A Course of Love is the beginning of a life journey . . . not an end.

Opening your Mind to the Wisdom of your Heart, the first ACOL Online Conference . . . is also a beginning, not an end.

This conference, Open your Mind to the Wisdom of your Heart, may be the only of its kind. There may be another conference, there may not. But one thing is sure: there will never be another like this one.

It is a beginning, because it was new.

Thank you to all who joined and shared with me, and many warm and insightful friends and colleagues, for this twentieth anniversary of the reception of A Course of Love. These recorded sessions are still available to experienced. For those of you who missed it, see: https://acourseoflove.org/online-conference/

The sharing of this conference was a joy! The first part of the joy was it’s initial suggestion by James Kelly (pictured), who became our host. I probably said it three or four times during the conference—how touched I was that he had the idea for a celebration of this particular anniversary, of this day that my life changed forever: the day in which Jesus spoke the first words of ACOL to me: “This is a course in miracles. It is a required course.”

These words were as startling to me when they came as was “how” they came. How did it happen, how could it be, that it began just as ACIM did? It’s even more startling now, as I recall the impact of the next lines of the two books:

 

 

 

ACIM                                                          

This is a course in miracles.
It is a required course.
Only the time you take it is voluntary.

ACOL

This is a course in miracles
It is a required course.
The time for you to take it is now.
You are ready and miracles are needed.

The time for you to take it is now. You are ready…

These received words are the start of a transformation that begins from the inside out. It’s the one thing I wasn’t sure the conference fully captured, and maybe that is the way it is. . . the transformation too pervasive to have words assigned to it. This transformation doesn’t stand apart from us, something we can see as “elevated.”  The “elevation” exists, a response of the heart to the receiving we each did, a response that shows up in our living and relating: one to one, and one to many. This course starts with the transformative, which slowly and surely becomes an intimate sharing of who we are. This is what Jesus asks of us, isn’t it? This very movement, through giving and receiving as one, in union and relationship, is what becomes dialogue and creation of the new.

When we start realizing that giving and receiving truly are one, we know not to elevate the giver and discount the receiver—not me, and not you. This is essential to realize. There is no separation between giver and receiver in truth. This is the change asked of us! Being who we are in unity and relationship is giving and receiving as one in truth. This is our “elevation” and what propels the movement of The New into the world.

While we are all receivers, for me the reception was also participation in the creation of A Course of Love. I shared a lot on this during the conference. In general, people have been quite interested in how this course came to be, and it was fun to share.

ACOL has been at the center of my life for twenty years, and I am given to shepherd it to it’s true potential, a potential that can’t be realized through “learning.” I haven’t watched every video of the conference yet, but I’ve watched almost everything, and I am assured that very little occurred in the category of teaching or learning, and that something new was demonstrated. As Jesus says, to demonstrate is to show our feelings. Feelings abounded! Feelings, I trust, were evoked!

I spoke of both the joys (relationship with Jesus and with friends) and the practical life difficulties of being the first receiver. Even while we can trust that all is happening as it’s meant to, I shared my challenges to assure you: it’s not “unspiritual” to admit to the tough times, especially as you and I have remained willing and more—eager—to continue.

And I want you to know that I will continue.

Words continue to come to me from time outside of time. I’ve begun (https://www.mariperron.com/the-jesus-chronicles) and will slowly share these additional revelations with you, as I’m more clear that ever, that sharing is the way of the new: sharing in union and relationship. What we know in truth comes in relationship as well as union. Jesus has been insistent on this throughout ACOL.

ACOL is the beginning of a life journey . . . not the end.

This life journey is to be shared. That is very close to being the whole of it. You and I, in our holy relationships, SHARE THIS JOURNEY TO THE NEW TIME and CREATE THE NEW as we go—THROUGH THIS SHARING. There is no other way. It happens in relationship. Intimate relationships are the very essence of giving and receiving as one. They allow us to know…together. And it is there, in togetherness and dialogue, that the new is discovered, experienced, explored . . .and created.

 

YOU AND I ALREADY SHARE THIS JOURNEY TO THE NEW

 

 

So let’s go back to the beginning of ACOL for a moment:

A Course in Miracles opened a door by threatening the ego. All those who, with egos weakened, walked this world with the hope of leaving ego behind, with miracle-minded intent, have awakened human beings to a new identity. They have ushered in a time of ending our identity crisis. Not since Jesus walked the earth has such a time been upon humankind. P.5

The ego is what you made. Christ is what God made. The ego is your extension of who you think you are. Christ is God’s extension of who He is. In order to end the need for learning, you must know who you are and what this means. Where the original Course in Miracles was a course in thought reversal and mind training, a course to point out the insanity of the identity crisis and dislodge the ego’s hold, this is a course to establish your identity and to end the reign of the ego. p.8

This time we take a direct approach, an approach that seems at first to leave behind abstract learning and the complex mechanisms of the mind that so betray you. We take a step away from intellect, the pride of the ego, and approach this final learning through the realm of the heart. This is why, to end confusion, we call this course A Course of Love. p.44

ACIM

The course does not aim at teaching
the meaning of love, for that is
beyond what can be taught. I.1

ACOL

What love is cannot be taught.
It cannot be learned.
But it can be recognized. C:2.1

No matter how we take ACOL, we take it “in.” We take it to heart. By “taking it in” in this way, we’re already sharing it…with Jesus. This initial sharing prepares a place within each of us. It opens the spaciousness we need in order to invite each other “in.” This “shared” inward movement becomes our recognition of who we are in truth. It doesn’t mean constant contact, but that you and I can “hold all in our hearts” and, at the same time, move in a flow that will allow this essential movement to The New to be as rapid and expansive . . . as miracles.

We are ready. We have begun. 

My thanks to go out to every single one of you who are “in it” with me. Together we begin. Together we are ready. Together we create the new! In this time of Christ, I wish you the fullness of Christ-consciousness and elegant and reflective and holy moments of joy on this road we travel.