A Course in Miracles is a self-study program for personal and spiritual transformation that emphasizes the necessity of relying on our own internal teacher for guidance rather than looking for teachers outside ourselves. The Course stresses that as long as we identify with our ego and believe we are limited by the boundaries of what we perceive in the physical world, we cannot experience our true reality. Gerald Jampolsky 

By Diane Berke 

The inspiration or impetus to undertake the spiritual journey comes many different ways.

Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, teachers of Insight Meditation, writes in Seeking the Heart of Wisdom:

"For some of us, this (inspiration) will come as a sense of the great possibility of living in an awake and free way. Others of us are brought to practice as a way to come to terms with the power of suffering in our life.

Some are inspired to seek understanding through a practice of discovery and inquiry, while some intuitively sense a connection with the divine or are inspired to practice as a way to open the heart more fully.

Whatever brings us to spiritual practice can become a flame in our heart that guides and protects us and brings us to true understanding."

As I reflect on my own life and searching, it is clear that the strongest force in my coming to this journey was the need to face and come to terms with the experience of suffering—in my own life, in the lives of people I cared about, in the world around me.

Perhaps that is why I have been so drawn, in addition to the teachings of my chosen path, to the teachings of the Buddha as well. For it is there—with the experience of suffering in this world—that his teachings begin.

The Course states,

"Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning-point."

The Course is not a new religion, although it is based upon a comprehensive, consistent, and profound theological and metaphysical system of thought.

It claims to have no corner on the truth. Rather it indicates that it is only one path among many thousands. Moreover, it states,

"Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial, since they depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected.

A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the course is directed."

The emphasis of the Course is very much on experience—the experience of healing our suffering at its source—which according to the Course is our belief in separation and feeling of estrangement from God and our true Self—through the spiritual practice of forgiveness in our relationships.

The Course has been described, accurately, I believe—as a system of spiritual psychotherapy.

For myself, I think of it as a spiritual path of healing and awakening, whose core practices are forgiveness and developing a relationship with our Inner Teacher, Whom the Course calls the Holy Spirit.

It is the Holy Spirit Who teaches us the true meaning of forgiveness, guides us through it, and directs the course of our healing.

The Course begins with these words:

"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.

It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance.

The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.

The course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God."