Question 68 from
The Most Commonly Asked Questions About 
A Course in Miracles

By Gloria and Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.


Chapter 5:  THE CURRICULUM


68) Why is the language of A Course in Miracles so difficult to read and understand? Why couldn't Jesus have written it more simply? 

It is always a temptation for followers of spiritual paths to change the original inspiration and make it what they think it should be, rather than the way it was given. And the same phenomenon occurs with A Course in Miracles as well. Rather than adopting an attitude of acceptance of what is, and then adapting to it, students are tempted to make the Course adapt to them. This is the case with the style of writing one finds in A Course in Miracles, which at times seems to many students to be dense, elliptical, obscure, and simply too difficult to understand. 

However, there is a reason for the Course's style, and it would be doing Jesus' pedagogy a great disservice to want to change it. A Course in Miracles is written in such a way that it demands that its students pay very careful attention to what is written. This is not a book -- and we are speaking primarily here about the text -- that can be speed-read.  Almost all students have experienced the necessity to read the same sentence several times before beginning to understand it; or have agonized over the proper subjects of the pronouns. But what they usually find, if they are faithful to Jesus' purpose, is that through the very process of figuring out the meaning of a sentence or passage, they have uncovered a level of meaning they would otherwise not have received. The "careful study" that Jesus urges for his students, discussed above, is meant very literally. And the writing style ensures that serious students will give Jesus the attention and dedication he is asking for. Once students of the Course understand its teachings, they will be astounded as to how "simple, clear, and direct" -- words Jesus himself uses to describe his Course -- A Course in Miracles truly is.

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

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