Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
— Preface to A Course in Miracles
A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a practical guidebook to healing. Healing is to bring back wholeness of yourself, to know your wholeness, to see other’s wholeness, and to use yourself fully.
ACIM is a book, a curriculum for self-study. It requires practice and demonstration of what you learn day by day. This practice re-patterns your thought system and sense of values. Students will obtain a new point of view about life and this world, gaining clarity about what is reality and what is not.
ACIM is not a religion. It does not have a founder, organization, hierarchy, or rituals. As is clearly stated in ACIM, ACIM is not the only road. There is no one-and-only way. There is no rule or model. However, ACIM gives you a clear new thought system, and to accept and demonstrate it requires a commitment and faith, as do many other spiritual and religious practices. It is not surprising to hear that many people find some similarity between ACIM and religions such as Buddhism, esoteric Buddhism, Taoism, Sufi, Christianity, etc.
ACIM is psychology and psychotherapy. The ACIM therapist realizes that both therapist and his/her client are a part of the perfect mind of the universe, which is knowledge itself and power almighty, and they have freedom to know it. With this awareness they are able to reach any seed thought that may be causing problems at once. The trained therapist – who practices ACIM with faith – does not fail to receive the message from the perfect mind of universe. In their healing / counseling session, the therapist and his/her client would share the experience that all aspects of life are shifted by changing the state of consciousness.
The practice of ACIM is always done in relationships. Since we perceive everything in the world of duality, we know ourselves by knowing others. Thus, we need to know others completely in order to know about ourselves completely. When you realize the true reason why a particular person appears in your life, that relationship that has been entangled firmly is undone. ACIM has a clear vision that healing is completed at once when you open your mind to be healed together with another person instead of seeking healing by yourself alone.
Those who learn ACIM reach the point where messages from the perfect mind of the universe are received. It can be called psychic ability. However, the source of messages is strictly one. ACIM clearly warns that if you have any intuitive sense that something threatens anyone, it is not a message from the perfect mind but rather from ego’s fear, which tries to control and seeks magic not miracles.
ACIM is a complete collection of messages from the perfect mind of the universe intended to help you to remember who you are and to express who you are.
”Use no relationship to hold you to the oast, but with each one each day be born again, A minute, even less, will be enough to free you from the past, and give your mind in peace over to the Atonement.” T-13-Ⅹ-5
— Yasuko Kasaki