The Lighthouse Group studies and meets quarterly at RMMC to talk about a selected newsletter written by Dr. Kenneth Wapnick. This quarter’s topic is “How to Approach A Course in Miracles: Transcending the ‘I’.” * (Volume 13, Number 3, from June 2002.)
Here is an excerpt from the Lighthouse article:
“Students of A Course in Miracles will recognize here the important principle from the text: Projection makes perception (T-13.V.3:5; T-21.in.1:1). Everything is a “shadow of the seen through inward vision. There perception starts, and there it ends,” which means the inner perception of separation does not really leave our minds; the separation we perceive with our eyes remains within. This is an extremely important passage. There is nothing outside. I look in my mind and choose the ego: guilt, attack, death, and darkness. That, then, is what I see in the world. I look within, choose the light of the Atonement and feel the presence of the love of Jesus. Then I look out and see light and love all around me, or else the calls for it, as the text instructs us (T-12:I.8; T-14.X.7). Clearly, this does not mean what we see with our eyes, but the interpretation our minds put on what we see. It is not difficult to look within, because we are already within. What is difficult is that we think we are without. In other words, ideas leave not their source, the source always being our minds, outside of which is truly nothing.
That is why you cannot understand A Course in Miracles when you try to pick at it from your own brain, from your own thinking. It is not outside you. Rather, you do with this Course what you do with any great work of art-a great poem, a great Shakespearean play, any great work of literature: You let the words resonate inside you. You don’t pick them apart and analyze them. You just let them work within you, and they will inevitably lead you to that place inside that is beyond all words, all thoughts, all concepts. When you are in the presence of any great work of art-be it a poem, painting, piece of music, or sculpture-the minute you try to analyze it with your brain you block any chance of having the experience of truth that the artist had-the content—from which emerged the work of art—the form. That does not mean that there is anything wrong in analyzing a work of art, but doing so will deprive you of the experience that the artist was expressing through his or her work.”
* The article is found on page 48 in the print version of From The Lighthouse: To Look Upon Darkness Through Light Must Dispel It, an anthology of Lighthouse articles by Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. and Gloria Wapnick from the Foundation for A Course in Miracles. This anthology is also available in ePub (digital) format (in 3 volumes). In addition to Course-related products such as the Lighthouse anthology, newly re-designed FACIM website has numerous new additions, including an excellent hyperlinked glossary of terms used in ACIM and much other new material.
The quarterly Lighthouse study group at Rocky Mountain Miracle Center is facilitated by Chris Dixon-Bubick