This morning we're going to talk about not making A Course in Miracles your life. This
is something that I sometimes talk about in workshops and people could justifiably be
upset and say, for example, to me and Gloria (not to mention our staff): "Well, you guys
have made the Course your life," etc., and people would say that we've moved our lives
to the Foundation in Temecula, "And now you're saying that we shouldn't make the Course our
life. What the hell's the matter with you?" Well, there may be something the matter with
me but not in terms of this. What I mean by this is really in terms of the content, not
the form. That certainly we should make A Course in Miracles our life, if indeed this
is our spiritual path and this is what we believe in and we believe will help us get
home, but it's not so much the form. Not that there's anything wrong in doing something
with the Course with your life, but you don't want to change the form to help the content.
You use the form to get you back to the content, but it's the content that should always be
in the foreground of your mind. And that content is the Course's purpose, which is to help
us accept the Atonement for ourselves so we could awaken from the dream and realize that
we never left our Father's house. And the Course's way of helping us do this--to accept
the Atonement--is to practice forgiveness day in and day out, hour by hour, minute by
minute, even second by second; always challenging the ego's misperceptions, misconceptions,
and lies that would tell us that, number one, there's a world out there and, number two
(which is even more important on a practical level), that the world out there impinges
on us; that the world out there makes us happy, makes us sad, gives us pleasure, gives us
pain, gives us life, ends our life. That somehow the world out there is substantive, is real,
and is very effective in changing how we are; changing our moods, changing our bodies, etcetera.
That is the lie, and all the ego's misconceptions--all its misperceptions, all the things it tells
us are true--are all simply part of its plan (kind of like a master plan) to convince us
that we are bodies and not minds. And if the body is real then, of course, the thought
that made the body is real, namely the ego's belief that the separation is real, and if
all that is real, that I am real and my individual, special, unique self is very real and it's
who I am. So when I say not to make A Course in Miracles your life, I'm really saying don't
use the Course as a defense against the work you're supposed to do. You could be a plumber,
you could be a teacher, you could be a public official, you could be a nobody in terms of
how the world would look at you and still practice this course. Simply because one declares
oneself A Course in Miracles teacher, or A Course in Miracles student, or has an organization
doesn't make you a pupil, a real student of the Course. What makes you a student of the
Course is the daily practice of challenging every—as I said just before, challenging—every
thought that the ego tells you is true. Any thought that argues for the differentiation
of God's Son, that people are different from each other and these differences are significant
and make a difference, all of these are to be challenged, looked at, and discarded as
not being true. The Course tells us that our task is to deny the denial of truth. The truth
within the dream is that we're all the same. This is a reflection of the actual truth that
we're all one as Christ. But within the dream that truth of our oneness is reflected in
our—in the universal sameness of God's Son on the level of the mind. We all have a wrong
mind, a right mind, and a decision maker that chooses between the two. That is the truth
within the dream. The lie is that we are different, which—and these differences, of course,
are always based upon the body, the seeming reality of the body, and these differences
are what we judge; that we judge them as being positive (i.e. special love), or we judge
them as being negative (i.e. special hate). So this is what makes us a student of the
Course. So when I say don't make A Course in Miracles your life, don't form a special
relationship with it. Don't feel that your day will never work out if you don't do your
workbook lesson in the morning, or that you don't have some quiet time to read the text.
There's nothing wrong with doing any of that, to be sure, but if you become dependent on
it—which is the meaning of special relationships—if you are dependent on the Course for your salvation
then you're in trouble, because your dependent on a form; you're dependent on a book. What
you should be dependent on is the thought system--the right-minded thought system--of
the miracle or forgiveness, which will awaken you from the dream. So the point of all this
is to really look at one's relationship with the Course just as one would look at one's
relationship with one's spouses, children, parents, lovers, friends, etc. And what's
so important about understanding the Sonship of God is that it's not the form. As the Course
tells us, even the smallest grain of sand is part of God's Son, which means A Course
in Miracles -- as an external form that seems to have no life -- that's part of God's Son.
And we form special relationships not only with people, not only with substances, but
also with objects, and the Course is just one of those objects (in fact a very favorite
one that the ego uses) to trap us. So my plea is to use the Course as a way to make the
Course no longer necessary. Jesus tells us in the Course that the aim of any teacher
is make him or herself dispensable. The purpose of A Course in Miracles is to make itself
dispensable; that you become so much a part of its thought system that you become its
thought system and you become the Course itself. And if you practice your lessons diligently,
day in and day out, once again, that's how you'll reach that point, and then you'll reach
the point where you're beyond the form entirely and have just become so identified with the
content of love, and that's the actual source of the Course, and that is what A Course in
Miracles is, that right-minded content of love.