A Course in Miracles and the Spiritual Experience

On Sunday before Labor Day as I was going to bed, I plugged my cell phone to its charger and was about to turn it off, as I do every night, when I sensed I needed to leave it on. The thought crossed my mind that as long as my older son is in college (I had dropped him off three weeks before) I was never going to turn off my cell phone at night again. I’m sure you can relate to these small intuitions we sometimes get. They are not that significant, just little previews of the script the Course describes as already past and which we are simply reviewing.

A little after 2:00 AM the phone rang and I wasn’t surprised to see my son’s name on the screen. He has never called me in the middle of the night, but it seemed fitting.

I picked up the phone and right away I noticed that he was excited about something. His first words were “Mom, I know what Love feels like.” He then proceeded to tell me this story.

He was particularly awake that night and had nothing to do so he picked up the copy of ACIM that I gave him two years ago for his sixteenth birthday. (I gave it to him on impulse. I am pretty well aware that the study of ACIM is not particularly suited for young people. At the time, I told him that he could keep it in his bookcase and one day, maybe he would feel inspired to open it.)

As he lay in bed, he opened it and began to read Chapter 1. Though he had never read from it before, it seemed familiar to him. As he read he began to notice his body felt strange. Though he felt his legs on the bed, they didn’t seem to be his legs. His head felt very heavy and when he got to the passage quoted below on p. 10 of the text in the section called “Revelation, Time and Miracles,” he suddenly lost awareness of his body and felt surrounded by total, unconditional Love.

Spirit is in a state of grace forever.
Your reality is only spirit.
Therefore you are in a state of grace forever.


He felt safe and loved, as he has never felt before. He was moved beyond words - he now knew what being in God’s Love feels like. Then he noticed his hands. They seemed very far away and at that point he knew that if he chose to stay in that love, he couldn't be in his body anymore. He felt his heart beat racing with panic and the experience ended abruptly. For a few moments he couldn’t move his body and he had difficulty speaking. He wanted to say something to his roommate, but the words wouldn’t come out coherently and it took several minutes before he could function again. At that moment, in tears, he picked up his phone, went outside his dorm and called me.

As we spoke, he was shaking, but at the same time, was elated by the experience. He asked me: “Do you remember what you wrote as a dedication?” I admitted to him that I didn’t. He said that I wrote, “I love you more than you can imagine.” He said to me: “Mom, I know what that love is – a love that includes everyone and everything.”


We stayed in the phone for a long time. I comforted him as best as I could, trying to get myself (my ego) out of the way. I noticed my mind’s reaction as he spoke and forgave myself for it. By noticing the thoughts that crossed my mind as he spoke, I was able to listen without the ego's agenda. I was conscious of allowing my words to be informed by love rather than the ego.

A passage in the Text came to my mind and I shared it with him: “Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. Time is kind, and if you use it on behalf of reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition. The urgency is only in dislodging your mind from its fixed position here.” (T.16.VI.8:1,2,3) I assured him that he was safe and that he was not required to give up anything. The transition is gentle and gradual.

As I listened to him tell me his experience, I had the feeling that all the work I’ve done over the years to progress on a spiritual path was for that moment -- so that I could be ready for his call.

He drove home from college this past weekend and we spent all of Saturday together. He seemed very calm and introspective. He told me the story again in more detail. I asked him if the experience had had a lasting effect. He said that things didn’t seem as serious anymore. He’s an athlete and results have often seemed important. He said that he didn’t need people’s appreciation as much because he knows “where love comes from.” He also mentioned that in the past two weeks he has often had the impression he’s “seeing from somebody else’s eyes.” He feels more detached. Certain things like having money don’t seem so meaningful anymore.

I’m not sure my son will continue to read or study the Course. If he does, he will someday realize what its practice involves -- a commitment to undoing the ego-thought system one situation at a time. The experience he had may prove to be helpful in that he will have had a glimpse of what the end looks like. But it’s the systematic practice of forgiveness that diminishes our identification with our body and undoes judgment so that we can become aware of the love that is.

The introduction to A Course in Miracles clearly states the purpose of its teachings. It tells us that its purpose is not to teach the meaning of love, but rather to help us identify the blocks that stand in the way of our awareness of love’s presence.

Introduction 1:6 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.

It’s through the practice of forgiveness that we identify those blocks that are hidden in our unconscious mind; and with the help of our right mind we remove them one by one until we become aware of the presence of love that was always there.

Beyond Pain

I’ve been in one kind of pain or another for most of the last two years. Most of it is sports-related. It started with a case of "tennis elbow," that lasted about four months. Once I healed, I stretched a tendon in my left shoulder. After that came injuries to both Achilles tendons, then plantar fasciitis, and most recently a nagging lower back and hip pain that's been coming and going since last October, shifting from one spot to another.

Last Friday, after dropping off my son at his Spanish class in Buenos Aires—he’s here for a three-week course—I decided to run some errands before picking him up again. I had a lot of walking to do, and as I made my way through the city, I started to feel a burning sensation in my lower back and a dull ache in my left knee.

When this whole sequence of injuries began, I was frustrated. I made myself miserable thinking, This shouldn’t be happening to me. Until then, I’d never experienced chronic pain. Naively, I thought I was immune to it—or that if it ever did happen, I’d be mentally tough enough to bounce back quickly.

But the more I fought the pain, the more present it became. Before long, it started interfering with my everyday life. My days became tinted by how much pain I was in.

Looking back now, I can honestly say this experience has been humbling—and oddly helpful. I wouldn’t trade it. If I’ve learned anything over these two (very physical) years, it’s this: the more I resist pain, the more it hurts.  And the more it defines me. My focus has shifted from trying to heal the body to withdrawing my identification from it.

While at times I take steps to ease the pain with medication —what A Course in Miracles calls “magic”—, I’ve found I experience far less anxiety when I simply accept the pain. After all, I am identified with a body. Pain and discomfort, whether physical or emotional, are part of the deal. The key to loosening my identification with the body has been watching the pain arise and pass without resistance or judgment.  I'm beginning to see a difference between pain and suffering. 

As I wandered through the narrow streets of downtown Buenos Aires that day, the pain intensified. My back throbbed. My knee ached. I was limping. I didn’t even make it a full block before ducking into a café and sitting down.

There, I watched my mind go to war with the pain, then slowly let go as I slipped into peaceful acceptance. I remembered a line from Lesson 135 of the Course (135:18-1): “What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?”

The Course often uses anthropomorphic language to meet us where we are, obviously, a non-dual God doesn’t really have a “Plan".  Still, there is a curriculum for each of us. It is simply, exactly what happens in our lives. Each situation can be seen as a lesson in a perfectly crafted curriculum. Our life can be free from suffering simply choosing to accept our reality instead of arguing with the lessons.  There are no mistakes. 

Sitting at the café with a warm café con leche, I observed the pain come and go. If you’ve ever watched yourself think or feel, you know that once you see yourself doing something, you’re no longer fully identified with it. You become the observer. And in that moment, as I looked at and experienced the pain without judgment—that’s what forgiveness is according to ACIM—I glimpsed something deeper. I saw that this aching body isn’t who I am. 

I laughed out loud.

In the middle of one of the worst pain episodes I’ve had in a while, I felt... calm and at peace. The pain didn’t go away, but it stopped being the center of my awareness. My mind was no longer consumed by suffering. Looking around the café, everything appeared slightly veiled, less real, less urgent. The joy I felt came from the awareness that I wasn’t defined by this pain.  The "I" that I had constructed; the one that suffered; the one that argued with the reality of the physical sensations; was no longer there. I remembered a title from a Ken Wapnick's seminar: “Finding Joy in a Joyless World,” where he quotes from Chapter 6 of the Text (6-II:6): “How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there?” 

I finished my coffee, walked out of the café, and picked up where I left off. The pain was still there—but my mind wasn’t entangled with it. I walked for another full hour until it was time to meet my son.

That afternoon gave me a deeper understanding of what true acceptance is: allowing the body to feel what it feels while mentally withdrawing my identification with it. My body is free to ache—but it has no power to separate me from joy or peace; only the mind can cause suffering. 

Later that night, I picked up A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and came across this passage on page 78:

“What is spiritual realization? The belief that you are spirit? No. That’s a thought. A little closer to the truth than the thought that believes you are who your birth certificate says you are, but still a thought. Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find myself in all those things that continuously pass away.”

Yesterday, I woke up pain-free. Will the pain return? Probably. But right now, it doesn’t seem important. The lessons has been useful and I am willing to revisit it again, should it re-surface.  Real healing is always of the mind.

Finding Joy in the way things are

Our kids are out of school this week so we drove up to Park City for a week of snowboarding. I used to ski, but two years ago I decided to join the rest of the family and try snowboarding. I LOVED it. After three days of snowboarding school I was doing it – not fast or with total confidence, but I could ride slowly down the mountain turning both ways and falling only occasionally.

My budding confidence collapsed when I took a bad fall snowboarding on a very crowded day at our local mountain last February. I got distracted as someone passed by me going fast and fell hard on my left shoulder. The fall left me with a stretched ligament, and for over two months I wasn't able to swing a tennis racquet using my left arm.

At Park City, I had decided I was going to stay at the condo while everybody else went snowboarding. I was looking forward to some quiet time. But as I watched my husband and the kids getting ready on the first day, a part of me wanted to be there, so I decided to go with them.

Going up the lift I noticed fearful thoughts creeping up. Thoughts like “You're crazy,” “You don’t even remember how to do this,” “You'll hurt yourself," "You should go back to skiing,” took over my mind.

I got off the lift okay, but as we were ready to begin our first run, I slid forward a couple of feet and fell. I lay down, mentally paralyzed – all knowledge of how to ride, erased from my mind. The fearful thoughts came again “You can’t do this. You’ll break a bone and ruin your tennis season. You’re too old to learn something new….” In the distance, our kids expertly rode down the mountain, but my husband waited for me. I told him to go ahead – I would manage eventually, but he wouldn’t leave me, so I had to deal with it right away.

I’ve been reading “A Thousand Names for Joy,” by Byron Katie. I love the subtitle: “Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are.” Progressively, over the past year I’ve been moving into the space of acceptance. Rather than trying to change and control my experience, which is what the ego wants to do, I’ve been practicing accepting the way things are. I've noticed that when I let go of my desire to manage the outcome of every situation, there is a certain order that surfaces and as I'm in harmony with the way things are, I feel more peaceful and happier. This doesn't mean I don't take whatever actions are needed. It's just that mentally, I don't desire things to be different.

On p. 44 Katie says "When you have what you want - when you are what you want - there's no impulse to seek anything outside yourself. Seeking is the movement away from the awareness that your life is already complete, just at it is. Even at moments of apparent pain, there's never anything wrong or lacking."

In her book, Katie teaches how we can put an end to our feelings of fear and anxiety by questioning the thoughts which produce them. By questioning our thoughts, they lose their power to cause us pain. As we live in harmony with the way things are, we tap into the underlying joy that exists beyond all the stressful thoughts. This Joy is always available to us no matter what experience our life brings. This Joy is who we are.

Sitting on the snow it was easy to see that the feelings I felt: fear, anxiety, stress, apprehension, remorse, were all caused by thoughts which I believed were true about me. I could clearly see that these thoughts were not helpful so I decided to question them. I stood up and let myself slide down a few feet. The fearful thoughts came back instantly: “I’m out of control; I don’t want to get injured.” I felt my body tighten as fear seemed to shoot up through my blood. I fell again.

I tried Katie’s four questions and "the turnaround," “Is that really true?” I asked. “Can you absolutely know that it’s true?” And then, “How do you react when you believe that thought?” Followed by “Who would you be without the thought?”

Was it really true that I was out of control? What is control, but an illusion that I am separate and in control of my own life? Can I ever really be separate or in control?

I’m afraid of falling. Is that really true? I’m only afraid because I have judged falling as bad and undesirable. What if I lived in harmony with the way things are? And like a child, I enjoyed the feeling of tumbling in the snow. How would I be without the thought of fear? I’d be relaxed and unafraid. I would know that my joy does not depend on my staying upright.

I stood up and continued. I focused on the beauty of the snow and trusted that even if my mind seemed to be caught up in insecure thoughts, my body remembered how to ride. I rode down gracefully turning one way and the other.

As the sun peeked through a cloud, the thought came: “It’s too bright and I can’t see the variation in slope or texture of the snow. If I can’t see well, I will surely fall.” Again, I felt the fear tensing up every muscle. I questioned again. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? Not really, if I focus, I can see well enough. It’s the fearful thoughts that are taking my focus away. What if I chose not to believe that thought? How would I feel? I would accept the conditions as they are and not feel the stress that thinking about them is bringing me.

Again I felt free. And then it got steeper – Ah! A blue run. I can’t do blue runs, I’m a beginner. Is that really true? I asked. Not really…… Oops, I’m going too fast! Can I absolutely know that it’s true? I can’t. What is ‘too fast’? It’s a judgment based on my own perception. There are dozens of snowboarders passing me who ride twice as fast. Who would I be without the thought? I might actually be free to explore going at increased speeds without the limiting thoughts holding me back.

I continued down the mountain questioning every thought and as I discredited the stressful ones, I noticed myself becoming grateful for the experience as it came. I was no longer expecting the experience to be a certain way in order for me to enjoy it. I stopped judging how well I was doing, or how good the conditions were. Instead, I noticed the snow in all its radiance and the view in front of me appeared more majestic than it ever seemed before. I felt present in my body and my muscles did what they needed to do without my micro-managing every motion. Free from distressful thoughts, I was able to enjoy the experience more fully. A feeling of joy began to rise in me.

I reached a flat area at the bottom of the hill and unexpectedly caught an edge and fell. As I was falling I smiled and welcomed the experience. There are no accidents. We always are exactly where we need to be, ready to learn what we need to learn. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the rest for a few minutes. Even if I injured myself, could that experience to take away my Joy? Can I really forget who I AM?

As a student of A Course in Miracles my purpose is to use every situation that comes my way as a means to regain awareness of who I am. It is always my choice to allow a situation to keep me trapped in a mindless, painful state of mind. Alternatively, we can all choose to look at our situations with our right mind and while the situation may not change, our stressful thoughts about it will be replaced by a deep, abiding, sense of peace.

I went up and down with the kids many more times and had a blast. I can’t say I didn’t fall. I fell a few times, but by questioning the thoughts that suggested falling could upset me, I didn’t experience it as traumatic.

Throughout the day as I encountered many new situations: increased speed, flat surfaces, moguls, a daughter yelling “Mom;” from the lift as I’m concentrating on riding on the run under it; a group of teens zipping by too close and splashing snow all over me, etc. etc, the fearful thoughts kept popping up, but as I questioned them, their power over me diminished and as I was no longer subject to them, what was left was pure Joy.

Judgment, forgiveness and the spiritual experience

Practicing the Course's daily workbook lessons years ago, I became frustrated with myself. When I tried doing the meditations in the morning, I couldn’t keep my mind focused; at night I would fall asleep. I felt that if only I had better control of my mind, I would be progressing much faster. The course says that “The memory of God comes to the quiet mind.” (CH 23 I:1) My mind was anything but quiet. As I woke up in the morning it was as if the radio turned on and I had no control over the tuning dial.

So during the summer of 2001 I dropped off three of my children at camp in Maine, left the youngest with my husband back in California and flew to Virginia to spend a week at The Monroe Institute at their “Gateway Voyage” program. People go to TMI for many different reasons, but my main hope was that the Hemi-Sync technology, as the research I had read suggested, would help me control my wandering mind.

That first Saturday afternoon, I immediately felt comfortable with the casual atmosphere at TMI. The 23 participants and the two trainers seemed friendly and I could tell that if all else failed, it was going to be a fun week. I instantly bonded with my roommate who like me, was married and had young children. Within a couple of hours I had sought out the people that seemed to have the most in common with me. It was a very eclectic group, with people from all over the world and in every profession imaginable. There were only a couple of people in the group whom I judged as ‘out there’ in their new age beliefs, but I welcomed the opportunity to expand my horizons. Growing up Catholic and later becoming a somewhat rigid Christian Scientist I had some growing to do in the field of acceptance.

The program was intense. We spent five or six hours a day listening to Hemi-Sync tapes and in the evening there were lectures or activities. But there was a lot of free time which I spent with other participants swimming at the lake, walking, or practicing yoga. I wasn’t having the flashy experiences people described during our debriefing sessions, but I felt that something good was happening within me.

During every guided tape, I used the quiet intervals to practice my workbook lesson. With the help of the Hemi-Sync technology I was able to experience moments of complete stillness.

As the week progressed I noticed my mind slowing down. I felt more peaceful. This feeling translated into my being more open and accepting of others. Though my behavior didn’t change in any obvious way, I noticed that whenever I was having a conversation with someone I wasn’t reacting or judging what they said. I was more interested in listening than in talking. My urge to want to ‘fix’ people was considerably diminished. I was seeing past people’s age, shape, color, occupation, nationality, and seeing more of who they really were. Everyone was or had been in some kind of pain and everyone wanted to be happy. At the time I didn’t have much intellectual understanding of the Course (I hadn’t met Ken Wapnick yet), but without consciously trying, I was practicing forgiveness.

As we sat with our group for the last time on Thursday afternoon, all the judgments I had made faded and I felt appreciation and love for every participant. One of the program trainers warned us that our perception would have ‘shifted’ during the week and that we may perceive things differently as we reintegrated into the world. His warning did not prepare me for the experience that I was about to have.

On my first flight I sat next to one of my new Gateway friends. We chit chatted about the week, and then got into a conversation about writing, James Joyce and “Ulysses,” which had been a favorite a long time ago. I felt nothing unusual beyond a sense of being relaxed, as I would have felt after a vacation without the kids.

We said goodbye in Pittsburgh and went in opposite directions to catch our next flight. As soon as I walked into the airport concourse and saw hundreds of people walking in different directions, I noticed something was very different. My mind was not commenting, categorizing or judging. The radio was off. I noticed my breath - in and out - and each thought was clear and spread apart. I was deliberate and aware of my movement through the hallway; my awareness was so heightened that I noticed every little thing: a spot of spilled coffee on the carpet, a tear-drop on a sleeping child’s cheek, the deep blue of a woolen scarf on an old lady at the sandwich stand -- but my mind didn’t say a thing. There were no judgments made; no conclusions reached. I felt connected to everything by this all-inclusive awareness. A deep sense of joy took over me. I could not stop smiling and my eyes were filled with tears.

Because my mind was not categorizing/judging others, I felt free from other people’s judgment of me. I walked unaware and unconcerned about how I might look to others, or what they might think of me. I didn’t feel the extra weight I was carrying from my last pregnancy or notice the fact that my hair was disheveled because I hadn’t used a hair dryer for a week. I was so content with the love I felt within, that I didn’t need external attention or approval. While I usually thrive on not making eye contact with strangers at the airport, I wanted to look into people’s eyes to find the love that was below the surface.

The experience only lasted a few minutes – the sense of peaceful contentment, about a week. Within two weeks of the program my mind was again full of thoughts and judgments and besides the occasional snippet of silence; my ego has been back to its old tricks. The voice of the ego in my mind can be loud and persistent. It talks, comments, censors, categorizes and judges hoping I will pay attention – hoping I will think the voice is me. Moment to moment I have to chose if I will identify with it. I have control over the radio dial and I know I can choose my station. I often choose to tune in to forgiveness, so that when I hear the ego’s voice in my mind, I can use it to show me what judgments I have inadvertently made, and by asking for help, I can undo them through forgiveness and this, will eventually lead to permanent lasting Peace (and quiet!).

I occasionally have experienced short glimpses of oneness. Invariably they happen after I’ve been practicing forgiveness consistently. The purpose of A Course in Miracles as stated in the introduction is to “[remove] the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.” In keeping with the Course’s aim, my goal has been to recognize what’s in the way of the awareness of love rather than seeking the spiritual experience. It’s the undoing of the ego thought system through forgiveness that leads us home.