Jesus has led the way. This course has come from him because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand. - ACIMOver a period of forty-three years, the great Sufi master Jalaluddin Rumi (1207 - 1273) dictated his Spiritual Couplets (Mathnawi-i-Manawi) to a scribe.
In his 1964 book The Sufis, the great contemporary Sufi teacher Idreis Shah wrote of the Mathnawi that its poetry and imagery is, "of such power in the original that its recitation produces a strangely complex exaltation of the hearer's consciousness."
"It contains jokes, fables, conversations, references to former teachers and ecstatogenic [ecstasy-inducing] methods — a phenomenal example of the method of scatter, whereby a picture is built up by multiple impact to infuse into the mind the Sufi method. This message, with Rumi as with all Sufi masters, is arranged partially in response to the environment in which he is working."Assume for a moment that A Course in Miracles is a rare spiritual classic at least on par with Rumi's 750 year old Mathnawi. How would Shah's remarks about Rumi's work apply to the Course?
- The effect of just reading or hearing the words.
- The scatter method, using jokes, fables, and conversations.
- Partially designed in response to current conditions.
The Course is a big book, highly abstract and difficult to read, and it requires a significant commitment of time. There aren't any pictures in it anywhere, just a lot of words. Surly, there has to be an easier way. The cry, "Just tell me what it says!" goes out, and it is answered.
Unfortunately, it is a lot like filtering wine through mud. Not a lot of the wine gets through the mud, and the little bit that does get through is muddy. "They lose the effect of what is in fact a special art form, created by Rumi for the express purpose of conveying meaning which he himself concedes have no actual parallel in ordinary human experience." Idreis Shah — The Sufis.
I can attest that on occasion I have been reading the Course and tears will suddenly start flowing out of my eyes and down my face, for no obvious conscious reason, accompanied by a deep inarticulate sense of boundless joy. I have never had that experience reading anything written by Kenneth Wapnick, for example.
There is no substitute for reading A Course in Miracles yourself. An easier way is not the same as a better way.
"I took a ride I didn't know what I would find there,
Another road where maybe I could see some other kind of mind there."
Got to Get You Into My Life — Lennon & McCartney
Second. The scatter method of teaching is evident throughout the Course. A theme will be explored and dropped, only to be re-visited again several times later in the book. The scatter method is a practical concession to limited attention span, different learning styles, multiple levels of psyche, and the value of repetition without indoctrination. One aim of the Course is to change how you think, and not so much to change what you think. It is not an alternate belief system in the sense of merely offering a new unorthodox credo.
Although nearly all of the conversational style, the jokes, and direct references to other teachers or psychologists were edited out by Schucman and Thetford to produce the 1972 Original Edition of the Course, those are now generally available again with the unauthorized publication of the ACIM urtext.
Third. A Course in Miracles was partially designed in response to current conditions. Many have previously suggested that the Course is superior to the Christian Gospels, and the Course was intended to correct many of the errors that crept into Christianity over the millennia. I have recently written The Easter Lily and cultural relativism in ACIM, on this subject.
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50 Spiritual Classics
Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
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