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A Course in Miracles (Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers) (平装)
by Foundation for Inner Peace
| Category:
Spiruality, Inner peace |
| Market price: ¥ 430.00
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¥ 358.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
A source of healing and a true gift to the planet, this material promises to bring profound peace and transformation to humanity. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 12 items |
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R. Rehrl (MSL quote), South Africa
<2007-01-01 00:00>
In our times we understand that identity confusion can lead to deep problems, but probably not the extent to which this is true of each one of us. A Course in Miracles is an in depth practical aid to unravelling the false identity we universally believe in and rules our behaviour. The Course takes the student more and more closely to the point where he can recognise the true Self, which constitutes the miracle the title refers to. The ego is sytematically examined and exposed as a false but carefully defended construct that blocks all true potential, greater than the ego can imagine. The Course's understanding of the ego and the true Self is in accord with the New Testament doctrine of the old man and the new man. However the Bible leaves the dots to connect more broadly spaced than the Course, and for this reason the Course becomes a very powerful tool for the serious student. It must be pointed out though that the Course is likely to offend the religious mind today as much as Jesus did the religious mind of his day, not for the sake of causing offense, but as an unavoidable consequence of paradigm progression. There are apparent differences between the Course and the Bible which in the opinion of this writer challenge complacency and have the effect of shaking the mind lose from limited fixations, freeing it for deeper investigation. The Course in Miracles is the most important source book encountered by this writer to date for spiritual awakening apart from the Bible. Although the framework of reference is Christian, the open minded will not find the lack of a background in or commitment to traditional Christianity a disqualfication. Not recommended for the fearful though. Expect immediate benefit, but its potential is really in its depth to reward sustained iterative application. |
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John Morgan (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
Simply put this is an incredible book but if you see it as just another "spiritual book" you are depriving yourself of something incredibly life altering.
Like most of the spiritual books I had read at this point, I started reading this alone. I found it to be incredibly intimidating. Every time I attempted to read this book, I walked away from it shaken, disturbed, and completely baffled by it...but all in a good way...it was truly if I had entered into a parallell universe where everything was the complete opposite of what I had learned. It left me feeling like I was losing my mind and I was. I was losing my mind and learning to use and rely on God's Mind.
You see, whether you agree or disagree with what I am about to say is of no consequence because like it or not, it's the Truth and that is we, as individuals, do not have our own minds we only have access to the ONE MIND and that One, Undivided Mind is the Mind of God Itself. Now we can use this Mind in one of two ways; we can use it to perceive fear or we can use it to perceive Love. If we decide to use this Mind to perceive fear, we will also be using it to see what is false, what is ultimately not real but if we use it to perceive Love, we will be using this Mind to see and experience what is Ultimately Real.
The only thing that is Ultimately Real is God and God is Love and the only thing that is forever, changeless, and complete is God's Love. So how do we practice this lofty philosophy? By asking God (Love) to see through our eyes, to hear through our ears, to speak through our mouths, to act through our bodies. We let Love move through everything we do. In fact, as I write this I am mentally saying, "God use my words and make them Yours..."
Healing takes place by focusing on the Wholeness of God in any situation. I know that the average skeptic will be sitting there thinking that there has been a lot of situations individually as well as collectively that have been devoid of God. Actually, God has never been missing from any situation. The only thing that has been missing is a perception of God...a vision of Love...a realization that only Love is Real.
Like I said, this is an extremely tough read to go at it alone. I suggest getting into a good discussion group and sit with other people who are also reading this book and listen to how they are attempting to practice this in their every day lives.
This book will alter your consciousness in so many ways that I cannot even go into detail with the "hows" and besides, it's irrelevant. The only thing that really matters is that starting from this moment forward you are willing to start choosing with God. |
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Roland Barker (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
I was initially very resistant to the teachings in this book for two reasons: my disdain for Christianity and my reverence for life.
I have always bristled at the hypocrisy of Christian teachings characterized most poignantly by the various and many atrocities and injustices committed in Christ's name. Throughout history the the banner of the Prince of Peace has brought anything but. Yet this book helped me see the reasons behind that hypocrisy and the hatred and judgment I held for Christianity is being transformed into compassion. What was and is done out of fear and hatred is done in ways small and large by each of us. I realized that if I couldn't forgive the atrocities, I couldn't forgive myself. Through the words in this book my heart opened to the presence of Christ and that is a gift of inestimable value.
This book teaches that the world we perceive is not real. This to me was the most pernicious heresy because of my reverence for life and the Earth. To have that reverence belittled as mere spiritualization was galling, to say the least. Yet, I have slowly begun to see how we have created this world infused with fear and unwillingness to love. It is a prison to the God-beloved ones we truly are.
Yet this book does not offer an escape from the world; it is an instruction manual for changing the world, our bodies, our relationships and our personalities into messengers and teachers of love. In my understanding, that is reverence for life brought to its highest level. But to do that, I had to "take the red pill" and see the unreality of the world so I can begin to unravel it and take part in the liberation process.
That, I am certain, sounds like New Age blather to some, and so be it. If you choose the Bible as your teacher, there is little to agree with in A Course In Miracles, and much to fear. This book is a correction of the Bible in many ways and that is utterly heretical. Yet for those Christians who are willing to question what the church has taught and more deeply embrace what Christ has taught, this book could be a profound revelation.
There is no question this book is challenging and not for those want an easy, feel-good read. Many cherished notions will be gently questioned and laid aside, but it is so hard to hear the "gentle" part. Listen for that gentleness and you will be able to receive the gift of Grace a Course in Miracles offers. This book is really about healing all of us, not just those who walk this path. I invite you to read with an open mind. Thank you.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
First of all, I'm not writing this to persuade anyone about the Course. Some people simply won't find this conducive to their beliefs, and that's okay. But for those who are willing to give it a try, let me divulge a little about my experience with it. I'm spiritual but also extremely skeptical, so I'd never been able to stick with any one religion or philosophical doctrine beyond Taoism in its ambiguous glory. The virtue of the Course is that it doesn't matter whether the contents are credible to you enough that you can invest in it your lifelong faith, because when you start reading it seriously and practicing the workbook, you will soon be faced with evidence that this path is real and one worth taking. It calls for your faith, but not because you'll be damned to hell otherwise. Your faith in the Course is required just as therapy would require you to have faith that you can be treated.
Having been schooled in a wretched fundamentalist Christian parochial, I try but fail time and again to fathom a loving God, and I recognize this fact more clearly and painfully now that I've been studying the Course. So I approach the Course from a secular and/ or psychotherapeutic perspective when I can't handle all the spiritual overtones, and it works. Take, for instance, Newton's third law, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." We also know (esp if you're familiar with magick and witchcraft) that by some fuzzy logic "what goes around comes around," but the Course defines this in exact terms; whether it's God or our fellow men, if we put up a defense against Him/ them, we're doing the same to ourselves. By judging others, we judge ourselves, and as a child, by learning to hate myself as a sinful creature, I also learnt to hate God, even though on the surface I thought I was a devout 'God-fearing' Christian. The bottom line is that the Course allows you to bring along your doubts and to let go of them gradually as you become ready to do so.
But most of all, A Course in Miracles is a source of healing for everyone. If you're depressed or otherwise mentally unstable, suffering in some way from your past, or just stuck in some 'unlucky' life predicament, this book is a way out. Like several reviewers mentioned above, I never believed that one book could change my life. But it did. And I want it to do the same for anyone else who still wants to believe that there has to be more to this broken-down world than eating and working and sleeping and breeding and dying and then just maybe a Big Mean Judge waiting at the end. It's not easy, it's not instant gratification, but it's a solution and a permanent one, and it doesn't involve a bullet or fast train. |
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J. Taylor (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
I have been seeking for something more to life and read a countless number of new age spiritual books. I was still having anxiety problems and making problems for myself and my relationsihps out of nothing. I have been doing the course for a few weeks now (I read and highly recommend reading the book Disappearance of the Universe first). Life looks completely different and just by forgiving and then handing the "issue" over to the Holy Spirit my whole attitude and the things that I thought were such big "issues" are resolving themselves. Even my sister and I, who had a very strained relationship in the past, have made huge leaps and bounds. I'm amazed and will be doing this course throughout my lifetime here. Letting the Holy Spirit in to your life is the key and I am extremely thankful for that help. Also, seeing yourself in everyone else makes a huge difference. I recommend this to anyone and everyone that are willing to open up their minds and be honest with themselves. |
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Barbara Rose (Author of Stop Being the String Along) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
This is a three volume edition that comprises of the Text, Workbook for Students and Manual for Teachers.
I must say that the teachings and messages are beyond profound, where there is so much truth that leads to inner peace. There might be a few lines that seem different, and it is great to question them and then read further to gain a deeper understanding.
This book goes beyond religion. It is all of our divine birthright to our connection to God, Holy Spirit, where there is unfailing guidance at every moment of life. This book teaches this to you. It teaches the true meaning of forgiveness, how when we see each other as extensions of our self, we see the oneness we all share, and our divinity as equal spiritual beings at the same time.
This text can lead to the end of all wars and suffering, because truth is revealed so simply. It is always the simplest truths that once understood lead to peace on all levels and in all areas of life.
If some of the text feels different to what you have been taught, that is okay. Take all of the good that it has to offer and incorporate that into your understanding, so that light can truly dispel any seeming darkness in your mind that has caused you any anxiety, suffering or pain.
This book is nothing short of a gift to humanity. I am going to quote from the preface of the book, so you can know "How It Came": "A Course in Miracles began with the sudden decision of two people to join a common goal. Their names were Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Professors of medical Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. It does not matter who they were, except that the story shows that with God all things are possible. They were anything but spiritual. Their relationship with each other was difficult and often strained, and they were concerned with personal and professional acceptance and status. In general, they had considerable investment in the values of the world..."
The rest is a bit too lengthy to write here, however, Helen writes: "Three startling months preceded the actual writing... I was still very surprised when I wrote, `This is a course in miracles.' That was my introduction to the Voice. It made no sound, but seemed to be giving me a kind of rapid, inner dictation which I took down in a shorthand notebook. The writing was never automatic. It could be interrupted at any time and later picked up again..."
There is no doubt in my mind that this book comes from God. God does write through humanity now just as much as it occurred thousands of years ago. Many people want a quick fix to the problems that plague them. I would venture to say that if the messages in this book are really taken in and applied within anyone's mind, judgment will cease, discord will cease, and inner peace will prevail. |
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W. Leonard (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
This book worked wonders for me. As an atheist who was raised Christian and who had trouble understanding Zen buddhism, this book became 'it' for me - the Rosetta Stone that filled in the misunderstandings of Buddhism and provided the mind-training program with both cognitive-behavior-therapy-like principles and mindfulness elements (becoming aware of one's thoughts and seeing there's a choice of what to do with them). It literally changed my life and opened the door to experiences that I thought were just metaphorical. I have to admit - this book was clearly beyond my capabilities and didn't make sense until I went to seminars and classes on it and - MOST IMPORTANTLY - until I did the lessons (I did the lessons with incredible faith and effort and experienced things that I thought were just metaphorical when I had read about them).
Keep in mind that when one reads Buddhism and the Course that they both present 'teachings' within a 'theology'. The teachings and theologies are themselves not true - they are means to an end. Buddha referred to these as 'expedient means' - in the end, to concentrate on the concepts and theologies as ends in and of themselves is to stay in the realm of perception... where the psychological construct of the self is maintained over and over again. This is not mumbo-jumbo stuff... the ego/self is a psychological construct and is the foundation of perceptions (outside of the Course and Zen, non-spiritual and non-religious psychologists have talked about this). Once this artificial self is seen for what it is, what's left experiences itself as everything - something that can not be taught or theologized. To experience this (I know - 'what' experiences this? - it's a natural koan:), various teachers have provided methods using tools that our dualistic minds understand and can use (concepts, meditation, etc.). The Course's training program is to rely on a tool called 'forgiveness'. In itself, forgiveness is an artificial construct (if there is no real psychological self and other selves, then what is there to forgive and what was hurt and what does the hurting?). It's like the Zen koan - in reality, the koan itself is nothing but using it to exhaust the rational/dualistic mind has been proven over and over again to be a very very good tool. We practice becoming aware of and choosing to forgive every negative thought and perception. In order to become aware of those thoughts and perceptions, the Course spends a great many pages describing the 'dynamics' of the ego thought system. This mindfulness - this awareness - makes us a third person observer who then can decide what to do with the thought: CHOOSE to follow the old patterns and conditioning (our ego/dualistic thought system) or CHOOSE to not let the conditioning/ego to dictate what the response is going to be. The Course talks about this metaphorically by saying that we've discovered that we're not 'mindless' (meaning, prior to becoming aware of every thought and realizing we have a choice, we thought we were just the victim of outside events and that we had no control over what we did with our thoughts/conditioning/perceptions). The Course's uniqueness is that it uses forgiveness as its foundational tool AND it provides an extensive description of ego dynamics.
All forms of spirituality target a specific type of ego. The Course targets egos that are intellectual and conditioned by Western ideas about God - ones that paint God/universe as something that rewards and punishes, creates conscious beings only to wipe them out (but, perhaps, giving them eternal existence after death), etc. Some reviews suggested that the Course's intent was to deny guilt and fear; nothing could be further from the truth. Its very foundation is to realize the dynamics of the ego/dualistic-thinking and to know that we believe in these dynamics; then, we engage in the process of directly looking at guilt and fear. While the Course maintains that these elements are ultimately unreal (again, if the psychological self is just a construct then things related to this self are equally unreal), it operates within the domain of that 'virtual reality' and makes each person focus on the very elements there. It's like treating panic disorder: the scenarios of the horrible panic thoughts are all untrue and a panic attack is completely harmless. However, the mind believes in their reality and it's there that treatment is focused: experience the symptoms until one's mind becomes retrained to see in the unreality of the scenarios.
One of the things that led me to atheism was looking at the physical world. I soon realized that the God concept that I was raised with could not be real; it was clearly a projection of the fears, guilt, etc. of our ego thought systems (hence the eternal reward for this 'self', the punishment, etc.). I would look at the world and cringe at the predator/prey model and realize that this could NOT be the work of a loving God. The parable of the prodigal Son, when properly understood, reflects this dynamic where both the good and bad sons projected their thought system onto God - and God's unconditional love was not what their ego thought systems demanded he be (much to the disappointment of the good son). Our egos want there to be an individual self - and it's why the Course and other spiritualities that point to the truth will be either wholeheartedly rejected or misinterpreted and transformed (the latter is what various Course students have done with its teachings).
'Jesus channeling the course' is metaphorical for the part of one's mind that still has a link to non-duality. It's a very very real thing: however, since ultimately there is no individual self, there is no Jesus and no me and no you, etc. so... there really is no Jesus but... this experience is VERY real. As an atheist, I wouldn't think it was possible but... I actually had an experience of it when I was at the bottom and finally let go (for the first time in my life) my ego. There is just God/Love/One - whatever that is. And this One thing was experienced by Helen, in her dualistic mind, as Jesus. And whatever we call this, it's real - but my saying it does nothing... it can only be experienced. Debating the truths and the concepts of the Course is not what the Course is about - it's about using it as a means and then throwing it away when the experience of God is realized :).
For a very good book that tries to describe the enlightenment experience, look at 3 Pillars of Zen. |
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Patricia Robinett (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
A Course in Miracles has been my source of inspiration for twenty years. I owe my interest in it to a friend in SF who must have noticed that I needed a lot of help. I am very grateful for Bob's kindness. The words of this book have worked wonders for my heart. As far as I am concerned, the course is the definitive text on healing. i use the principles in my therapy practice and they work flawlessly. Some may not realize that the course has spawned many self-help books over the past 30 years, beginning with Jampolsky's Love Is Letting Go of Fear and including Williamson's A Return to Love.
This little book is my very best friend. Although I have a nice collection of great books from around the world, written throughout the ages, the course is my favorite and the only one i read on an ongoing basis. Perhaps it owns my heart because it was written with a soothing, lyrical rhythm. Perhaps I like it because it was written in English so that I could better understand and trust it (I have noticed that translators can unintentionally mistranslate). Perhaps it is because it is straightforward, demystifies, is poetic and lovingly supportive all at the same time.
If there is only one concept you learn from this book, you will be light years ahead. "Is it love or is it fear?" This is the most important question to ask of all thought and feelings. Love or fear? That is the litmus test. If you feel fear, breathe into it and it will melt away; after all, the word "spirit" means breath and it is well known that spirit/love is the healer. If you feel love, enjoy it, treasure it.
Some people think the course is overly complicated but the fact is that the course is very, very simple. Its message is clear. It repeats over and over concepts we need to internalize: "Love one another," "Judge not," "Forgive," "You are spirit," "Perfect love casts our all fear," and other simple facts that make all the difference in the quality of life. And it repeats its message until it is in our bones.
The course supports our movement toward love. Its scope is universal. A Buddhist will hear Buddha's voice in it; a Christian will hear Christ, a Taoist will hear Lao Tsu, and I see someone heard Socrates. Sometimes people need to learn the language of the course, becasue it uses some words differently than conventional religions, but it is worth going beyond the terminology. Its value is too great to allow language to stand in the way.
Read it with an open mind and heart and you will regain your trust and faith in 1) your own path, whatever that is, 2) in your own purity and 3) the goodness of life.
I always suggest people begin with Chapter 18... it is so lovely. |
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S. Larporte (MSL quote), Canada
<2007-01-01 00:00>
One of the few books that ever made me cry with joy. Beautiful, powerful, it is my favourite book and one that I am grateful to have found. The language in this book is extremely rich, and although the teaching can apply to anyone, the book itself can be intimidating or confusing for some. For myself, who has been seeking the kinds of answers and loving image of God that I couldn't get from my traditional Christian upbringing, this book changed my life. It is a book of profound love, peace, and wisdom without equal. Like many sophisticated spiritual texts, it can be easy to misinterpret or misunderstand some of the Course's principal ideas so I recommend reading the commentaries published in Kenneth Wapnick's books for further clarity (especially his Most Common Questions About A Course In Miracles). I wish you all well on your spiritual journey. |
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Christine Lawson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-01 00:00>
This book changed my life, my perspective, and validated my life-long belief that God is Love, as opposed to a judgmental, wrathful father figure. As the text explains, "this is a required course," referring to the fact that we are here on Earth to learn how to love, how to forgive, and that the events in our lives are opportunities to learn to accept God's love and forgiveness for ourselves as well as for others. It's hard to believe that there could be any other more important purpose, or any other possible solution to the chaos of life on this planet. This book IS the way out, for each one of us. Read it now - and "rest in the peace of God." We all deserve it. |
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