Question 50 from
The Most Commonly Asked Questions About 
A Course in Miracles

By Gloria and Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.


Chapter 4: JESUS


50) If Jesus is the first to have accepted the Atonement for himself, as A Course in Miracles states, what about people like the Buddha?

This reference comes in the section in the clarification of terms called "The Holy Spirit" and states:

He [the Holy Spirit) has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out His plan [the Atonement] since he was the first to complete his own part perfectly (C-6.2:2; italics ours).
It would be tempting for students of A Course in Miracles to use this passage as a way of establishing bragging rights that "our guy" (Jesus) is better than "your guy" (Buddha, or any other enlightened teacher).  But can one really believe that Jesus would indulge in such spiritual specialness? A better way to understand this passage is to recall the fact that time is not linear, and so there is nothing in A Course in Miracles to suggest when it was that Jesus accepted the Atonement for himself. And since, again, time is not linear, the whole question becomes meaningless, except for being a valuable learning opportunity in which students may release their own thoughts of specialness. It is also helpful for the student to recall that Jesus states the following, in the section in fact right before the one where the above statement appears:
Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one. Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. Their names are legion, but we will not go beyond the names the course itself employs (C-5. 1:3-6).
In other words, he is speaking only within a Christian framework, and so it would be inappropriate to discuss Teachers from other spiritualities, whose "names are legion."

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

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