This video recording with CA Brooks and Bruce Rawles explores the purpose and process of letting our Inner Kindness Teacher (a.k.a. Holy Spirit represented by the author of A Course In Miracles) work through our minds, rather than trying to figure out our own best interests – let alone anyone else’s best interests! – by ourselves. In our more lucid moments, we observe that when inspiration happens through us … rather than half-baked ideas originating from us … it actually works! It takes patience, persistence, gentleness, and willingness to relinquish our impossible and inappropriate judgments about everyone and everything since we’re all so very invested in thinking we have some sort of omniscience or even just valid opinions. The Course reminds us that our perspectives based on the belief in separation – the identification with separate selves with separate bodies and separate personas – are not only profoundly limited in the scope of the “facts” we think we understand, but also intrinsically flawed because the very foundation of the non-eternal premise we call ego only acknowledges the error (turned into unforgivable sins almost instantly unless we’re more mindful) and doesn’t even have a clue (or any vocabulary for) about the purely non-dual Identity that ACIM’s author asks us to consider as the real alternative to our nightmares of guilt, fear, depression, frustration, and mortality.
There are 528 instances of the word “through” in ACIM, so it would seem that “through” is an important word. It suggests that if we’re willing to consider letting inspiration from Holy Spirit flow through us rather than trying to muster it up from our silly seemingly separate selves, we could be far happier!
We reviewed the final section of the Course’s Manual for Teachers 29. As for the Rest… (ACIM, M-29). The first few paragraphs of this profoundly motivating conclusion to manual provide us with the incentive to get out of the hell we imagine we made up (boldfacing added):
1. This manual is not intended to answer all questions that both teacher and pupil may raise. ²In fact, it covers only a few of the more obvious ones, in terms of a brief summary of some of the major concepts in the text and workbook. ³It is not a substitute for either, but merely a supplement. ⁴While it is called a manual for teachers, it must be remembered that only time divides teacher and pupil, so that the difference is temporary by definition. ⁵In some cases, it may be helpful for the pupil to read the manual first. ⁶Others might do better to begin with the workbook. ⁷Still others may need to start at the more abstract level of the text.
2. Which is for which? ²Who would profit more from prayers alone? ³Who needs but a smile, being as yet unready for more? ⁴No one should attempt to answer these questions alone. ⁵Surely no teacher of God has come this far without realizing that. ⁶The curriculum is highly individualized, and all aspects are under the Holy Spirit’s particular care and guidance. ⁷Ask and He will answer. ⁸The responsibility is His, and He alone is fit to assume it. ⁹To do so is His function. ¹⁰To refer the questions to Him is yours. ¹¹Would you want to be responsible for decisions about which you understand so little? ¹²Be glad you have a Teacher Who cannot make a mistake. ¹³His answers are always right. ¹⁴Would you say that of yours?
3. There is another advantage,—and a very important one,—in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. ²Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. ³To follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. ⁴It is the essence of the Atonement. ⁵It is the core of the curriculum. ⁶The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. ⁷The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. ⁸To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. ⁹And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. ¹⁰Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit’s guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. ¹¹It is the way out of hell for you.
We discover (as Bill Murray’s character does in this fun clip) that when it comes to taking what happens or doesn’t happen in the world seriously (in terms of impacting our inner peace at least) … it just doesn’t matter! :-)
CA mentioned that previously she (and others at 12Radio) made audio recordings of all 365 of ACIM’s Workbook Lessons, which complement the WorkBook Lesson audios (part of the entire Course in digital form in English) spoken by Jim Stewart for Foundation for Inner Peace.
(This recording was made on March 23, 2022.)
CA has a superb regular ACIM internet radio program on 12Radio devoted to the non-dual metaphysics of A Course in Miracles.
