In September 1993, we wrote an article entitled: "A Simple, Clear, and Direct Course," which discussed the various attempts on the part of students of A Course in Miracles to interpret what the Course says, rather than seek to understand its simple, clear, and direct teachings. Beginning with this newsletter, we shall present a two-part article which summarizes how A Course in Miracles is a radically new approach to spirituality, since it erases almost all former religious and spiritual concepts. This first part discusses the nature of Reality -- the Oneness of God and Christ -- and how the Course's understanding differs from the teachings of both traditional and contemporary religious and spiritual paths. Once we have understood the non-dualistic nature of Reality, it will be easier to understand the nature of the separation and its correction through the Holy Spirit, discussion of which is the purpose of Part II of this article.

As one studies A Course in Miracles, it is helpful from time to time to return to the foundation of its thought system, to the Beginning as it were: the resplendence of our Reality in Heaven. While the clear focus of Jesus' teaching in the Course is on the undoing of the blocks to the awareness of Love's presence in our minds (T-in.1:7), it is nonetheless essential never to forget what our ultimate goal truly is. If, as the Course teaches us, we have fallen asleep and are dreaming the nightmares of separation and specialness, reminders of what we shall eventually awaken to are helpful to keep us on track as we make our way Home. And so in Part I of this article we wish to speak about the nature of Heaven, and Who we truly are as God's glorious creation.

Several years ago, in our book Awaken from the Dream, we wrote the following description that attempted to present a word-picture of the non-dualistic wonder that is our true Home. As you read these words now, try to allow them to be the wings that carry you beyond the everyday consciousness of the dualistic world of perception, lifting you to the soaring awareness of the Reality of Oneness and Truth that cannot be understood, but only experienced.

Come with us on a journey of discovery to the remembrance of who we are. Sink back into your mind, and let yourself be carried out of time and out of this world into another dimension, whose glorious splendor language cannot express. Yet must we use words to reflect the ineffable Reality that is beyond all words, in order to recall to our minds the radiant abstraction of Heaven which has been replaced by our world of concrete specifics.

Our memory leads us back to this state of Holiness where, in the Beginning, before there was even a concept of beginning, there is God, our Source and the Source of all creation: a perfection and resplendence whose magnificence is beyond comprehension; love and gentleness of such an infinite nature that consciousness could not even begin its apprehension; a pristine stillness of uninterrupted joy, a motionless flow without friction to impede it; a vast, limitless and all-encompassing Totality, beyond space, beyond time, in which there is no beginning, no ending, for there was never a time or place when God was not.

God our Source is the All, and shares this Totality with us. This is a sharing without limits, and with no withholding of what truly is. Therefore, as part of our Source, we share all Its qualities, even unto being a co-creator.

Creation, like spirit, is abstract, formless and unchanging. Its nature is unity, knowledge of which is that there is nowhere the Creator ends and the created begins. There is no boundary, no differentiation, no separation. Yet, included in this knowledge is the fact that we are not the Source of creation, though we remain one within It.

Can the Mind of God begin? Can the Mind of God end? Can a Thought that is part of that Mind be something other than that Mind? Surely not, since there is no subject or object in the state of Heaven; no observer or observed. There is no perception, simply the total knowledge of who we are: a glory of such unified resplendence that concepts of within-without have no meaning.

We are an Idea in the Mind of God, and this Idea, with no limitations, is composed of an infinite number of Thoughts. All these Thoughts are the Sons of God, and the unified Idea -- the Christ -- is the Son. Therefore, all God's Thoughts are creation and, since Mind extends, the unlimited Thoughts the Mind of God extends are the Christ. We are the formless Thoughts that pulsate from this vast Mind, yet these Thoughts are abstract and have no counterpart to the specific forms in our world. As Thoughts in God's Mind, we emulate the process of creation, and our extensions are our creations.

We know our Creator-Source and have total gratitude for being part of the All. Gratitude is a constant song sung by the created to its Source, in glad thanksgiving for the knowledge of its Holiness as part of the Source. God's Being is Love, and Love, without end, flows continually between Creator and created, unbroken and uninterrupted. It is the Source of all Being and is itself all Being. Love is the very fountainhead of God, the essence of spirit and Mind, from which the Great Rays of resplendence radiate all that belongs to the Kingdom: truth, joy, unity and peace.

This is Reality, our true inheritance as children of our Source Who says that all that I have is yours. Totally at rest, the Son is home in the knowledge within the Mind that created it. This is the Reality God established, forever changeless, forever perfect. This is His eternal truth: God is; His Sons are one with Him in perfect love, innocence and peace (Awaken from the Dream, first edition pp. 21-23; second edition pp. 3-4).

It is this non-dualistic Oneness -- the experience of the truth that there is nowhere that God ends and our true Self begins -- that A Course in Miracles identifies as Heaven, and which forms the foundation for its teachings on the ego's thought system of guilt and fear, and the Holy Spirit's thought system of forgiveness. Before continuing, however, it would be instructive to contrast this non-dualistic theology of A Course in Miracles with three other theological forms, all inherently dualistic: pantheism, polytheism, and monotheism.

The theology of pantheism (etymologically meaning "god is in all") holds that god is found in every aspect of the physical universe; i.e., his essence and substance permeates everything, and therefore he is not outside his creation. This means that there is no supreme being who exists outside the world, for god and the world are one and the same. Thus the world of materiality, with all its myriad forms and thoughts, is seen and experienced not only as real but divine as well, for matter is not separated from spirit. This is clearly a dualistic theology, holding that both spirit and matter are real, though integrated as one.

Polytheism (" many gods" ) is the belief that there are many gods, each different and with a different personality that symbolizes different traits and forces of nature, as well as, in many instances, a creator-god. For example, in the Greek pantheon Poseidon is the god of the ocean, and Athena the goddess of wisdom. Thus the different gods would be prayed to for different purposes and in different situations. As these gods would often be associated with the forces of nature, we again find a theology in which both the physical universe and the divine co-exist as realities.

Monotheism (" one god" ) has always been considered by theologians to be the most developed form of theology because of its belief in only one god, seen to be an advance over the worship of many gods. Since two of the major monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, form the background of almost all students of A Course in Miracles, we shall confine our discussion to the biblical god for the rest of this article. There are two characteristics of this god of the Bible that bear directly on our discussion of the Course's theology.

First, the biblical theology is a dualistic one, for that god creates materiality. The material universe, once it is created, continues to exist outside him as a reality, and a reality with which he is continually involved. Spirit and matter are thus dualistically accorded equal reality, as indeed are good and evil, innocence and sin.

Second, we can see that not only is biblical monotheism inherently dualistic, but it is truly polytheistic as well. Students of A Course in Miracles are more than familiar with the sharp emphasis Jesus places in his teaching on form and content, and how the ego uses different forms to conceal the same content of separation and hate. Special relationships are the ego's favorite means for confusing its students as to its real motive, which is always to deny the reality of love and the true God, Whose nature is eternally non-dualistic: non-specific, non-personal, and totally One. However, when one examines the god of the Bible, one finds a person with many different personalities, forever changing into one or the other. He is at one moment kind, merciful, forgiving, and loving; and at others jealous, vindictive, unforgiving, and murderous. These multiple personalities in the biblical god can be understood by a psychologically sophisticated observer as simply being the expression in a single god of the projection of the fragmented mind -- the content of many in one form -- while polytheism is the expression in many gods of the same projection of the fragmented mind -- the content of many in many forms. We can therefore conclude that although the forms of these monotheistic religions differ markedly from the polytheistic and pantheistic ones, their dualistic content remains the same.

Thus, in all three theological forms we find the same dualistic expression of the ego's denial of the true God's inherent undifferentiated, perfect, and unchanging Oneness. This is why, though it is stated differently in the text, Jesus uses theology as one of his examples of the "ego's plan for forgiveness," which makes the error of sin real by having its made-up god react to it. Thus, Jesus asks:

Can you find light … like the theologian, by acknowledging darkness [sin] in yourself and looking for a distant light [God or Jesus] to remove it, while emphasizing the distance? (T-9.V.6:3)

The radical nature of A Course in Miracles' theology is its uncompromising insistence on the integrity of the Oneness of God, Who has no personality, and cannot recognize as real a separated state that does not exist. Although mystics have written about the experience of Oneness throughout the ages, the theological backdrop of almost all Western expressions of these experiences has been a god who, as we have just seen, somehow creates materiality -- the world and the body -- outside himself; a god who has many human characteristics such as anger, jealousy, judgment, and destructiveness; a deity of specialness who demands retribution and punishment for the so-called wrongs or sins committed against him, or whoever his chosen or favorite people are at the moment.

This creator-god has to be supplicated, prayed to, revered, and implored to grant a kindness, a gift, a grace, or a "miracle." Pain and suffering are the columns of smoke that rise from the altars to this god who finds it pleasing that his creations suffer and sacrifice as proof of their love for him. This god who created the physical universe, glorified in the Bible, for no apparent reason allows natural catastrophes to occur in this universe, and sometimes causes them himself when his children disobey him.

How then is one to approach such a deity? What supplication or formula can be devised that will end up pleasing him? However erratic the nature of the specialness of homo sapiens may be, it cannot compare in intense unpredictability to the biblical god's, whose behavioral range from mercy to viciousness defies any rational explanation. He is consistently portrayed as arbitrarily roaming between the two, with no justifiable reason given for his cruel and vindictive actions. Any creature who bows down to the creator-god of this world must fear him deeply, because his irrational nature and disposition could cause him to shift suddenly and incomprehensibly from love to rage.

The biblical god is not only the creator of the world, but one who directly intervenes to correct the sinfulness that he clearly believes has occurred in the Garden of Eden. A true believer in this god should pause and ask: Why did such an omniscient and omnipotent god permit such sinfulness to occur in the first place? Was he perhaps not all-knowing and all-powerful? Were the creatures, Adam and Eve, that he created marred or doomed to failure from their inception? And, in the words of Omar Khayyam, "Did the hand of the Potter shake?" However one resolves this dilemma, still must this deity be held accountable as an accomplice to the sin of his children. In fact, this god can be seen as having set his creations up for sin by forbidding them to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, knowing ahead of time that they would disobey him. Their sin would therefore necessitate his expelling them from Paradise as punishment for their disobedience, the sinners nevermore to return from this cruel banishment until this god's anger is appeased through their atonement.

All this clearly makes the biblical god as insane as his children, for now we are to believe that a part of the All can become separate from it, a clear and logical impossibility that is nonetheless witnessed to by the creator-god's responses and behavior. The culmination of this god's insanity is then presented in the New Testament. There, the writers of the gospels and epistles tell us that he sends his only-begotten son, Jesus, to redeem the world through an atoning death of suffering and sacrifice. The real Jesus, however, asks us in the Course:

Can you believe our Father really thinks this way? It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind (T-3.I.2:8-9).

It is important to note that the god of the Bible is simply the projection of the collective ego mind of the Sonship, and his presence can often be hidden in subtle and secular veils. At one point in the Course, for example, Jesus refers to one of these non-religious forms as the god of sickness. Needless to say, there are countless other forms of this god that are the object of the ego's worship, such as "power, fame, money, [and] physical pleasure" (M-13.2:6). Have you, as a student of A Course in Miracles, accepted the total removal of such graven images and false thinking from your mind -- regardless of their form -- to allow the Holy One to enter? A thorough mind-searching for such "bitter idols," to use the Course's phrase for the world's images of Jesus, would be a worthwhile endeavor for all Course students who sincerely wish to remember their true Creator and Source.

How different all this is from the true, living God Jesus presents to us in his Course! God, our Source, is pure, radiant, and limitless Love, an abstract non-personal Totality, Whose Reality is Mind and spirit -- formless, changeless, forever perfect, forever One. The creations of our Source abide within the vast and limitless Mind that is their Home, and share all the characteristics that this Source contains.

The God of A Course in Miracles does not create outside Itself, and since there can be nothing outside perfect Oneness and Wholeness, it must follow that there is literally nothing outside God. In this one statement, therefore, is mostly all of Western religious thought undone, and the incompatibility of this theology with that of A Course in Miracles clearly shown. That is why it is imperative that students of A Course in Miracles not confuse its non-dualistic God with the biblical dualistic figure. Even with a cursory review given to the Course's thought system, it should be clear to all its students that the god of the Bible cannot be reconciled with the true, living God of A Course in Miracles. They rest on mutually exclusive principles and premises.

The true nature of Heaven, therefore, is that of perfect non-duality, a Oneness in which there is no differentiation nor individuality, and ultimately, not even two beings called God and Christ, Creator and created. These are dualistic concepts that are meaningful to the dualistic mind of the separation, but can have no meaning to a Mind that is One. This God does not have to be supplicated, prayed to, and implored, for only a mind that believes in duality and scarcity -- the state of the separation -- could have miscreated such a dualistic god, involved with a dualistic world. As Jesus writes about God and prayers:

Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach Him thus. He cannot hear requests that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His (W-pI.183.7:3-5).

Moreover, the God that Jesus presents to us in A Course in Miracles does not even know about the separation, the world, the body, or individual personalities, for if such awareness were there, it would make the "tiny, mad idea" real, and the integrity of the perfect God would have been compromised. Passages in the Course that suggest that God is aware of His separated Sons must be understood metaphorically; i.e., Jesus' way of speaking to minds that could never understand the unified Mind of Love that lies totally beyond them. If these metaphoric words are taken literally, the ego would have achieved its goal of bringing truth to the illusion, Heaven to the world, and Oneness to separation and fragmentation.

In summary, we state again that it is this inherent non-dualistic nature of Heaven, in which no individuality exists, that is Jesus' basis for teaching in A Course in Miracles that the thought of separation -- the origin of all experiences of individuality -- is illusory and unreal, as indeed must the dreaming world be that arose from this thought. Forgiveness, the Course's correction for all expressions of this "tiny, mad idea," can only be understood in light of Heaven's Oneness, for it undoes the dualistic premises of the ego's thought system that are found within our special relationships. Once again, this process will be explored in Part II of this article.

We close now with the conclusion of the chapter in Awaken from the Dream that discussed the state of Heaven, an apt summary to describe the indescribable Oneness of Reality that we never left:

Created by Love, in Love, we as Christ are Love. As Thoughts in the Mind of Love, we can never leave this Source. Without beginning and without end, this Love that is Christ flows unceasingly from Itself to Its Source, and from Its Source to Itself. Thus, there is no place where God the Father ends and Christ the Son begins (W-pI.132.12:4). We are forever an Effect, joined with Him Who is our Cause (Awaken from the Dream, first edition pp. 47-48; second edition p. 26).