Question 69 from
The Most Commonly Asked Questions About 
A Course in Miracles

By Gloria and Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.


Chapter 5:  THE CURRICULUM


69) Can A Course in Miracles be done by myself, or do I need to have a partner? 

As we have already mentioned, A Course in Miracles is inherently a self-study curriculum. One's life -- past, present, and anticipated future -- is the classroom. All one's relationships -- whether falling into any of the three categories given in the manual ranging from superficial through a circumscribed intense relationship, to a lifetime one (M-3) -- provide the "partners" needed for the practice of forgiveness. One does not need a partner "designated" for such practice, nor does the partner have to be a student of the Course, as we discussed briefly in question 31. Anyone and everyone will do. To insist that one's partner be spiritually like-minded, and even more specifically, a student of A Course in Miracles, is to confuse form with content, and to fall into the trap of specialness that is the very thing the Course aims at undoing. As we discussed previously, the Course's definition of joining has nothing to do with bodies or externals of any kind -- "Minds are joined; bodies are not" (T-18.VI.3:1). Joining, rather, has to do with joining with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, in Whom are all members of the Sonship found as one, regardless of their spiritual path, or absence of it. 

Therefore, it does not really matter with whom one practices the lessons of forgiveness. Projection of guilt remains what it is, regardless of the form of the relationship or the nature of the person or situation on whom it is projected. Everyone and everything in the dream we call our lives offers the opportunities for recognizing that what we have perceived and made real outside our minds, has existence only within our minds. Therefore, nothing else is required for one's work with A Course in Miracles except one's life as the classroom, and the willingness to have Jesus teach us how to perceive it differently.

Reproduced with the kind permission of Gloria and Kenneth
Wapnick and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles
 

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