"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Albert Einstein
Need help reading A Course In Miracles?
Have you attempted to read the book A Course In Miracles only to find it very difficult to finish? I understand this because it is not an easy book to read. But once I began changing the difficult and off-putting religious language into modern vocabulary, I experienced such personal benefit that I decided to start this blog project. My aim is to offer daily help reading A Course In Miracles so that the value of this powerful spiritual text can reach readers like you.
It is my hope to bring the archaic religious language found in A Course In Miracles into a more relevant translation for modern minds. I seek to make the messages accessible and meaningful for today’s way of thinking. This library of posts is where you can find a supplemental discussion of each of the 365 lessons offered in the Workbook for Students of ACIM.
I highly recommend giving the original publication a try and if you get stuck or frustrated, I hope you find this resource here a useful companion to your journey with the teachings.
Begin with lesson #1 and proceed numerically each day.
The Library of Lessons
Reading A Course In Miracles can be a life-changing experience when you take the time to give it daily attention. It can become a companion to your day-to-day struggles that can bring real and lasting relief. This blog follows each day’s lesson and offers a variety of vocabulary to all the religious words and phrases so that the concepts presented can be related to without holding a traditional Christian worldview. I will not only bring the daily lessons into a more informal language, I will translate all religious terminology to be understood outside of a religious context.
Is A Course In Miracles religious?
No. It is spiritual. A religious practice is an organized structure of behavior and social customs that are (ideally) practiced in an attempt to reach spiritual understanding. A spiritual practice may or may not have an organized religious structure. A spiritual practice is primarily governed by discovering what is true regardless of cultural traditions. Even though A Course In Miracles uses Christian language to describe its lessons, the book is not a religious text. Most traditional Christian religions do not recognize the book as part of the Christian worldview and even consider the work to be dangerous. On the other hand, at first glance, the work can easily be wrongly seen as religious. This can discourage non-religious readers. But A Course In Miracles is, first and foremost a spiritual text, not a religious one. And the book itself explains the difference between spiritual and religious quite eloquently.
The use of religious language in A Course In Miracles is deliberate on the part of the author. The words and phrases that were originally intended to clarify an accurate description of Reality have instead been twisted by religious institutions for centuries for their own purposes of control. Because of this misuse of language, A Course In Miracles puts great effort into reclaiming those terms and restoring them to their spiritual and truthful intent. That is also the main goal of this blog project. The purpose of this “3.0 version” of A Course In Miracles is to continue in the same spirit of the book’s own message and purpose to keep updating the language of how the spiritual ideas are conveyed to modern minds. Language changes. Language becomes dated and ineffective. But the messages of true spiritual teachings stand the test of time because what is true is eternal.
Who am I to translate this classic work?
I am just someone who found the work compelling and who feels that the teaching could reach more people if it were explained in a more modern way. I am someone who has completed the course several times. I have made this work part of my life and I turn to the concepts in this book multiple times a day whenever I feel confused or challenged. Recalling the teachings throughout the day provides me with elegant and simple guidance constantly.
During my first reading of the work, I found journaling about each day’s lesson helpful in overcoming my irritation with the archaic Christian language. This private journaling process translated Christian words into non-religious phrases and eventually evolved into a public blogging project. I figured that what I was struggling with was probably happening to others. I felt reluctant at first to redefine the terms that caused me frustration.
But the lessons themselves often encourage the reader to put the day’s message into one’s own words. With the book’s prompting, I became curious to see what might happen if I brought a more secular language to the teachings of this world-famous book. It is my primary intention to be useful in the efforts of bringing the accurate messages found here to life.
All commentary is 100% based on the original publication which I feel is the primary resource for taking the year-long curriculum. By redefining many of the religious terms used in the book, I have deepened my understanding of the timeless wisdom tucked hidden away in these pages. But the original publication is indispensable. It is my intention to create a companion guide that will help the reader excavate the wisdom hidden in the challenging language to make it more accessible to modern-day readers.
Since all language changes over time, Spiritual teachings endure through the ages because an effort is made by people like you and me to reconnect the messages with more useful language. While there may be those who object to reinterpreting the original publication, the book itself is very clear about encouraging the readers to put the lessons into their own words. And that is what I’ve done here.
If it turns out that I interpret one of the lessons wrongly, I do not feel there is any danger to fear. Religious institutions have been misinterpreting the messages of the bible and other spiritual texts for centuries. And still, the teachings of peace and compassion have endured throughout time because those teachings exist outside of time itself. It is my personal experience that, if I am mistaken here or there, this work holds a profoundly patient space for the learning process. It is a course after all. A course teaching spiritual concepts. Spiritual concepts are eternal and thus impervious to corruption.
You, dear reader, will be the first to sense where my own interpretation may be off. And at that moment, you will be locating the very personal empowerment the Course is teaching. This work will survive any number of misinterpretations. True spiritual teachings have infinite patience for the learning process.