Welcome

Welcome to The Unlearning School. The site is about working with A Course in Miracles: for more about the Course and further links, see below.
A Course in Miracles is a complete course of learning for any individual to study in private for their own relief and enlightenment. The purpose of the commentaries here is to clarify my own thoughts about the Course and to invite further consideration of this profound and beautiful work.
Some of the ideas ... you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter ...You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.
Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required. (Workbook, introduction)
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Start the Day 12 Expect a little turbulence



"Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing." (Ben Hogan)



You can't change anything without some upheaval. If you want to anything to be different in yourself, your way of living and your relationships, in the process of adjustment some things seem to get worse at first, instead of better. The bad old ways are at least familiar, while the good to come is still uncertain and indistinct.



A Course in Miracles is a radically transformative way of thinking. Its view of reality contradicts our own entirely. It may not be your conscious intention when you pick it up, but the Course aims for nothing less than to lift your mind free from the hole it has dug itself into. From its perspective, we are living in a state of collective insanity, a world in which everything is backwards and upside down (T18 I 6). We all know we have problems and anxieties, but now we begin to learn that they have their source in our mind only and can only be resolved from the inside out. Your upside-down perception has been ruinous to your peace of mind...Now we are going to try to see this differently (W72 8)



So the whole process is one of undoing, unlearning, a reversal of everything we have learned to believe is true. In the transition there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual disorientation may occur. But fear it not, for it means only that you have been willing to let go your hold on the distorted frame of reference that seemed to hold your world together (T16 VI 7).



What is 'backwards and upside-down', then, that needs to be undone, unlearned or reversed, to restore us to peace and freedom of mind?

  • You are reluctant to give fully and freely, because in the material world, giving is sacrifice. One person's gain means another person's loss. The reverse position is To have, give all to all (T6 V A). The more freely you give for giving's sake, the freer and more fulfilled you feel.
  • Your actions and decisions are motivated far more by fear than by love. You can reverse this by letting go of fear and choosing to be guided by love instead. What is the loving thing to do?
  • Instead of thinking of yourself as a vulnerable body, a separate being preoccupied with your own survival and well-being, you begin to think of yourself as a creative mind. Instead of seeing yourself as an individual in competition with everyone else, you see yourself as part of a great unity.
  • Instead of looking outside yourself for explanations, answers and comfort, you look inwards to find them in your heart and deeper thoughts.
  • You learn to reverse your view of cause and effect. For example, you do not assume that you are upset (or happy) because of what has happened to you. Rather, you accept that you chose to be upset (or happy) and then blamed someone or something outside you. Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own (T31 III 1). What you see and experience are your own fearful projections reflected back at you. Sickness is not caused by the body, the body can only mirror the decisions of the mind. The world did not make us, we make the world. And so on.

To reinterpret everything like this is mind-boggling at best, and at worst impossible to consistently achieve. It seems to require us to contort our thinking so far from what comes naturally. We think it is natural to be jealous, angry, sick, afraid, to swing from love to hate, to be sad, lonely and in the end to die. The Course tells us, it is not natural, but learned, and mistaken. And we can learn to think differently.



Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point. This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict, which can become very acute. But the outcome is as certain as God (T2 III 3).