The Answer To Your Pain? – 2 of 3

23.            “The reason that nice available people seem boring to some of us is because they threaten us. The ego equates emotional danger with excitement and we think that nice, available person isn’t dangerous enough. The irony is, the opposite is true. Available people are “dangerous” because they confront us with the possibility of real intimacy. They might actually hang around to get to know us and melt our defense, through love. Available people are frightening. If you’re not attracted to them, it’s because you’re not available yourself.”  (Marianne Williamson speaking the tenets of The Course in Miracles on her tape set, A Return To Love.)

 
Well, that’s probably enough for now, though I have hundreds more!
 
Your questions:
  
“Where did the "The Course In Miracles" come from and who wrote it?”

It was written between 1965 and 1972 and after editing was released in the summer of 1975 and … came from Jesus, (we’ll lose some readers here) through the hand of Helen Schucman, Ph.D. (clinical and research psychologist, who held the tenured position of Associate Professor of Medical Psychology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. ) and William Thetford, Ph.D. (Professor of Medical Psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1958 to 1980, and Director of the Psychology Department at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York.) both noted Professors of Medical Psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.
 
It came as “a correction” to the misuse and misunderstanding of what was written in the Bible! 

 
(Whoa!  There was a test for an old altar boy!  I was a little skeptical at first but after I started reading it, I knew it had to be true.  It was too powerful, too lyrical, and too wise to be written by the hand of living man.)
 
Here is a little more detail about How It Came – What It Is – What It Says.  http://www.facim.org/acim/description.htm
  
 
“The Course in Miracles…? Is this substantial to your ever-present positive aura?”
 

Aww, what a nice thing to say, thanks.  Yes, it is at the root of how I see the world. 
 
ACIM has revealed for me, how we voluntarily put ourselves through pain, continually choosing it over love.  ACIM exposed the lie we tell ourselves … that someone else is responsible for our pain when, in fact, we choose it.
 
The value in knowing this is that, once we accept we are choosing pain, the follow-up observation is not far off – “If I’m choosing it, that means I can stop choosing it.”
 
By accepting the responsibility for our own pain, we are given the key to a painless life!
 
Nevertheless, watch how you struggle to not accept the responsibility.  To do so means we can no longer blame someone for our feelings.  We will fight desperately to retain the narcotic of blame.  We will fight to hold on to our pain!

 

“Is it a Christian book?..I mean do you think someone Jewish or Buddhist or agnostic would like it?”

I once asked my lecturer, (I frequently attend weekly meetings of ACIM which are lead by a gentleman and his wife who have been studying it since its 1975 inception) if ACIM requires you to believe in God, further, could an atheist be spiritual and find value in The Course?  His answer, “Anyone who desires peace could find value in it.  There is no requirement you believe in God, Jesus, or any other icon.  The Course states,”

“There are many paths to peace, this is but one; and when you reach peace, you will no longer need this one.”

And this, straight from the web site:

"Although Christian in statement, the Course deals with universal spiritual themes. It emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum. There are many others, this one differing from them only in form. They all lead to God in the end."

That’s when I was sold.  Any spiritual “philosophy” that discloses it is but one of many, thereby exposing the non-exclusive path to peace, got my vote for a non-religion.

 

 

Since ACIM is the word of Jesus, it might cause some people a second thought.  However, those second thoughts, are less to do with being “Jewish or Buddhist or agnostic” and more to do with how curious and open to “new” concepts the person is.  ACIM is very confrontational to a person’s old thought patterns (see items 1 – 23 above.)

 

 

 

 

<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style

‘; color: blue; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt”>MAN, I just didn’t want that to be true!    

 

 

 

 

“Maybe there’s a vengeful God because all of Nature exists with a beautiful duality. There cannot be beauty without ugliness, pain without pleasure, anger without joy.”

 

 

Accepting the Atonement (the correction of man’s erroneous belief that he had separated from God) for yourself.  Accepting that you never separated from God!  Accepting that you are loveable and loved!  Accepting that your past transgressions were not sins but errors and you were immediately forgiven.

 

 

 

(Continued) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe, but I find The Course’s response more comforting and that is – the concept of a vengeful God, is an invention of man! 
 
Additionally, there is a strange benefit to pain – It is the only way we learn!  Who would put themselves through this discomforting thought process called The Course In Miracles, unless it was to find answers to eliminate pain?  Only those who are not in discomfort do not have questions.  Those without a question will not listen to someone with an “answer.”  (To the teachers out there, ever try to teach a child with no questions, no curiosity?)  Those without questions simply haven’t suffered enough yet, or they have suffered and are very adept at covering it over and denying it.
 
That’s ok, individuals decide for themselves when their time is right to engage in learning or confrontational thinking.  Some of us don’t ever do it and that’s ok too.  Each of us has a different learning curve and there’s no standard for where we should be on that curve.
 
At the time I found The Course, I reached a conclusion that my view of the world wasn’t very effective and I was finally willing to get some coaching.  The loss of my 
marriage opened up my spirituality.  I learned something very valuable from my pain.
 

”In The Course in Miracles what is, “The Miracle?”

 

 

When I started (prior to the lectures) I would read one or two paragraphs anywhere in the book and become so confused over what I was reading, as it related to my present world, that I had to put it aside.  Then, 2 – 3 years after I purchased it, I found the local discussion group and went to a lecture (September 19, 1996, my 911 day!)  It was on that day that the concepts of ACIM opened up to me.  In summary, I found this “guided tour” of The Course, much easier to digest.

 

 

 

 

“You answered my last question this way, “Frequently, we don’t like to take responsibility for ourselves so we try to find reasons, always external to ourselves, why we have this or that problem or issue.” That sounds like we cause everything in our life? How do you respond to the mother of the child who is dying of Leukemia, or who was abused, or what of the woman who was raped? Did they “cause” that?

 

 

That is a tough one (and you knew that.)  If you hear my answer as tentative, it’s because it is.  First, I’m a mortal swimming, struggling, through the soup of spiritual development with you, so my views are not unbiased.  Second, I’m not sure I can summarize His words in a meaningful way to bring relief to the mother experiencing that level of pain.  Maybe the kindest thing I can do is suggest she go to her God and ask her questions.  I’d try to avoid having this philosophical conversation with someone who is presen

tly engaged in those experiences.  Not because it isn’t clear to me from The Course’s perspective, but because it might be the kindest thing to do at the time. 

 

 

 

 

With that said, when my spirit is fully actualized, when I have learned what I was sent here to learn, there would be no need for me to remain on this plane, I will die; for I have learned all that I was to learn while here.  Every event that happens to me is because I have something to learn from it.  What I do with the thing that happened to me depends on my choice.  That is, I choose what I do or don’t learn from each experience. 

 

 

As an example, among the most moving of my reading experiences was a book by Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” He was Jewish, a medical doctor and was interred in the death camps of World War II. He lived through the experience and wrote his book a few years later, in 1950 I believe. He sought to answer the question, “Of those who were of equal health, status, and age, why did some live and some die?” (other than those who were put to death at the hands of their captors.) His answer:

“They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing; the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way."

 

 
Those who lived seemed to not be attached to their environment.  That which was happening to their body was not happening to their mind.
 
To bring it around to the mother in your question – maybe the dying child learned all that it was assigned to learn?  The abuse and the rape? … It is for the victims of those experiences to choose, as Frankl’s subjects did, how they will use the experience.
 
I do know, believing in God and being a “good person,” is no immunization from pain.  Since pain is unavoidable, it is incumbent upon us to quit trying to avoid it and instead, learn from it as Frankl’s example.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Course tells us we each are in charge of our own individual pain.  The realization that, “I’ve been doing this to myself,” (causing my own pain) means the problems, the pain, of our own life can no longer be blamed on someone else!  It is instead, placed squarely on our own shoulders.  To some of us, not having someone to blame for our pain is just too confrontational to deal with.  Those people will reject The Course.

 

The individual who finds value in ACIM, finds it, because their present belief system isn’t working for them or, leaves them with some unanswered questions. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Did you read the Course In Miracles book?”

Not without a great deal of difficulty.  (Actually, I’m still reading it.)  It’s not a book you read straight through as one would a novel.  With its revolutionary thinking, I would liken it more to experiencing an earthquake!  As with anything earthshaking, it’s best done in small doses and with a guide.  As an example, I spent a year and a half on one of its concepts … “All attack comes from fear!”