A Course in Miracles Made Easy: Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love

by Alan Cohen

no person, group, situation, or condition has the power to take away your happiness. No one. No thing. Never. The experience of joy is your God-given right, a sovereign domain you alone command.

they cannot remove your peace unless you give them that power. Your wellness is God’s factory-installed gift to you, your inalienable birthright. If anyone seems to have stolen your peace, it is because you have allowed them into your sacred sanctuary and let them plunder your treasure.

For you was peace created, given you by its Creator, and established as His Own eternal gift. How can you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you?

His sarcastic barbs are his way of projecting his sins onto the goat (that would be you) and trying to drive it out of the camp. But he cannot accomplish that unless you agree that you are a goat and you are willing to spend your life in the desert.

His unkind words are a veiled call for love.

The second step to reverse pain or illness is to replace the projection of sin with the extension of love.

There are two ways to turn devils into angels: First, acknowledge things about them that you genuinely appreciate.

Now here’s the second devil-transformer. Consider: How has this person helped you to grow? What spiritual muscles have you developed that you would not have built if this person had been nicer to you?

Everyone helps us. Some help us by being kind, and some help us by acting unkind, so that we may choose kindness no matter what they do. You have a soul contract with your adversary to help you advance spiritually.

You will never gain by blaming others for your loss. You will always gain by honoring others for their contribution.

You can point the power of your thoughts in a new direction and bring healing and life where you once saw illness and death.

Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are.

The author of A Course in Miracles identifies himself as Jesus Christ.

The voice that dictated the Course makes many references to events in the life of Christ as recorded in the New Testament, including the crucifixion and resurrection, describing the experiences as his own. The author also refers to many statements attributed to Christ in the New Testament as his own. Beyond the verbiage, the wisdom, compassion, and vision imbued in ACIM clearly represent the man who walked the earth as Jesus.

The author cites biblical phrases and concepts that have been distorted by fear and guilt, and he reinterprets them in the light of innocence, forgiveness, and our unbreakable unity with God.

The Jesus behind A Course in Miracles represents love and only love.

And so they wander through a world of strangers, unlike themselves, living with their bodies perhaps under a common roof that shelters neither; in the same room and yet a world apart.

You cannot isolate something outside yourself as the source of your good or sorrow and remain at peace with yourself.

Many people believe that their religion is closer to God than anyone else’s. Adherents driven by “faith” have fought long, bloody wars, and countless people have been murdered in the name of a special religion. Yet God has no part in the killing. It is but specialness that destroys.

Religious specialness separates people from each other and God, under the illusion of drawing them closer.

Your purpose together is not to offset each other’s deficiencies, but to honor and express your already-existing sufficiency.

Each one has looked within and seen no lack. Accepting his completion, he would extend it by joining with another, whole as himself.

“I am in need of nothing but the truth”

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one,

If your relationship is bringing you more sorrow than joy and your losses outweigh your gains, you must not continue as you have been. Tell the truth about what in your relationship is working and what is not, what hurts and what heals.

If you are in pain with a partner or any object of specialness, you are not seeing that person or object clearly. You are seeing your version of that person or object.

Anger is a sign that you are focusing on limiting or illusory aspects to justify your judgments. “I am upset because I see something that is not there”

You cannot control the behavior of others, and you cannot dictate the choices they make. But you have total control over which aspects of them you are selecting to magnify in your experience.

Relationship arguments drag the past into the present as artillery to justify your position. It’s always about what he or she did rather than who he or she is now.

“You cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them necessary”

You cannot get yourself out of a relationship mess with the same mind-set that got you into it. This is where you need the Holy Spirit to help you. The Holy Spirit, as the Course explains, is the part of your mind united with divine wisdom.

Use everything you have in the service of Spirit, and Higher Power will take care of the details.

The only question worth asking about any act is, “Does this bring more joy into the world, or does it diminish joy in the world?”

Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.

The Course belongs to all religions and to none.

The truth is true, no matter who utters it.

Although Jesus delivered a pure healing message, the religion that grew up in his name has often been infused with fear, guilt, threats, punishment, and mass murder.

It simply calls us, each and all, to be the light of the world.

When you refuse to be a pawn of fear, you reduce the ability of insane illusions to run your life and contaminate the lives of others.

You did not cease to be a spiritual being; you ceased to know yourself as a spiritual being.

At our core we are love.

When you live as if you are an eternal, invulnerable soul, you raise the bar for all humanity.

All acts of compassion bring the world closer to heaven.

“What plans do you make that do not involve [the body’s] comfort or protection or enjoyment in some way?”

You are here to thrive as a soul.

Teach only love, for that is what you are.

Miracles] bring more love both to the giver and the receiver”

“When I am healed I am not healed alone”

The journey to the cross should be the last “useless journey.” Do not dwell upon it, but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can accept it as your own last useless journey, you are also free to join my resurrection.

Beware of the case you make to others, for you are making the case also to yourself, and your experience will bear out your argument.