What does the course propose?
Jesus tells us in the course:
Nothing real can be threatened,nothing unreal exists,In this lies the peace of God.
Let's first determine what is real. Real is capitalized because we are talking about the sphere of God. Reality is what God created, and God created only his Son. Us, and he created nothing else.The unreal is everything that God did not create; the one who made it was the Son of God.
Note the difference between the words "create" and "make," and between "Son" (capitalized) and "son" (lowercase). The world as you see it was not created by God, nor was anything that comprises it. It was made by the Son of God; therefore, for God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit does not exist, since only what God created exists. In this lies the peace of God.
Note: Some translations use the word "resides" instead of "is rooted." The term "resides" is misused. The correct word is "is rooted." This is because they are not synonyms. We will elaborate further on this topic later.
Free Will.
You will notice—if you are a reader of the Course—that speaking of free will at this point is not following the Course's main line of thought. That is true. You will understand why later.Having free will means that God gave you the freedom to create what is good, loving, and everything that aligns with His thoughts. You do not have free will to create evil. At some point, Jesus will put an end to your false creations, which are those that do not align with God's thoughts. You do not have free will to wish harm upon another person, to be envious, to try to imprison others, to seek to enslave others, and certainly not to perform those infamous energy spells to achieve anything. We will call these spells witchcraft. Create, together with God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and Mary, only good, because, as the Course says, only good works.
The introduction to A Course in Miracles.
It begins by saying: 'This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the moment you decide to take it is voluntary.' Correction: You don't decide, and it's not voluntary. It's involuntary, which is why you don't decide. At some point in your life, Jesus puts an end to your false creations.' Then it continues: 'Having free will does not mean that you can set the curriculum yourself. It only means that you can choose what you want to learn at any given moment.' Correction: It only means that you can choose what you want to learn until Jesus puts an end to your false creations; therefore, 'at any given moment' is incorrect. Then it says: 'This course does not intend to teach the meaning of Love (capitalized), not lowercase as it is written in the book. Jesus dictated to Helen whether it should be capitalized or lowercase, for that is far beyond what can be taught. (In my book, the word is not absent.)' It continues: It aims, however, to clear away the obstacles that prevent you from experiencing the presence of Love (with a capital L), which is written in lowercase in the book, and which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of Love (with a capital L) is fear (with a lowercase L), but that which is all-encompassing cannot have opposites.
It continues: This course, therefore, can be summarized very simply as follows:
Nothing Real (with a capital L) can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
In this lies the Peace of God.
The book uses "resides" instead of "lies," which is incorrect. Peace is capitalized because it belongs to the realm of God.
You were probably surprised that the content was changed. What happened is very simple. They changed it. And you can't understand something you don't understand. And you don't understand it because they changed it for you and they changed it for me.
Remember what it says about free will. Add this to what we said in the other section. You're probably starting to understand what free will is. Now, you'll see why we say we don't follow a continuous line in the course. You'll see it reflected in the fact that we've already talked about free will and now we're doing it again. We'll return to the preface later.
We have two different distinctions. Reality is Knowledge, it is Truth, which you cannot alter at all, even though you may think you can, you cannot. It is what God created: His family, Himself, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, and He created nothing else. It is immutable and unchanging, eternal without beginning or end. It has no opposites. It is governed by a law: the Law of God, or love.
Then we have unreality, which is the world of perception, alterable, interpretive, with its beginnings and ends. It has no facts, only situations that can be interpreted in different ways depending on the perceiver. That is why we say it is the world of perception, and to perceive, you need the senses and the body, which God did not create. It is based on our belief in scarcity, loss, death, and separation. This is a belief, not a fact. You are not separate from God, and you can never be. Hence the saying: What God has joined together, let no one separate.
From knowledge and perception arise two different systems of thought. As the course states: they are completely opposed to each other.