Miracles on the Joyful Planet
There aren’t enough books about miracles.
It’s often said that you write the book you want to read. I would rather someone else wrote about ideas so mysterious and controversial as miracles. But miracles do happen, and A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a book on learning the nature of miracles: how they happen, what they are and how to learn to recognize them and work with them in one’s life. It is a text about healing, transformation, and personal sovereignty.
As with all things powerful and mysterious, stories abound about its origins, its meaning, its validity. I encourage you to study it yourself rather than prejudge it. It’s written in the languages of Christianity and psychotherapy, but miracles transcend language, and the students of ACIM come from all walks of life. This blog offers observations and commentary on studies and results of ACIM. It is my deepest hope that this information be useful to you in some way.
The quote in the image is taken from the ACIM Original Edition CIMS Website
Years ago, I opened a “space” in Newark New Jersey that I called “The Joyful Planet” …it was from an inspiration, and truth be told, I never quite could make an elegant connection between The Joyful Planet and Yoga. I had visions of people holding hands, but basically yogi’s are solitary beings!
For years now I’ve been nudged on an inner level to write about A Course in Miracles – and so I set up Mirificus, but it was hard getting it going – like the joyfulplanet, it somehow jsut didn’t fit.
A few weeks ago, I received andream about A Course in Miracles – which began where the course began – in a prestigious academic environment and which ended where A Course In Miracles concludes – with the atonement. In the dream the Atonement was represented by peope holding hands and a feeling of tremendous joy. It unfolded with the undestanding that this is the world transformed that we are creating together through the community of A Course in Miracles Students worldwide who practice, practice practice and joyfully roll out the miraculous transformation that unfolds as we embrace the path.
We don’t have to suffer.
And we find ourselves living on a Joyful Planet. And so the Joyful Planet is resurrected with a new purpose….in the service of miracles.
INTENTION AND PRACTICE
I sit in on many spiritual classes, conventional, non-conventional and other-ventional. I’ve noticed over the years the recurring theme that we are here to suffer and be miserable and in exchange the spiritual path promises some answer as to why that occurs and how to work around it through detachment, surrender, devotion and a hundred different ways of making a sacrifice in order to buy our way into an easier life.
It’s a paradigm that is seldom questioned, perhaps because the spiritual path is frequently sought only after disappointment, pain or confusion really set in.
Authority is strengthened through questioning. After studying a Course in Miracles for ten years, I’m beginning to question if suffering truly is a requirement fro spiritual growth. At the beginning it may be the only thing that could drive us from perpetually seeking pleasure, but after we have gotten our stride on the path, I’m not sure we need it to continue growing and evolving spiritually. Perhaps the goal is to be so clear about our path that it becomes the ship on which we sail through the experiences of our lives.
This question came to fruition in my studies of A Course in Miracles. After reading the text with a group for five years I found that the course memes about people being our mirrors, everything coming from me, and the lauding of this mysterious state of oneness that has limited use beyond theory when we are making our way through duality. I have to say, under the social pressure of those teachings my practice was not flourishing and neither was I.
And the, on the eve of the world shutting down for the pandemic, I awakened into the “Rules for Decision”. It was one of those “How did I never see this before?” moments. The Rules for Decision are found at the end of the text. The Rules for Decision are described as a practice by which we tap into our own direct experience of the Holy Spirit and receive guidance specific to our in the moment situation. I knew instantly it was for me, and I practiced the Rules for Decision for 18 mos with remarkable results.
I ended up moving beyond the repetitive reading and reading of the text and daily practice of the lessons into a guided and systematic path through the hundreds of exercises contained in the text, the workbook and the supplements.
When I was guided to return to the reading groups my understanding of the text now expanded way into the experience of the new visionary goal that ACIM rolls out before us if we are willing to do the practice. Staying true to the words, the vocabulary and the definition – the meaning launched in my mind and heart contained a vision beyond the sound bites of oneness and forgiveness. It opened into an invitation to move beyond the ideologies of my youth and into co-creation with Holy Spirit in the service of the Atonement which is in many ways simply another word for experience of joyful connectedness, faith and freedom from fear – with a caveat – the willing to bring everyone else with you. Everyone. That work involves the dismantling of every tricky disguise that separation takes in our minds as reflected in the world we live in. It involves the willingness to continue even in the face of challenges, and more than that to continue until we, as a collective, reach a tipping point which generates enough generosity, love and light to flip the switch of of atonement ON. It’s work but in the Atonement work and fun are synonymous. And while we are at it, we are invited to step into the world that we have co-created with God for ourselves. Which means the Atonement isn’t a state of bloblike transcendental cosmic bliss, but rather of living experience of a life of healing, connection and joy.
The caveat here is that this doesn’t come from me – it comes from ACIM. I’m just here to inspire you to do the work to do the digging reflecting for you to participate in the unfoldment. Faith without works – getting the theory without practice – to bear the fruit of ACIM requires practice. But it does not require suffering.
This understanding doesn’t come from me, it’s all in A Course in Miracles. We will be exploring here some specific gems from the text the workbook and so on reflected on through this lens.
I hope to inspire you to pick up the book and practice.
Mirificus on the Joyful Planet 