Introduction To The Workbook for Students

This course is offered freely as a companion guide to A Course In Miracles. It provides insights, guidance, meditations, and exercises that will help you to apply the ideas of A Course In Miracles to your life. 

The course is about love. You do not need to be religious, nor even identify with the word “God.” The only prerequisite is that you seek to become more or yourself, to develop a deeper sense of peace, joy, and love in your life.

This course requires a few minutes of your time, every day, for you a year. It is much better to work steadily, in small increments, than to rush through larger chunks of material. I suggest you center your practice around the daily lessons, working through one each day. Concurrently, begin reading the text and chapter insights at your own pace. Take breaks when you need them. If you feel overwhelmed or if the course begins to feel like a chore, you may want to pause for a few weeks or more. The material will always be waiting for you, when you are ready to resume.

Wherever you currently are in your journey, and at whatever pace you proceed, I guarantee you that this course will change your life. You wlll learn a new perspective, which you may chose to accept or discard. Quite possibly, the ideas will radically transform every area of your life, leading you to ever higher states of bliss, peace, prosperity, and well-being. In either case, you cannot proceed earnestly through this course without becoming affecting by it. I encourage you to remain open to this change. When you are receptive, you will receive the most benefit from it.

Lesson 1

Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything.

The first part of the course takes us through a process of undoing. Over the course of our lives, we have learned to respond to the world in a certain way. We have learned to categorize everything in our lives, automatically assigning judgment to everything we experience. Unwinding and releasing this judgment is a prerequisite for experiencing peace.

The first step is to recognize that everything is neutral. If you do not place judgment upon it, every thought, every situation, and every object in your life simply is.

Is-ness, existence, presence, is beautiful, in every form. Our judgments cloud this beauty. Thus, the exercise here is to practice releasing judgment by seeing meaninglessness.

Meaninglessness can be extremely scary. One reason we judge everything around us is because we create our own sense of value and purpose from our judgments. To many people, stripping away all judgments also removes their own sense of direction and self-worth. We will address this obstacle as we move through the course. For today, simply begin by recognizing that everything is inherently meaningless. All objects and experiences are neutral.

As we work through the course, one recommendation that is consistently repeated is to practice the exercises indiscriminately. Look equally at all objects around you and realize they share the same core meaninglessness. Indiscriminateness is the goal, but the reality is we all place more attachment to some objects than others. Symbols of wealth, health, and relationships certainly seem to have more meaning than a backpack or a fork. If you find it difficult to see meaninglessness in some items (like a photograph of a loved one or a credit card bill), I encourage you to start this exercise with the “easy” things. Practice observing meaninglessness in the mundane things first, and gradually add in objects that hold more symbolic importance for you. This may take time, and that’s ok. As with all the lessons we’ll see, you are always exactly where you are, applying the ideas in exactly the way that is right for you.