As part of the ministry of our Course in Miracles Church and Miracles Healing Center we receive email messages from people all over the world who are suffering and begging for help. There are two kinds of messages we receive many times over, prompting us to see if there is an important principle of miracles being overlooked by these dear ones.
One kind of message we receive often (in some wording or another) says basically: "I've been studying A Course in Miracles forever, and I'm still really stuck, and I do not understand ...."
Have you ever wondered why over a million dear brothers have studied A Course in Miracles, some for perhaps as long as half their lives, and yet only a small handful of brothers associated with the Course are able to shift between the worlds at will in awareness of total enlightenment?
What delaying mechanism are brothers using even with the Course?
When we receive these Internet calls for help from dear ones, we quiet our own thinking and allow the Holy Spirit to answer their email messages. Here are the Holy Spirit's words answering one questioner recently:
A Course in Miracles was never meant to be studied like you would study a college textbook or even a self-help book.
The purpose of the Course is NOT to substitute in your mind a new intellectual thought structure. Those who try to "figure out" the Course and "explain" the Course make almost no real progress spiritually.
Jesus gave the Course as a device for the purpose of undoing all intellectual thought structures. If you read the Course and do the lessons without over-engaging your intellect but merely allowing yourself to be open so the spirit between the lines can do its work in your mind, then you will begin to have an EXPERIENCE which is far beyond any so called "normal" earthly experience.
If you consider that your spirit is infinite and your intellect is used for attempted constriction ... the attempt to squeeze your infinite spirit down into finite minuscule thought forms ... you can begin to imagine the tremendous expansion of spiritual experience available when you learn to disengage your intellect and allow your mind to be at peace.
Viewed in this sense, it can be seen that the Course is intended to boggle your mind. When your intellect is boggled, your awareness of your spirit starts expanding exponentially.
When the intellect is boggled? This sounds very much like the prescription of the enlightened Persian poet, Rumi: "Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge."
In other words, A Course in Miracles is not a study course but a preparation device. One definition of "mind-boggling" is "overwhelming with wonder." A Course in Miracles does at first overwhelm us with wonder. But our ego doesn't like being overwhelmed, does it? So our ego tries to convince us the Course has to be studied and explained. After all, whatever is studied and explained might still seem wonderful, but no longer overwhelms with wonder.
It begins to look like the delay in reaching total enlightenment which some ACIM brothers are experiencing, with its wasted years and unneeded pain, is a result of using the wrong approach, wouldn't you say?
Let's see if the picture can become even clearer. Let's imagine you are Jesus out of time, out of space, responding to the call of your brothers to be shown a way out of the pain, sickness and death of earthly existence and into the unbelievable love, joy and peace of heavenly existence. What kind of devices would you give those suffering in earth to show them the way?
Since our own doing has caused all the pain and grief, how about a device which teaches we cannot do it on our own, but need only to learn to do nothing?
How about a device which indicates if we try to do something on our own we thereby work against ourselves and hold ourselves in pain and grief?
Are you beginning to see why students of A Course in Miracles email us calling for help? They still need help because they are still allowing ego to dictate their approach to the Course. It is ego which thinks it needs to study and ego which believes in the efficacy of intellectually-gained "understanding."
How do you help a dear brother see that intellectual understanding is the booby prize? How do you say to one who studies A Course in Miracles that studying is the problem? How do you convey to a brother that he is applying to A Course in Miracles the same old habits of mind that have always kept him stuck, so of course with the Course he is also finding himself stuck?
"But isn't it true that A Course in Miracles will eventually undo my mind no matter how I approach it?"
Not if you insist on doing ... with your intellect.
"Okay, but if A Course in Miracles isn't meant to be studied, then what am I to do with it?"
Nothing much. The Course is its own reward. The Course undoes what you've done to yourself ... but only if you let it, only if you allow it, only if you approach the Course with your intellect in surrendered mode.
Yes, the three books Jesus has given to 21st century Christians constitute a marvelous device, but only if they are read with a constantly surrendered mind, not with a proactive intellect; only if you say: "I'm allowing the lessons to work me! Don't let me think I am working the lessons!"
In earth we are always tempted to make some effort. "No pain, no gain!" echoes the ego's slogan. In heaven, we do nothing. Our spirit laughs: "All gain, no pain!"
The second kind of email message we receive quite often is usually worded something like: "I've been praying and praying and praying and praying ... and nothing seems to be happening!"
Can you see that as with the first kind of emails mentioned above the problem here is the same and the answer would be the same?
In fact, the Holy Spirit answered just such a call for help recently with these words:
Dear one, you need not pray so often. Your prayer was heard and answered the very first time you turned heavenward for help. Your job now is to be at peace and let your prayer's answer show itself.
You will not see the answer if you continue praying because continued prayer is a way of telling your mind your prayer has not already been heard and answered. Since your mind is creative, it will rearrange the universe to prove you correct.
The way to pray is to be absolutely sure you are asking for something you truly need or something you really, really, really, really want deep down inside, such as total enlightenment, then put everything into your prayer. Seclude yourself somewhere with no one else around, so it's just you and God, so to speak, and pray with all your heart and soul and being.
Then forget the whole thing and go about your business. The answer to your prayer will show itself when you least expect it, so do not go around looking for it. Just forget it and go about your business.
In other words, as with A Course in Miracles, so with prayer. The key is: not doing anything earthly ... not thinking, not picturing, not projecting yourself into it, not working at it.
The Holy Spirit bears all the responsibility for you ... and you win! As you continually choose to let go and surrender, all transformation happens without effort on your part. And why not? None of this world is real. Withdraw your effort and ... wonder upon wonders! ... what is really real shows itself.
Jesus teaches us to finally do nothing with our minds. (ACIM Text, Chapter 18): "When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization: "I need do nothing."
Of course our mind is doing nothing if it is disengaged and the Holy Spirit would say with a smile that our mind cannot engage if it is boggled. In the same spirit with which we lovingly joke with our children, the Holy Spirit might joyously give us who are God's children a cute little rhyming prayer to set us free:
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MIRACLES HEALING CENTER