If You Are Disappointed in ACIM
It is not uncommon for me to hear from clients and readers that they are disappointed in A Course in Miracles after a while. They are not getting from it something that they expected. Yet, they still feel compelled to read it and try to practice it. Sometimes, they’ve left it, only to come back, frustrated that they can’t let it go but they can’t get it to work for them, either.
If this is happening to you, you have set
up a goal for studying and practicing the Course that is not in line
with how the Atonement is being expressed through you (your “path”). Your
attraction to the Course, despite your discomfort with it, indicates
that it is a part of your expression of the Atonement. So, what you need to
look at is how your expectations do not line up with your unique expression of
the Atonement.
Most students begin the Course pretty
much the same way, sticking to its theory and suggested practice, often for
many years. Some do the Workbook later rather than sooner, but there are
certain changes that occur in a student’s thinking right away, and it would be
hard to tell one student from another. But as the Course leads you to
Spirit to find your own individualized expression, for many at some point that begins
to take over and they find that they are diverging from the Course to
some extent, and maybe to a great extent. The Course laid down a foundation
for them, and may still play a part, but while they might still use the
language, their thinking is no longer like every other student.
But, no matter where you are with the Course,
if you want to know how it plays into your individualized expression of the
Atonement, you must be with it in the moment, not reaching for what you think
it is to be for you. As you study and practice the Course, whatever
stands out to you at any given time is your present step in your expression of
the Atonement. For example, if as you study, a certain idea or concept or
practice keeps getting your attention or stands out somehow, then integrating
or applying it is your expression of the Atonement right now. You don’t need to
reach for anything beyond that.
You cannot fail to play your part in the expression of the Atonement. It is predetermined and always unfolding perfectly. But what you may do is make yourself miserable by pulling against how it is unfolding naturally. If that occurs, ask yourself what you are expecting, and realize your goal may have nothing to do with how the Atonement is to be expressed through you, right now and in the long run. Then ask yourself what in the Course resonates with you right now. Because that is the Atonement expressing through you right now.
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Comments
Isn’t that the goal? I’m grateful for yesterdays blog posting. It allowed me to question if I experience disappointment with the Course, and to look with undiminished gratitude at the expression of the Atonement, or “That which Expresses” through me, as I’ve come to refer to it in recent years, such as it has been and continues to be.
Approaching truth honestly, it can be confidently stated it is not the case I’m disappointed with ACIM, far from it. There is, in honest reflection, disappointment with what appears as dismissiveness of the truth. It's as if the upside down thought system of sin can stand in defiance of truth, and install itself in the place of First Cause insisting the correction of the Atonement Itself is what's called for. It seems deception declaring itself truth has been normalized in the optics of gaslighting as it appears en masse in the contemporary collective delusion we think of as the world.
Looking deeper, disappointment lies with the untrue part of the truth teaching; that which must be recognized if we are to have the universal experience of necessity the purpose ACIM's meant to lead to. Recognition of duality is recognition of falsehood; recognition of what’s not true, recognition of what we're not. Unlearning this comprises the first part of the Workbook necessary to transfer of training that is the purpose the Course is directed to.
To say that the Course ‘meets us where we are at’ is to acknowledge that which is in need of the correction principal of the Atonement, identifying where we are not in alignment with the truth. True perception, Atonement’s acceptance in totality is Christ vision, consistent honesty without exception. Exception made to any appearance represented to have or be opposite, is the requirement of duality. Its function is to contradict, conflict with, seek controversy and lack agreement with. What can practicing forgiveness to keep the error be but the delusion of duality. That this is not what the Course is teaching needs to be recognized in truth.
Allowing expression of the Atonement for this one has meant allowing That Which Expresses free reign on a guided tour of the truth teaching in its dual and non dual expressions, applying its truth consistently. Seek clarity and it will be given - "it means what it says", to quote Robert Perry.
Following the path laid out in the Workbook led predictably to the borderlands. A place where there's no going back because one cannot un-know what one now knows. Although he didn't refer to it as the borderlands, Jon Mundy spoke of reaching a place as a Minister in the church one Sunday morning; Mother's Day it was. As he tells it, one of the mothers in the congregation insisted on hearing more about the "blood of the sacrificial lamb". That ended his ministry, realizing he could no longer continue in the thought system of sin. He didn't know what lay ahead for him, he only knew he couldn't go back.
Like other truth teachings, the Course is a non dual teaching. Unlike other truth teachings, its message is housed within a framework of duality. Its compelling teaching of sinlessness as the reality we are, is “diametrically opposed” in statement by a belief system that describes 'guiltlessness as blaspheme'. The described function given us informs us in non dual terms, "[we] need do nothing". Non duality does nothing, it merely undoes what is not true. Forgiveness, salvation, the miracle "does nothing", it merely undoes what is not true.
Helen once believed the Course was written for her alone. Here we are. Believers in the thought system of sin learning to be non believers there of. This is what is our function to bring non dual recognition to. Duality is not our Inheritance. "What is true is true and what is false is false". The truth cannot both be true and false, dual and non dual, sinful and sinless, but here we are.