A Course in Miracles is easily one of the most transformational books of the last century. It is a complete, modern re-interpretation of Christianity into a few core principles of love.

Reading the book in its entirety can be a feat in and of itself, but actually applying the lessons to your daily life is a whole other challenge.

but here I’m going to talk about a few practical tips you can use to apply these main points to your daily life. Then, we’ll look at a few steps you can take to really take your studies to the next level and use the course to transform your life.

How To Live ACIM: Breaking Down The Ideas

In order to apply the book to your life, the first step is to make sure you break down the main ideas into a few clear points. I go over a brief summary of the main points of ACIM in this post, but I’ll recap them here briefly.

Basically, the entire course boils down to understanding that YOU ARE LOVE, and that everything around you is also love. You express this love every moment of every day, and the only responsibility you have is to learn to choose to experience this love rather than fear.

In other words, you could simplify A Course In Miracles down to one idea:

Act from love.

If you can think, speak, and act from love every day, in all situations, you will live a remarkable, peaceful life.

Of course, living unconditionally is easier said than done, so here are a few other principles you might adopt.

Suspend Judgment

The first key practice to develop is the habit of suspending judgment.

Whenever anything happens in the world around us, we have a tendency to apply our own beliefs and opinions to that event. We read into things all of the time, whether it’s a casual remark from a coworker or rise in gas prices.

Every time we create an opinion, belief, or judgment, we stop ourselves from seeing the world from a universal, unconditional perspective. More often than not, these opinions are based in fear, ideas of right or wrong, and our desire to believe that we know best.

If you can stop judging the world, you take the first step to appreciating that everything really is part of an energy of love.

Forgive Others

The second principle you can apply is to begin to forgive others.

This means to forgive others unconditionally, regardless of what circumstances appear before you, or what has happened that has created enmity within you.

Forgiveness is important because true forgiveness recognizes that all hate originates within you. It doesn’t matter what has happened, when you refuse to forgive, your resentment creates dis-ease within yourself first, and that negativity then ripples outward into the world.

In other words, refusing to forgive others is a refusal to forgive yourself.

One idea that can help you to forgive more readily is to understand the world from the other person’s perspective. Just as you have your specific set of beliefs and judgments that color your experience, so too does everyone else.

Adopt the perspective that, if you had the same history, experience, beliefs, and level of consciousness as the other person, you would act in exactly the same way. This process helps to make any problem more human, and allows you to see that we all make mistakes at many different levels.

Treat Everyone As Yourself

Lastly, it is essential that you begin to treat everyone as yourself.

Begin to live by the Golden Rule. The idea of treating others as you would treat yourself is not unique to the course; it has been around for millennia and is a cornerstone of many major religions and moral philosophies.

Again, the practice revolves around putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. But, you can take the idea one step further by recognizing that, on a very real level, you ARE the other person with whom you’re interacting.

Respect that other, just as you would respect yourself, and you can begin to see the divine unity and oneness presence in all things.

Tips for Studying ACIM

I hope these key principles can go a long way to helping you apply the teachings of A Course in Miracles. If you want to dive deeper and really transform your life, I also suggest the following resources.

Take a Course

Firstly, we offer an excellent guide to A Course in Miracles, which dives much more deeply into the lessons and meanings of each aspect of the course.

Practice The Daily Exercises

We also offer a number of guided recordings to help you practice the daily workbook exercises.

These daily lessons are really where the rubber meets the road, and working consistently through them can dramatically increase the peace, joy, and love you take away from the course.

Join a Community

Lastly, remember that working with ACIM is a marathon, not a sprint. It helps to have a dedicated community of people you can talk to in order to hash out ideas and interpretations of the text, share stories, and stay motivated to keep working on applying it to your life.

There’s a great ACIM Study Group on Facebook to connect with others who are working through the course, and going through exactly the same challenges you are.