Miracle Lab
Using the workbook like a fitness centre for your mind
Welcome to the lab! It was created after a suggestion by course teacher Julie in the Autumn of 2024. It began as an experiment in using the course practically in daily life and has since become a place where we can share the teaching of A Course In Miracles with each other. Julie left for the US in November and since then John Craig has been leading the class. It is 90 minutes long and this year our focus will be on applying the workbook lessons every day.
We will read and discuss lesson points. We will not enter into topics outside the course purview since our time needs to be used as constructively as possible for the maximum results. What results can we expect?
One lesson each day means that each week we shall have covered seven lessons when we meet. Each lesson builds on the previous one in a most ingenious fashion. This first week of January we have had the following lessons.
The purpose of these lessons is to prepare us for completely changing the way we currently think. The course teaches us that we have a right mind and an ego-based mind. The ego thinks it knows. But does it really? As I write this I am practising lesson 6: I am never upset for the reason I think.
What does this lesson achieve when practiced sincerely? For me, it reveals how often I blame external people or circumstances for my feelings of upset. ACIM teaches that all problems are self-generated and then projected outward onto others, who become the targets of our blame.
But what does it feel like to fully grasp this lesson? In a word: liberating.
Suddenly, it is no longer someone else's fault that you feel lonely, sad, frustrated, angry, or despondent. Instead, all previous lessons prepare you to accept that:
You really don’t know anything at all.
The causes of your problems lie in thoughts that are entirely without substance or reality.
This realization fosters humility, acting as a reset to a blank slate. However, this shift isn’t always easy. Resistance often arises, as the ego naturally resists lessons that challenge its authority.
No longer is it his or her fault you feel lonely or sad or frustrated or angry or despondent. All of the previous lessons have prepared you for this experience since you have already understood that you really do not know anything at all about anything at all. Further we have practised that the ‘causes’ of our problems lie in thoughts that in fact have no substance or reality at all. That allows us humility. It is like being reset to zero with a blank slate. Naturally it is not that simple and so we will feel a certain resistance to these ideas. That shows us we have egos that do not like the lesson :)
How we do exercises. We repeat the ideas taught as prompted in the workbook lessons. We get in touch with a real feeling or problem within us and begin to correct the wrong thinking of the ego. The aim is to think like the right mind in us can. The course tells us that right thinking is always available with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Without a rigorous daily training like this though we may wish to be free of our egoic thinking in fact it proves to be extremely difficult. The ego is indeed a formidable force it appears. That is why we need the daily practice. In my own training at the Miracle Ministry Academy here is how we learn about the use of workbook lessons:
Some of the ideas you will find difficult to believe, and others will seem quite startling. It does not matter. You are merely asked to apply them as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them or even to believe them. You are merely asked to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and show you they are true. We often associate practical exercises with: • No thought—get the mind out of the way • No words—must go beyond them • Emphasis on feeling • Visualization of imagery • Focus on the body (breath, sounds, sensations)
While there are elements of no words and use of imagery in Course exercises, this list as a whole results in a disconnect between the practice and the teachings, making the teachings seem impractical, not experiential, not the real thing, just “head stuff.” But in the Course, practice is simply the use of the ideas. • Repeating them • Holding them in mind to the exclusion of all else • Applying them to others • Applying them to yourself • Applying them to situations and events • Applying them to objects in your visual field
How does the Course have us use the ideas? There is no mystery about this. The most common way involves a simple, two-step structure you see throughout the Workbook and even the Text:
1. Get in touch with something in your mind that needs correction. e.g. Various negative emotions: fear, anger, anxiety, worry, depression, etc. Unloving perceptions of another. Belittling perceptions of oneself
2. Then repeat an idea to correct it. This idea is the distillation of the teaching that has been given. This is where the work happens; don’t shy away from it. The quality of the repetition is crucial. It should be slow, focused, and sincere.
Exercise GET IN TOUCH WITH SOMETHING THAT NEEDS CORRECTION
Let’s do a prayer here to help us with the exercise
Think of some pattern in you that has caused problems in your relationships and in your life, but that has been very stubborn. Be specific. Notice how it seems to split your mind into two camps—the good and the evil, the light and the dark. Notice how you have negotiated with it, in an attempt to make sure that when it expressed itself, it wasn’t so destructive.
Have you tried to lay the blame for it on things that happened to you when you were younger? On somebody else? On Karma? On your ancestors?
REPEAT AN IDEA TO CORRECT IT
Now look at this pattern in you and say, This is a miscreation of my own mind. My own mistaken thought made this pattern. I have miscreated in a very genuine sense. And then say, But this miscreation is not real. And so there is no real conflict between it and the light in me. Then say, I will stop miscreating now. I will stop nurturing whatever thoughts fuel this pattern.