Boulder, Colorado Talk on A Course in Miracles
Boulder, Colorado Talk on A Course in Miracles
By MARKUS RAY
The Course in Miracles is a mind training, because what we've been saying in this workshop is that your thoughts produce your results, right? So, we all can agree with that. Thoughts form the condiGons that manifest things and relaGonships of things.
Obviously, we're not happy all the Gme. I mean, if there's somebody in complete joy constantly, they should be up here teaching the class. But isn't that kind of what we're striving for—is happiness in life?
You know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's the vibraGon of our land, and that's what we're taught to be. So then, we start noGcing in our life we're not fully there. We're not totally happy, so then, why is that? And, what do we need to do to increase our joy, or be more secure in ourself?
Then we start looking at how our mind works, how our thoughts produce our results in this world we live in. Breathwork is a kind of introspecGve work. We get to know ourselves beMer. We get to see how we think and how we live and how our thoughts affect our life. So, that's all dealing with our mind.
So, A Course in Miracles also deals with that, and it says it's a mind training. Then we see the relaGonship between our thoughts and our reality, and then if we're really serious, we see that our thoughts precede our reality—like whatever's happening to us had some kind of a thought form before it actually took shape. Thoughts always precede their manifestaGon. So, we start to see the cause and effect of our thoughts, and that's what we're doing in the Breathwork, and essenGally Breathwork is a forgiveness process.
We're seeing our thoughts, we're noGcing how they produce results, and if they're negaGve results, we have to forgive ourselves for those thoughts and let them go. And through the process of the breathing, it's kind of a complete leOng go. The breathing helps us to let go, and change our minds. Not just on the mind level, but even on the physical level. So, it's like a cleansing of the cells as well, as the thoughts in the mind. But that process is basically dealing with our mind.
So, this Course in Miracles is a mind training and it's nothing like anything that's ever been given to mankind.
Are any of you familiar with KrishnamurG, the work of KrishnamurG? Yeah, some of you, okay. So, one of the things—he was a great teacher in the 20th century—and one of the things he said was that problems are all originaGng in our thought, and that we search for soluGons in the thought, but the soluGons aren't in the thought. Thought is what makes up the problems, but 2 the soluGons for those problems are not in the realm of thought. He says, "You have to bring the thought to silence, or to sGllness, and actually step out of the thought—and then the soluGons are there. They're not in the field of thought—in the field of the known.”
Thought is a problem maker. And we're taught in educaGon that, you know, we need to culGvate our thought and culGvate our mind. But in some way, it's like nobody even told us in first grade that our thoughts produce our results, you know? So, there's like a big gap in our educaGon that we don't even see that we're kind of making up our problems, all right? So then, KrishnamurG came and said, “You have to step outside the realm of thought for contact with love, contact with truth, contact with graGtude, these absolute states. They don't actually live in the realm of thought.” We think they do, and we have good subsGtutes for them in thought, but then it's like you could give an example, like when two people get together, and they say they're in love, and they get married, and then 30 years later they hate each other and they get divorced. Well, was that love ever real love? Or was it something else? Is there a Love that is absolute, that never changes?
Maybe it was aMachment or convenience, or you meet my needs and I meet your needs. But it wasn't the absolute. Okay, so thought doesn't produce the absolute. KrishnamurG said this, and some people got it, some people didn't. But now A Course in Miracles comes along, and it's... I'm not even sure KrishnamurG knew about it…but it's saying kind of the same thing. It's saying this is a mind training, but the beginning of the mind training is we have to erase your thought, we have to erase everything in there, and start afresh. So, when you're empty, or when you're silent, you can get the insight into a higher truth. And that would be coming from your real Mind, not the mind that manufactures problems. That would be the Mind that is closer to perfect happiness.
So, if we're all seeking happiness, then there are certain things we need to do. There are certain things we need to let go of. There are certain people we need to forgive. There are certain situaGons we have to stop puOng ourselves in. But in order to do that, it's best just to go to a clean slate. It's like if you could write your life on a blackboard, or on a board, all right—and your life is your history; your life is your memory; your life is your experience; and you know, that's kind of been a rocky road, right? It's got some good stuff, some high moments, but a lot of suffering too.
So, the first thing that the Course does is, and it's a mind training, it just kind of erases your board. It just says, let's start afresh and erase this board of what you “know,” what you have accumulated in your memory, and then see basically what would God write on the board?
What would you and God write on the board together? Now, I use the word God, but you could say what Life created, the Life Force, or Truth or Goodness. You know, a lot of people have trouble with the word God, but We have to see it as something like the Source of Life, or an Energy of Life. So, what would that energy put on our board, now that we've erased it? So, what would we put on the board that would give us complete joy, constant joy all the Gme?
Like He, the “author of ACIM” talks, now when I say He, it's basically Jesus Who came to this lady, Dr. Helen Schucman, and she was a psychologist, she was a scienGst. She wasn't parGcularly religious, and He started coming to her in her dreams, and then she started hearing this voice. And because she was a psychologist, she quesGoned, maybe I'm going crazy, 'cause crazy people hear voices. So, she went to her colleague and said, “I'm hearing this voice, and it's Jesus, and he wants me to write some stuff down, and I think I'm going crazy.”
He said, “Well, don't worry about it. Why don't you just write it down and we'll see if it makes any sense.”
So, she did, and that went on for six years and then that became A Course in Miracles. That's the short version of how it came about. Okay, so you could accept that or not, but I think from studying this for 40 years that it really is Jesus talking to us, and that this really is the Voice of the Christ speaking to us in our Gme, in our language, English, in modern day English, in which it goes into all the psychological aspects of how we live.
So, okay, if it's really Jesus and He's training your mind, and now He's erased your mind, and it's a blank slate, what is He going to put on it? or what are you and He going to put on it, or what are you and The Christ mind and God going to put on your slate? It's a collaboraGve venture here it's not like God telling you do this, do that, and if you don't do this, you're going to hell. It's a totally different way of relaGng to the Divine Source in which you, yourself, are part of that Divine Source.
So, He wants a dialogue to happen, in that your mind and His mind become One Mind, and then that One Mind is in its essence very Holy.
Years ago I had this teacher, Tara Singh, and he was very brilliant and he actually was KrishnamurG’s student for 30 years, and then he was Dr. Shucman’s student for a few very intense years at the end of her life.
So, you know, one of the things we were taught in church, maybe some people were, but especially if you're Catholic, was that “Jesus is the only Son of God.” That was kind of a thing they drilled into us, right? So that there's this Jesus figure, and He's our Savior, and if we don't believe in Him, we're going to hell. That's kind of it in a nutshell, right? So, Jesus is the only Son of God.
Well, in A Course in Miracles, Jesus corrects that right away. And my teacher Tara Singh said, "Well, if Jesus is the only Son of God, who do you think created you? And what's that make you?" Like, basically, we are all children of the One Source. So, we are all the One Son or Daughter of God. Humankind is Whole and Complete as One. Jesus is the perfected Son who shows us our own PerfecGon, and cleanses us of any impuriGes we made up along the way. So then, that kind of relieves us, you know, that we're not “sinners.” We're not lowly worms, and Jesus is not way up there, and we're way down here groveling in the dirt.
He corrects that right away in ACIM, and says, “Look, you're just as equally a child of God as anyone else, and maybe I've played my part more perfectly, or I have more wisdom, or I’ve gone through the Lessons and I can impart them to you as a wise person. But don't set me up on a pedestal, and then put yourself down there. It's like, my job is to lih you up so that we're One. My job is to show you that essenGally your True Self is also the Christ Self. So, there's no difference between the Christ and you. It's just a maMer of, well, you've wriMen a lot of junk on your blackboard and now we have to erase it to get you back to who you really are.”
So, there's a lot of correcGon in A Course in Miracles. It's a mind training. What do you do when you're training? Any training, right? You're looking at some of the stuff you need to correct. So that's what He does in the Course. And I menGoned KrishnamurG, because it's helpful to know about this point where KrishnamurG said, “Your thought produces results, but most of what it produces is like, crazy.” If we all have our “personal lie” operaGng, like, “I'm bad,” or “I'm a failure,” or whatever it is, that's producing our life and that's crazy. We get all kinds of crazy results—as a result of not cleaning that “lie” out of our mind.
So Jesus, KrishnamurG, Tara Singh, any enlightened being who comes along, Buddha, any enlightened being, they would want to clean out your mind. They would want to start erasing all the junk that's in you. And A Course in Miracles calls that “forgiveness.” You could call it just mental cleansing. You know, there's a lot of different words you can give to it, but it's basically a cleansing of the mind.
So, when Jesus came, He gave this Course to Dr. Schucman, and He started out kind of dictaGng to her, and that became what was the first part of the book, called the Text, and then they thought when they finished the Text they were done. But then another whole book came called the Workbook, and then a small liMle book called The Teacher's Manual. But what happens is when people pick up the book, and it's the one volume version, they start with the Text and the language in the Text is really deep. They can easily get thrown off because, you know, it's like reading Shakespeare. If you're not used to it, it's hard to read Shakespeare when you first pick it up. You know, the language is totally different than you're used to. It's English, but it feels like a different language. So that's kind of how it is with the Text.
So, for new people, it's good when you get the one volume version, because see when it was first published, it was three separate books in one. It was like a Text book, a Workbook, and a liMle thin Teacher's Manual. So, it was not so easy to confuse that they were separate books. But in the one volume, the workbook's in the middle. So don't just start from the beginning and read 600 pages Gll you get to the Workbook. Start with the Workbook and the Text at the same Gme. So, okay, we're gonna do that.
Let's just say we wanna start A Course in Miracles. Okay, we're doing the 365 Lessons. Well, the first 10 lessons are probably the most confronGng. So even that can throw you off. You're going to say, "Oh, I don't understand what He's trying to do. I don't understand these Lessons. What are they helping me with?" Well, basically, just remember, it's kind of like this image I gave you of your blackboard that you have your whole life wriMen on, and He just wants you to start from scratch and just erase the whole thing. Now that's going to make you feel a liMle bit discombobulated, you know. You're used to certain things in your life that give you a sense of yourself. You've made up this idenGty and you're kind of aMached to it, and now somebody wants to just take all that away and say you're nothing. It's not that you are nothing, but we have to start there in order to see who you really are. He takes your mind to ZERO.
This Course is not for the faint of heart. Because, I mean, the first lesson Jesus says is, “Nothing I see means anything.” Then He says look around the room and rest your eyes on different things and then say this one sentence, “Nothing I see means anything.” I'm looking at this hand, this book, this carpet, and it doesn't mean anything. So you see, He's trying to erase your mind or get it to an empty place. And then, it's not that inherently the rug doesn't mean anything, but it's like you're not seeing the rug as it actually is. You're not seeing the full Divine Beauty of that rug. Because you've got your filter of how you see things. Or like, on the scale of human relaGonships, like I'm going to meet Harry and then I'm going to form all kinds of opinions about Harry. And then in the future, I'm not even going to see Harry. I'm only going to see my opinions about Harry. See how it works? And we all do this.
This is kind of how the ego works. It gets impressions, then it records them, then it makes opinions and judgments and blah, blah, blah. And then everything we see in life is through this filter of our own condiGoning, all right? So naturally, Jesus would say, well, as long as you're seeing that way, you're not even seeing the truth of the people around you. So, we've got to start from scratch, we've got to get that opinion out of there first. So that's why these first ten Lessons are really important. Like “Nothing I see [about Harry] means anything,” I give the meaning to Harry that I want to see, and I don't even really understand who he is, because I'm seeing through that filter.
And then the thoughts I have about Harry don't mean anything, because it's not the true Harry. And then the Harry that I see upsets me. And I think it's Harry upseOng me. But it's not even Harry upseOng me. It's my thoughts about Harry that are upseOng me, right, so it's my thoughts about Harry that are upseOng. But I want to blame Harry—"Well he did this, and he did that. It's Harry upseOng me.” No, it's my thoughts about Harry that are upseOng me. And then all of that it says is from the past. You're not even meeGng people in the present. You're meeGng people in your opinions about them that you've formed from the past. So, you're seeing everything, not even in the present. It's all about the past.
So, Jesus just says, you know, all that way you see it, all those thoughts that are in the past and your filter of how you see people, they don’t mean a thing. It's not reality. It's just the “reality,” the “false reality” you've made up to keep yourself in hell, to keep yourself in conflict, to keep yourself NOT in constant joy.
See, the whole purpose of the Course, and I think we were talking the other day about the Buddhist thing, it's like, yes, when we're seeing through the filter of our thought, life is suffering, and we can go out there and observe it. But how do we stop that and transcend it and get into this other state, more divine state, immortal state, joyous state? That's what we're all searching 6 for—life, liberty, the pursuit of more happiness. Well, what's the block? What do we have to let go of to get there? So, it's more of an undoing process than a doing process. It's more of an unlearning process than a learning process.
And you'll also noGce in the Breathwork, we're not up here saying, “You've got to believe in this, and you've got to believe in that, and you've got to do this and that.” No, we're just saying lay down and let go. Breathe, noGce, and let go. There's no learning in that. It's just a natural thing. So the same with A Course in Miracles. Basically, you could say, well what are the miracles? It's a Course in Miracles. What are they?
Well, for one thing I would start, there are different levels to miracles, but the first level I would say would be Jesus has given us 365 thoughts, one-a day for a year to think about. That's the first line of miracles right there. I mean, the text talks about miracles too, but I would say basically those 365 thoughts that are new to you—you've probably never thought them before—those in themselves are miracles. So, hold them in a reverenGal way and give them aMenGon. And that's the first understanding of what miracles are. I mean, miracles are like trying to define God. Who can do it? You know it's so vast. It's so unlimited. You can't really define God, like Love, He says in here. You can't really define Love, but what we're trying to do is “remove all the blocks” that you put in front of Love.
So, my blocks to loving Harry would be all my opinions about Harry. How can I love Harry when I'm not even seeing Harry? I'm seeing my opinions about him. So, I could get kind of close to him and he meets my needs and all that, but maybe then even that's not Love, that's aMachment or something else. That is a “special relaGonship,” not a holy one.
So, Jesus is trying to clean our mind and He does this through the 365 Lessons, through the miracles, and through the process of forgiveness. He talks a lot about forgiveness. “Forgiveness is the key to happiness,” and “Forgiveness offers everything I want.” Forgiveness is the light of the world. It makes me the light. The light and forgiveness go together. He even says in the Text, "The closest thing we can come to Love in this dimension is totally forgiving everything, a forgiven world," He says. When you see through the eyes of a forgiven world, then you're very close to the Christ vision, and that's the closest you can get to Love in this dimension. So, think about it, like if you had no grievances, no judgments, no thing that you hold against anybody and everything, everybody in the world, nobody plugs you in, you don't think about them in a derogatory way of any kind. Think about what that would feel like, and that would be very close to the Christ’s vision. And that's preMy close to Love in this dimension, if you want to define Love.
So, the Lessons and the miracles are designed to get your mind to that point. Okay, so it starts with a lot of undoing, a lot of erasing, a lot of leOng go, a lot of your seeing how you judge, and then leOng go of that judgment.
You know, the purpose of the Lessons in the Course is to clean your mind, to erase a lot of stuff in the mind, and bring your mind to the empGness. Why do we want to be empty? Well, you 7 know, it's like, what's that saying? You know, like creaGon doesn't like a vacuum. So, when we have a vacuum, what is it? The vacuum is going to aMract stuff. Well, if you have this holy vacuum, what is it going to aMract? It's going to aMract beauGful things, beauGful relaGonships, joyful experiences, but we have to empty the mind first to get there. We have to make sure we're not aMracGng things with all of our, like our “personal lies”, for example. It's, you know, the “personal lie,” it's a very strong weed in our consciousness and it's so deep in our subconscious we have to really do some deep weeding to get it out of there, or to neutralize it. You may never get it out of there but at least you can neutralize it so it's not producing effects. Most people have a thought, “I am not good enough.” It’s not the truth about them, but part of their mind believes it.
So, this part, okay, it's a mind training we want to neutralize all the junk or erase the board and then now we have it empty, and now we're giving aMenGon to happiness. You know, one Lesson in the Course says, “God's will for me is perfect happiness,” and that kind of “God” doesn't condemn you for anything—ever. Like, you can make millions of mistakes and God doesn't even see you made mistakes, so there's nothing in the end, there's nothing to forgive because in essence you are perfect in your divine creaGon.
But we see all the mistakes, so we have to be leOng go of those, and cleansing those, and correcGng those through this forgiveness process. So, it's like you could call forgiveness erasing our board—or “emptying our mind.”
Now some people can do it faster than others, you know, like how long does it take you to erase all your judgments of everyone off your board? It could happen like that, or it could take a long Gme, depending how stubborn you are.
You know, recently I think Sondra menGoned I have one sister and my parents passed away in the last six, seven years and that was probably the hardest Gme of our life, my sister and I, and then there was a point where we totally broke down. We had like, you know, drihed apart. She cut me off her Facebook, then I cut her off my Facebook, and we were totally estranged. But not that I wasn't working on this relaGonship inside myself and trying to take responsibility and seeing her differently and forgiving all that stuff from the past. So, I was doing my inner work, and then all of a sudden, she calls and says, "So, I'm coming to your training next week." And when she came she was like a totally different person.
So, we have these things that take some Gme. I've been working on that relaGonship for 63 years now, you know, so it took some Gme, but now it's gone through kind of a TransmutaGon. And now I I feel it's only going to go up from here. You know, so you'll have those people in your life. That is what I'm saying. So, erasing the board isn't all that easy. We'd like to just erase it and be in our Holiness, and in our joy, but it's a process. But that's what life is—ohen challenging. That's why we came. That's why we took an incarnaGon, because we had incomplete business that we had to clean up, and it takes some Gme. So don't beat yourself up about that.
But A Course in Miracles can help you cut Gme. That's any enlightened being’s purpose. That why they are here. They have a purpose. ACIM has a purpose. What is your purpose? You've either incarnated for two different reasons. Either you have incomplete business you have to clean up, or you've already been liberated and you want to help liberate other people, you know, like these masters, you know. When they come even, you know, they're kind of already free. They don't really have to take a body and come back here. But they do so out of service to humanity, to help other people free themselves. So, most of us come and we've got a lot of stuff to clean up in ourselves, in our families. All right, that's why we come. So then, what's going to help us do that faster? Well, it's somebody who's already cleaned it up. Like if you want to study and become the best cello player you can be, you study with somebody who's already done it and who's really good at it, right? I mean, it's just natural. So, it applies to our spiritual life too. We hang out with people who are somewhat above, like they've already gone through the Lessons we’re going through, and they can help us go through our lessons faster, and get us higher. So that's just kind of the way it is. So that's the purpose of having spiritual masters. Not that you're going to give your power away to them, but no, that they can teach you how to move up the scale much faster and you waste less Gme and you get into those higher states of consciousness much faster, which is who you really are anyway, okay? It's who you are anyway.
Like my teacher, Tara Singh, gave this wonderful lecture on what is the Christ. There's actually a liMle secGon in the Lessons. It says, “What is the Christ?” And Taraji gave a whole lecture on it, right, for days. I think the lecture went for four days, a couple hours each Gme. And basically, the essence of it at the end was, “What is the Christ?” You are the Christ. You are the Christ. And what have you done to deny that? And will you stop denying it in your life? We are the Christ, but we've done all kinds of things to deny that we are, and we make all kinds of problems for ourselves, and make all kinds of grievances that we have towards others that keep us from being who we really are, which is the Christ, who has no problems and no grievances.
So, you see, there's work to do, but the work is not more learning. The work is undoing the junk that we already put in front of us to prevent ourselves from being the Christ. It’s so simple, you know, I could tell you you're the Christ and that's simple, and that's a true statement, but then you're going to go through all the denials of that through all the stuff that you've made up in your life that prevent it or block it.
So, removing the blocks is it—Jesus says in the very introducGon, this is a “required course.” You don't establish the curriculum, but you elect to take it, when you want to take it. And that's up to you. That's your free will. You could take it today, tomorrow, next year, next lifeGme, five life Gmes from now. Nobody's going to make you wrong for postponing it. But then what? Okay, you decide to take it. What's the purpose of it? And then He says, to “remove the blocks to the awareness of love's presence.” NoGce He doesn't say to teach you what Love is. No, He says to remove the blocks to knowing the Christ, but you don't know it because you have all this other junk in front of it—the blocks. Well, what are the blocks? Anger, grievances, aMack thoughts, insecuriGes, personal lies, you know, it's a lot of blocks. You don't have to go far to find those, but we're going to start removing them.
And, when you've removed enough of them, you see, wow, there is this Self that God created that's joyous, that's helpful, that's producGve, that, like you guys this morning, you picked that lady up. I mean, you must have felt great aher you did that. I mean, that's like your Christ at work.
You told me yesterday you wanted to pick everybody up and save them. So, okay. So that's the Christ at work in you. And we'll have those moments, but what if those moments were constant? You know, we didn't have the downGme. Okay, well, what do we need to get there? We have to remove all this liMle junk, this stuff we put in the way. So that's the work to do. That's why we call this a Workshop. Because it's not to teach you anything about who you are, because you already are the perfecGon of God. But it's to remove all your denials of your own perfecGon. Those are the “blocks to the awareness of love's presence” that He talks about.
So, the miracle, the funcGon of the miracle, is not to make you a beMer person or to teach you anything. It's just to remove what is standing in the way for you seeing your own perfecGon already. And that's a different way of teaching. You know, a lot of kind of self-development people will say, "Oh, you know, we've got to improve you by giving you this, this, and this." We're saying, "We don't have to improve you at all in any way. You're already perfect. We just have to remove anything you've put in the front of seeing your own perfecGon."
And that's how Jesus teaches, and that's what He calls a miracle. Any Gme you remove that block to the awareness of Love you're going to naturally be in the flow of the Love, like you didn't go out of your house saying, “I hope we find a person on the road today that we can help,” but you were in enough of a free space that there it was—you responded to someone’s need, and it was beauGful. So that's kind of how life is meant to work when we're in the flow of it. You have anything to say, Sondra Ray? (laughing) She’s very good at leOng me talk in these liMle lectures.
Thank you, I’m doing great.
So, let me just talk a liMle bit about the workbook. It's in two parts, there's 365 Lessons you do one a day for a year, and the part one goes for like 200 Lessons, or 220 Lessons, and that's preMy much about erasing all your junk.
It's an undoing process, right? We have to get to the clean slate before we can put on there what's the real you, or before you can see on there already what's the real you. So, the undoing process goes on for like 220 lessons and it's mostly about forgiveness; it's mostly about you giving up anger, giving up fear. Jesus says there are, in Life, only two emoGons, two emoGons that you have to concern yourself with. One is fear and one is Love, and most of the Gme you're in fear and we have to get you out of that into Love. So that's kind of the thing. Fear and Love, and fear is what we've made up to prevent us from being aware that Love is all there is. So, it's about undoing the fear. Anger is a form of fear. I mean any of these, your personal lie is a form of fear. So, it's all these negaGve things in our life. If you really reduced it down, it would be fear 10 at the boMom of it somewhere. So, we have to get down there and quesGon fear and undo it. And so, the first two hundred and twenty Lessons are about that.
Alright, so now just imagine that you've gone through 220 days and your mind is preMy erased, it's preMy clear. Now what is God going to put on the slate that's your real Self? So that's Part II in the Workbook. It goes from lesson 221 to the end. And they're very beauGful Lessons by the Gme you get that far.
For the beginning of the Lessons, we have to do some pracGce. It starts off the pracGce for each Lesson, which is not very demanding, you know. It says, think of this Lesson for one minute in the morning and one minute in the evening. Like, you can afford that, right? Can you afford two minutes of your day to pracGce a Lesson? Well, so Jesue starts out like that, right? And you think, oh, this is not so bad. I only need to read it. And He even says, you don't even have to think about it. It's doing its work anyway. And you don't even have to agree with it. Like, whoever said that, like, when you went to college, your professor didn't say, “You know, study this, but if you don't understand it, it's OK. You're geOng it anyway.” What professor would have ever said that? None. Like you’ve got to memorize it and regurgitate it in a test, and all that. Well, no, He just says, “Just do it and it will do its work, and you don't even have to agree with it. Just do it exactly like the pracGce says.”
So, you give your one minute in the morning, one minute in the evening, then by the Gme you're into lesson 50 or 60, He says, “Well, just think about this for 10 minutes in the morning, and 10 minutes in the evening.” So, He kind of ups the aMenGon, right? And then there's a point where He says, "Look, think about this every hour.” This is not so easy. “Think about this Lesson one minute every hour, like the first minute of every hour."
Then you realize, "Wow, I'm really distracted." And I even get to the point where I don't even want to do this one minute because it's too much of a distracGon from my everyday life, right? So, you noGce your resistance, and He wants you to noGce that too. Like, why would you rather give more aMenGon to your screwed up life than a life free of problems, you know? But we do, we want to do those things that make our life complicated, or problem-ridden. We want to give our aMenGon to that, and more than even our own freedom someGmes. So, you get to see how unwilling you are in this. But He says, "Just do it anyway." Even if you say, "Screw it," and you put the book down for a week or a month, just go back to it.
Like, I've had periods where I didn't want to do it, so I didn't. But then I realized, hey, my life's gone really downhill since I haven't been studying the Course, so then I'll go back to it. And then it's like I see it with different eyes, and it has more wisdom. But He never makes you wrong for any of that. He just says, "Okay, if you didn't do the pracGce, so what? Just pick it up again and start again. Start again." So, it's very benevolent. It's very forgiving.
Then you've done these 220 Lessons. Now you're in the last part of the Workbook. And the Lessons are really beauGful. They are only like a half a page long, and they're kind of like liMle 11 poems, liMle prayers, so they're very beauGful in their language—this second part of the Workbook. And He's introducing you to your True Self in the second part. Like, it’s really beauGful. And, there's a lot about healing in the second part, and giving your life over to the direcGon of your Divine Creator. So, it's very beauGful how He does that.
So, there's that, and then there's the Text. What I usually tell people is as you're doing the Workbook, which is 365 Lessons, for every 10 Lessons you do, which is 10 days minimum, (you can take longer, but you don't do more than one Lesson a day) so 10 Lessons would take you 10 days. And then as you're doing the 10 Lessons, you can read one chapter in the Text. So that, you know, you can spend 10 days on one chapter. That's a good amount of Gme. So that's a good dynamic because there's 365 Lessons, and 31 chapters in the Text. So that's a good rhythm of how to read it. You will complete the Text when you complete the Lessons, approximately.
And then read the Teacher's Manual. That's a good thing because it has some common quesGons that students have that Jesus answers, and it has some definiGons of terms, you know, because He uses a lot of terminology that we learned when we went to our convenGonal churches, but he redefines these words in a whole different way. I mean, like, you know, we were taught in our church that, well, of course, we're “sinners,” but because Jesus “died for our sins” we can be saved, right, if we believe in Him. So, He kind of goes into that and He says, "Well, if an innocent man died for you, would you feel more guilty or less guilty?" It would just make you feel more guilty, you know, so it perpetuates more of a sense of guilt.
And He says in ACIM, "I didn't die for anyone, and the crucifixion was not about that. The crucifixion was a lesson I decided to go through so that I could then resurrect and prove that there's no death, and that I didn't have any grievances towards anyone. I didn't blame anybody. I forgave all the “vicGms.” And there are no vicGms. Nobody's a vicGm anywhere. So, I went through this kind of extreme teaching in order to teach there's no vicGms. Life always overcomes death and I can forgive everybody.” So, these concepts and words are different. He uses the same word “crucifixion” but he defines it in a whole different way. That's the same for a lot of different terms.
I would like to close by saying “this is the greatest gih for all mankind.” I was really fortunate because this man, KrishnamurG, I was telling you about, he's a really great sage and he taught during the 20th century from like 1920s up Gll he died when he was 90. You should look into him. In 1986 KrishnamurG passed away, so anyhow, one of his students was Tara Singh, and he had an interesGng history. He knew people like Gandhi and Nehru and then he came to America and he met people like Mrs. Roosevelt. So, he was kind of in the poliGcal world, and then he met KrishnamurG in New York.
KrishnamurG gave this lecture. And the first thing he said was, "PoliGcs never solved the problems of man." And my teacher Tara Singh heard him say that, and then he said it was like his whole life was turned upside down and he knew he could never really seriously keep going in this poliGcal arena that he was in. So, it transformed his life and he became a student of KrishnamurG's for 30 years. Then he, at the end of this 30 years, decides he really wants to see if 12 he can bring his mind to total silence, because KrishnamurG would speak about this state of Mind. He went into silence himself in Carmel, California, for three years. He had saved up some money and he rented a place, and he was just silent for three years. And then when he saw KrishnamurG again. KrishnamurG gave him his blessings and said, “Yes, now that you have it, how do you want to express it?” Tara Singh actually did bring his mind to silence. So then, Taraji told me years later, “Well, I didn't really quite know that I had it and I had no idea how to express it.”
So then shortly in the next couple of years, he went East and he was studying Edgar Cayce's work and working in this fellowship. And then he met this lady that went around and talked about A Course in Miracles. It wasn't Dr. Schuchman, it was the publisher, Judy Skutch. So, when he met Judy Skutch she introduced him to Helen Schucman, and then Helen Schuchman became his teacher. Now think about, if you've already spent 30 years with a Master, and now you're going to put yourself back in a student role? That's a preMy big deal.
So, Dr. Schucman taught Tara Singh A Course in Miracles. And then she said, “Go out and give workshops.” Because Dr. Schucman herself didn't want that public life, Tara Singh had that role. For over 25 years, he taught A Course in Miracles. And 17 of those years I was his student. He was quite brilliant, and he knew what the Course was. And he said, “The Course in Miracles is the greatest gih that America has produced for humanity.” He just came out and said it. He said, “It's even greater than the founding fathers establishing the country. Because this is the spiritual height of America.”
Like, you know, you have to have a spiritual base. Like, if you go to India, you realize right away that it's a very spiritually charged country, a holy place, but that didn't come overnight, you know? There were beings for the last 3 ,000 years who came and did things and wrote things, and then that kind of established India as being this giant of spirituality.
So, a country will produce these beings that then give to humanity, and then you add all that up, and that's what that country represents, right? So India, when we think of India, we think of yoga and spirituality and all that. But how did it come about? There were all these beings who had this divine connecGon—Buddha, Krishna, and all those other beings that came. And then through their heritage, India became India. All right, well, now what's America's heritage?
So yes, we freed ourselves from the tyranny of whatever kings and queens and all of that, and became a democracy, all that, and that was all good. We ended slavery and had a civil rights movement. But now, what is our spiritual heritage? You know, well, freedom of religion, okay, that's good. SeparaGon of church and state, that's good. But then now, here's something called “A Course in Miracles” that puts us in the mature state spiritually. Like, okay, you could say India is a mature spiritual country, place, because it's had all this heritage, alright. Well, this acGon of A Course in Miracles establishes America in that kind of mature state; that we really did produce something that's very lohy and will liberate humankind forever. You know, it's like the scriptures are around forever. You can read about Krishna, oh, maybe he lived 4 ,000 years ago, 5 ,000 years ago, but we're sGll talking about Him. Same with Jesus. Well, 13 same with A Course in Miracles. This thing's going to be around 2 ,000 years from now, and people will pick it up. And then they'll see, "Wow, America did something right. We didn't just make nuclear bombs." So, this is a gih for all mankind that came out of America, and that is lohy. It's like tremendous. So, I hope I've inspired you to look into it.
Thank you. It was published in 1976 and now we're like 76, 86, 96, 40 years later, 42 years later, it's sGll going strong. And the thing I tell people is when they pick up the Course and they decide to do it, the best way to look at it is that it's like Jesus siOng there and I'm siOng here and we're having a conversaGon, and it's direct. It's like, I don't have to go to a church, I don't have to get a priest to tell me what He said. It's direct. It's like Him speaking to me and I'm quesGoning Him and we're having a dialogue. And that's what your relaGonship with the Course should be ulGmately. So, when you pick up the book, it's like, don't think of it as a book. Think of it as Christ siOng there talking to you. And then that will kind of elevate you already into a different relaGonship with it. And then because you have that reverence, and you see that the words are going to get through a lot quicker and easier if you see that relaGonship, and so that's how I tell people to look at it.
It's like, it's a miracle in itself this thing is here in the way it is here. How would you have a direct relaGonship with a fully enlightened being, and it's at your disposal any Gme, anywhere, and it's only 30 bucks, you know, for the rest of your life? So that in itself is a miracle.
And no other scripture has been wriMen quite like this in the form of a Course, and also in the form that it always speaks in present Gme. It's not like the Bible where you know we're talking about Jesus, but that's 2 ,000 years ago, or we're talking about Buddha, and that's like 3 ,000 years ago, right?
So, this is not in the past ever. It's always in present Gme. So, when you're reading it, it's not about some guy that did something miraculous 2 ,000 years ago. It's about miracles now with you in present Gme. And that will always be so. Like you could pick it up 2 ,000 years from now, it'll sGll be in present Gme 2,000 years from now. So, no scripture had ever been quite done like that. So that's another reason it's so important.
Anybody have any quesGons? Some people are bored. They're siOng in the back. No, no, I can't sit. It's a liMle bit longer. All right. Okay. Well, maybe quesGons will come to you and in the ahernoon we can answer them. Yeah, thank you. [applause]
