Understanding ACIM
Ideas
There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.
Healing
The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.
Thoughts
You prefer to believe that your thoughts cannot exert real influence because you are actually afraid of them.
"A Course of Miracles" (ACIM) is an enigmatic literary and psychological work that provides many answers to spiritual questionS by providing an interesting cosmological perspective. Below are a few videos that illumine this understanding.
the power of the mind
(5:21 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the importance of respecting the power of the mind. As he says in the video, "And it's very important that you respect the mind of other people to choose the ego. Because if you don't respect their power to choose wrongly, you are denigrating that mind's power that one day will choose correctly.
How to judge progress
(6:15 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. answers a question most students ask at some point in their study of "A Course in Miracles."
Emotions and Feelings
(5:43 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the distinction between emotions and feelings of the body and those of the mind, which are thoughts.
A Simple Practice
(4:10 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses a simple question students can ask of themselves at any time, in any situation.
Transforming Darkness and Despair
(10:04 minutes) Questions & Answers are excerpts taken from Kenneth Wapnick's workshops, and typically express personal concerns, resistances, and practical questions about the application of "A Course in Miracles" in the daily lives of its students.
Darkness and despair are often the stimuli for asking the Holy Spirit for help, and as the Course teaches, all that is required to receive His help is "a little willingness." In answer to a question about what we can do when faced with such darkness and confusion, Kenneth also addresses why we are so resistant to asking for and receiving His help when so little is asked of us in return.
The Insanity of Fearing God
(10:13 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses how ACIM is an "all or nothing" course, and as such teaches us that our hatred of anyone must include our hatred of God. "[Jesus] talks about how you have to look at your hate, because the love is underneath it. And you won't get to the love without looking at the hate. Well, it's the same thing with God."
How to Deal with Abuse
(1:02 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. answers a question frequently asked by Course students. His answer reflects the Course teachings of focusing on our attitude rather than on our behavior.
Limits on Behavior
(9:11 minutes) Questions & Answers are excerpts taken from Kenneth Wapnick's workshops, and typically express personal concerns, resistances, and practical questions about the daily application of "A Course in Miracles" by its students. In this excerpt, Kenneth answers two students who have questions about the practice of forgiveness in "harmful" relationships, and the reason pain follows "triumph."
Being Under God’s Laws
(6:32 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses Workbook lesson 76 from "A Course in Miracles."
Dealing with Problems
(5:25) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses our looking at the way we have set up our problems by denying their existence in our minds and then projecting them on to the world.
Alchemy
(10:07 minutes) "Music, Melos, and Miracles: The Art of Listening" is a weekly eight-part series, excerpted from the longer workshop "Healing: Hearing the Melody" by Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, which was recorded live in August, 2003 at the Foundation for "A Course in Miracles" in Temecula, CA.
"The Forgotten Song." Kenneth concludes this part of the workshop by reiterating the themes he covered earlier. He then reads a portion of "The Forgotten Song" from the text of "A Course in Miracles," which gives a glimpse through Jesus words of the inner melos that everyone desperately longs for and also desperately resists. We are reminded that we can traverse this journey because we have a loving guide who walks with us. The Foundation is deeply grateful to Tim Stone and Katherine Grady for initiating and creating this eight-part series.
What Miracles dO
(9:54 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses how the miracle gives us back the power of our mind to be the dreamer, rather than the dream figure. In addition, he reminds us that "all the pain and suffering here [in the world], however dramatic it is, however painful it is, however graphically violent and cruel it is, has no effect on the reality of anyone. It has not had any effect on anyone to change their reality as a Son of God."
Healing
(9:57 minutes) "Music, Melos, and Miracles: The Art of Listening" is a weekly eight-part series, excerpted from the longer workshop "Healing: Hearing the Melody” recorded live in August, 2003.
In Part 8, "Coda for Therapists" Kenneth covered portions of the scribed pamphlet, "Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice" he talked about the principles and practice of healing articulated in "A Course in Miracles" and in the pamphlet. This series concludes with a portion of the workshops in which Kenneth looks at a sentence in the pamphlet Jesus succinctly sums up the principles of healing found in the Course, and presents the heart of his teaching for all would-be healers: listening to and accepting the melos of love and forgiveness within oneself.
A Choice
(5:43 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the Course process of making the journey through hate to Love.
What Happens After Death
(5:17 minutes) Questions & Answers are excerpts taken from Kenneth Wapnick's workshops, and typically express personal concerns, resistances, and practical questions about the application of "A Course in Miracles" in the daily lives of its students. Kenneth answers a student's question about going back Home together as one, as well as answering the commonly asked question, what happens when I die?
Effects of Guilt
(5:44 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the healing from the perspective of "A Course in Miracles."
The Key
(6:09 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the ego strategy of keeping us mindless by having us believe that all of our problems come from the world of bodies. In contrast, the miracle returns our attention back to the mind.
Our Return
(6:01 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the difference between form and content, Ego and Holy Spirit …
After Death
(9:58 minutes) Kenneth answers a student's question about separation and specialness existing on a non-physical level. "When you die and you are in your mind, do you still experience time?"; "Where are my loved ones when they die?" and "Are they watching over me?"
Fearful Future
(6:09 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses our ongoing fear of the decision maker's once and for all choosing Jesus or the Holy Spirit as our teacher, and thereby awakening from the dream.
The Secret Dream
(10:19 minutes) In this video, Kenneth looks at what the miracle does and does not do. He explains that the purpose of the miracle, and therefore the purpose of "A Course in Miracles" itself, is not to awaken us from the dream—which will automatically happen when we have completed our journey on the pathway of forgiveness. Rather, the purpose of the miracle is to lead us to the steady realization that we are the dreamer of the dream and not, as the ego tells us, hapless victims of the world's dream.
The Ego
(5:40 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses our being responsible for everything we think, feel, say, and do, one of the key themes of "A Course in Miracles."
The Release
(4:54 minutes) Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. discusses the reason why the ego abhors a vacuum (in our mind).
Self Deception
Acceptance
Dreams
Love
The following diagram depicts the Cosmology of ACIM created by Kenneth Wapnick, PHD.
“I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.
I know that you will be released,
unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
In the name of my freedom, I choose and will your release,
because I recognize that we will be released together.
So will the year begin in joy and freedom.
There is much to do, and we have been long delayed.
I accept the holy instant as this year is born,
and take my place, so long left unfulfilled,
in the Great Awakening.
I make this year different,
by making it all the same,
and let all my relationships be made holy for me.
This is our will.
Amen.”