—and you will experience its flavor—the emotion that goes with it. Let that thought go and the emotion will go with it.
The implications of all this are obvious—and sweeping. If we change our fundamental beliefs, we change literally everything. Changing our thinking will change our words and behavior, our interpretations and perceptions. If the Course is right, it will actually alter our life events and situations, and even free us from being subject to physical laws. But most importantly, it will transform our emotions; we will experience life in a whole different way.
Imagine that. All of the fear, emptiness and unhappiness that we try to solve by doing the dance of the world just right, can be healed by simply changing our thinking. To paraphrase the Course, what could we possibly want that a change of mind cannot give? (W-pI.122.1:1)
Now we can perhaps appreciate more fully the purpose of the Text. Rather than an impractical diversion, it is an attempt to transform our basic condition of suffering. In fact, in its total absorption in what it deems practical—changing our thinking—the Text completely ignores all of the things we generally consider practical. To us, “practical” means being taught how to make more money, find an honest mechanic, keep a greener lawn or snag a better husband. Yet the Course considers these things decidedlyimpractical, for they merely change the effect and leave the cause untouched.
The Course also ignores the entire subject of physical science. For all science does is study the effect, the illusion. The Course will not even dignify physical laws by calling them laws. “You think you must obey the ‘laws’ of medicine, of economics and of health….These are not laws but madness.” (W-pI.76.4:3,5:1)
The Course also ignores many of the ideas that we might expect a psycho-spiritual teaching to deal with. It is unconcerned with esoteric details about angels, chakras, etheric bodies, psychic powers and astral planes. It makes no future prophecies and explores no ancient civilizations. The Course even remains silent about the afterlife and openly refuses to take a stand on reincarnation, making these strong remarks in the process:
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this course aims at a complete reversal of thought. When this is finally accomplished, issues such as the validity of reincarnation become meaningless. Until then, they are likely to be merely controversial. The teacher of God is, therefore, wise to step away from all such questions, for he has much to teach and learn apart from them. He should both learn and teach that theoretical issues but waste time, draining it away from its appointed purpose. (M-24.4:1-5)
A Course in Miracles is solely concerned with ideas that directly contribute to a reversal of thought. From its standpoint, these ideas are the only thing truly practical in this world. They are the “mighty forces” that have the power to set us free. Thus, it never tires of teaching us these ideas, and it never tires of persuading us to make them our own.
This is the role of the teaching in the Course. It is a means of thought change. “It is a method of conversion.” (M-In.2:8) It persuades us to abandon our old ideas and adopt new ideas. With utter single-mindedness it seeks to change the fundamental beliefs that give birth to our entire realm of experience. This has always been the goal of spiritual teaching. For thousands of years teachings have helped seekers to dramatically reshape their picture of reality and so transform their experience of reality. Few things have more power to change our entire mental/emotional posture than a profound spiritual teaching. A Course in Miracles is simply one of the more recent, and I believe one of the more potent, examples of this great tradition.
How the Course’s teaching helps us change our beliefs
There are several ways in which the Course’s teaching—which, again, is primarily contained in the Text—helps us to transform our fundamental beliefs. I want to look at four of those ways.
First, the Text works ceaselessly to expose our current thought system and show us how false and painful it is. As I implied earlier, the beliefs the Course cares about are not our formal, articulated beliefs, but much deeper ones. These deeper beliefs are murky, unexamined assumptions about the nature of things; for example, assumptions like, “I am a separate being,” “the world is dangerous,” “other people have hurt me.” These assumptions are buried deep in the unconscious, where they lie covered by layer upon layer of denial and disguise. As long as they are unconscious and unexamined they seem to have power over us, power to throw us in a seemingly unbreakable prison. Yet once we unearth these beliefs and expose them to the sunlight, we gain power over them. We hold them in the palm of our hand and can release them or retain them.
For this reason, the Text spends much of its time schooling us in our unconscious beliefs. As it plunges down into the terrifying depths of our madness, we are often shocked to think that these beliefs are actually inside our minds, and are even dominating our lives. Yet, over time, we begin to see the evidence that this is so. Near its end, the Text says, “For even though you do not yet perceive that this is what you think, you surely learned by now that you behave as if it were.” (T-31.V.9:3)
The Text devotes great attention to exposing these beliefs as erroneous and painful. It constantly demonstrates how nonsensical they are, how full of impossible contradictions. “And when you look at what they say, they cannot be believed.” (T-23.II.18:2) It also leads us to see how painful are their natural results. “Look calmly at the logical conclusion of the ego’s thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you.” (T-10.III.5:1) This provokes the startling discovery that beliefs we assumed were necessary to our happiness are actually the source of our pain. Once we realize this, we will do the only obvious thing. We will let those beliefs go.
Have you ever had a thought that trapped you in its ruts for years, and then one day you consciously examined that thought and decided it just didn’t serve you, and then simply let it go? This is the very process the Text wants to lead us through. It wants to free us from our very deepest beliefs, the ones that have trapped us for eons in the deepest rut of all: that of being a lonely separate entity.
Second, the Text reveals to us a better way of thinking and shows us how joyous and wise it is. Without this, letting go our current thinking would look like a terrifying leap into nothingness, and we would simply never do it. The author of the Course, therefore, constantly schools us in its sane alternative. He takes us by the hand and leads us into his other world of thought. As he guides us through its bright corridors, we see how sublime is its beauty, how harmonious and unified is its overall design. We see how transparently its windows let in the light of Heaven, and how joyous is its atmosphere. We see that here is a world in which we could by happy forever. Here is a thought system in which we could find our home. Through one tantalizing description after another, our imaginations are fired, our aspirations are kindled. Attaining this way of thinking gradually becomes our personal goal, our life’s dream, the purpose of our existence. We are slowly convinced that reaching it would truly deserve the name of salvation.
Third, the Text sets these two thought systems—which it calls wrong-mindedness and right-mindedness—side-by-side and compares them, so that one can dispel the other. Even when the Text is talking only about one, the contrast with the other is always implied. By itself, wrong-mindedness seems unquestionable and self-evident. Yet when placed next to the blazing light of right-mindedness, it suddenly appears spurious and even insane. In contrast, right-mindedness stands forth as infinitely more attractive and compelling. As a result, its light will shine away the darkness of the other. “…the truth of one must make the falsity of its opposite perfectly clear.” (T-14.VI.4:2) The following passage describes this process beautifully:
When they are brought together and perceived where they are, the choice between them is nothing more than a gentle awakening, and as simple as opening your eyes to daylight when you have no more need of sleep. (T-15.XI.1:6)
This is the process the Text takes us through in one way or another on every page. And as we watch the two systems come together, and see one outshine the other on the page, this also happens inside our minds. Bits of our current thought system are brought before the light of truth and disappear.
Fourth and finally, the Text gives us practices to apply on our own, so that we can intentionally relinquish wrong-mindedness and adopt right-mindedness. Though the Workbook is specifically devoted to these practices, the Text also is liberally sprinkled with them. In every section the author invites us into certain decisions, commitments or applications. Occasionally, he gives us more formal practices. For instance, here is an instruction for how to enter the holy instant:
Take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is of time. Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are completely absolved, completely free and wholly without condemnation. (T-15.I.9:5-6)
Also, in many places in the Text he gives us specific lines to repeat to ourselves whenever we feel angry, disturbed, fearful, etc. Here is one example:
Whenever you question your value, say:
God Himself is incomplete without me. (T-9.VII.8:1-2)
The importance of study
The importance of the Course’s teaching leads directly to the importance of study. Before we can use a tool, we must acquire it. Before we can use these ideas, then, they must enter our minds. We must read the book. We must study. If the foundation of the Course is the teaching, then the foundational activity for its students is studying the teaching.
If a teacher gave you a textbook as part of a course you were taking, what would that teacher expect you to do with it? Study it, obviously. Students taking this course are expected to do the same with this text. And since the Text is the first volume of the Course, study is the first part of its program. To state this more fully: the foundation of the Course’s program is studying the Text in pursuit of understanding the teaching.
Many Course students would not agree with this. They would say that emphasizing study and understanding gets in the way of really living the Course. No one contests that this can happen, that studying the Text can be (and has been) used as a way to avoid real application. Yet this has nothing to do with the real purpose of study, nor with the Course’s attitude toward study. According to the Course, study is not the antithesis of application. Quite the opposite; it is the basis for application. It is the foundation for really living the Course. Let us look at the very first line of the Workbook:
A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful.
This line states that the Text’s theoretical foundation is the necessary basis for practical application. Without that theory, the practical exercises are meaningless. For that theory is precisely what you practice. And, of course, you gain that theoretical foundation through study. Study, then, is the foundation for practice. Study is practical.
We could actually take this one step further. Some of the Workbook’s review sections instruct us to study certain passages as one of our practices. Study, then, is not only practical. Study is a practice.
This is why the author of the Course encouraged study so insistently and emphatically. In the beginning months of the Course’s dictation, the author repeatedly reminded his scribes, Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, of “the need to study the notes.” (Absence from Felicity) He urged them over and over and over again to re-read and review the dictation he was giving. He jokingly threatened to give them a quiz one evening, in order to introduce more structure into their study. (Absence from Felicity) And he chided them for their lack of study, saying that due to this lack they were not prepared to go where the Course was leading them. (Absence from Felicity)
Good students assign study periods for themselves. However, since this obvious step has not occurred to you, and since we are cooperating in this, I will make the obvious assignment now. (Absence from Felicity)
As you can see, these remarks about study are peppered with words drawn from education: students, study periods, quizzes, notes, assignments, etc. The author clearly means for us to do with his text something very similar to what we would do with a normal textbook. More of this education language shows up in the following comment, the author’s most clear, direct and telling statement about study.
Bill has very intelligently suggested that you both should set yourself the goal of really studying for this course. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of this decision, for any student who wants to pass it. (Absence from Felicity)
It cannot get more clear than that. If you really want to pass this course, then set yourself the goal of really studying for it. From the foregoing passages we can surmise that Helen and Bill were apparently as reluctant to study as the rest of us are. Yet in the face of such direct instructions from the Course’s author, they had to see their resistance to study as what it really was: resistance to “passing” the Course, to living the Course. These remarks about study, however, did not make it into the Course itself, which means that most students have not read them. As a result, many of us have made living the Course synonymous with not studying.
Direct injunctions to study, however, are not confined to personal material given to Helen and Bill. They are there in the Course. In this same period of time in which the author was urging Helen and Bill to study, injunctions to study also showed up in the Course dictation itself. These passages characterize study with two key words: as preparation and as foundation.
Here is the first passage, which urges careful study and which itself deserves careful study:
This is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it. However, as you study these earlier sections, you will begin to see some of the implications that will be amplified later on.
A solid foundation is necessary because of the confusion between fear and awe to which I have already referred, and which is often made….Some of the later steps in this course, however, involve a more direct approach to God Himself. It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific. Healing is of God in the end. The means are being carefully explained to you. Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed. (T-1.VII.4-5)
This passage, among many things, says that this course involves, even requires, “careful study,” because, after all, it is “a course in mind training.” Study is said to be an essential “preparation,” which will give us a “necessary” and “solid foundation.” Study will prepare us specifically for three things. First, study of these earlier sections will prepare us to understand “the later parts of the Course,” “the implications that will be amplified later on.” Second, study will give us “the means” for reaching the end of the spiritual journey. When this passage says, “The means are being carefully explained to you,” the implication is that we acquire these means by studying these explanations. Finally, study will prepare us, once we near the journey’s end, for coming face-to-face with God and experiencing the appropriate sense of awe, rather than being overcome with terror. These are magnificent promises, all being attached to the mundane activity of study.
I want to expand upon the final benefit just mentioned. It is often assumed that what we learn through study could, and ideally should, be acquired by direct spiritual experience; and that when experience dawns, all that we have studied will become irrelevant. The above passage, however, does not see it that way. It says that when experience dawns, when we at last make a “direct approach to God,” we can experience Him in two radically different ways: as “beatific” or “traumatic.” Which way it goes for us depends on whether or not we have laid a solid foundation of study.
This is a remarkable contention. However, I recently read a story which I believe is an example of this very point. In this story, an American woman Suzanne Segal recounts how, without much spiritual background at all, she had a “collision with the infinite” (which is the title of her book by Blue Dove Press). The vastness, as she calls it, unexpectedly came over her and permanently swept away her sense of separate selfhood. This, I believe, is an example of what the Course would call a “direct approach to God.” Yet without any conceptual framework for such a thing, she experienced it exactly as the Course predicts, as traumatic. After a dozen years of ceaseless trauma she finally found what she needed. This was not more spiritual experience—she already had that in the most profound measure. She needed a conceptual framework in which the loss of personal self made sense and was not seen as insane. When she finally acquired that—through voracious reading and through dialogue with a variety of spiritual teachers—the same experience transformed from traumatic to beatific. It unfolded into pure and joyous enlightenment. As far as I can see, her story is an exact demonstration of the point the Course makes in the above passage.
A similar passage to the one above comes approximately two chapters later. There, the author takes strong exception to the traditional interpretation of the crucifixion, which he calls “the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross.'” (T-4.In.3:7) He then goes on to say:
This is not the Gospel I intended to offer you. We have another journey to undertake, and if you will read these lessons carefully they will help prepare you to undertake it. (T-4.In.3:10-11)
Here we are told that careful reading (which is what study is) will prepare us for the spiritual journey the Course will take us on. It will prepare us to follow the road of the true Gospel, free of any distortions interposed by tradition.
Both of the above passages are quite similar to the Workbook’s opening line, which we quoted above and which says that the Text provides the “foundation” for doing the practical exercises. Thus, the author’s attitude toward study is quite consistent. Wherever he comments on it—whether in the Text, the Workbook, or privately to his scribes—he characterizes study as preparation and foundation. It is the groundwork, the basis, for the entire journey on which the Course will take us—the journey to God. No doubt this is why the Text is volume I of A Course in Miracles.
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[Please note: ACIM passages quoted in this article reference the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) Edition.]
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