Awakening through A Course In Miracles

This review is from: Awakening Through a Course in Miracles (Paperback)

I studied A Course in Miracles for 19 years and thought I understood it. But reading Awakening Through A Course In Miracles took me to a much deeper level. What is so different about this book is that the author, David Hoffmeister, has been there and done that. Since his awakening almost two decades ago, David has clarified the message of the Course across the United States and in over 20 foreign countries. He consistently speaks with the wisdom and unconditional love of the Christ Mind.

The book is a selection of David's best teachings and small group dialogues on key Course topics. His desire is that you clarify your understanding and accept God's plan for salvation, healing and happiness. Jesus assures us that God's plan for salvation works and David is living proof that it does.

I found it comforting to see that David teaches in the same way Jesus does. In the first chapter of the Course Jesus says, "I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from the bottom up. I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. Sane perception induces sane choosing. I cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right choice."

David takes the same practical approach, "We come together open to having errors of thought and misperceptions healed or corrected from the bottom up. In other words, we do not start with the abstract (Love of God, Knowledge, Heaven) as a solution to perceived problems."

This is why David's dialogues with students make good learning devices. He says, "The process could be described as a very open dialogue in which no questions, concerns, or topics are off limits; a kind of spiritual psychotherapy in which everyday perceived problems are traced back to the false beliefs and resulting misperceptions in the mind... Cultivating a sincere intention to disce
the nature of ego thought, raising it to awareness, leads you to a greater willingness to choose peace instead of fear."

David makes the metaphysical context readily understandable. The book contains two annotated charts: one clarifies the Course's projector analogy and the other explains the Five Levels of Mind. The two biggest eye-openers for me involved relationships and the reversal of cause and effect.

A Course in Miracles is a self-study program in forgiveness. Forgiveness is the means by which the thinking of the world is reversed and God is remembered. After reading it, "the reader is left in the hands of his or her own Internal Teacher," the Holy Spirit. My problem was that, after reading the Course, I still could not clearly and consistently hear the Holy Spirit. At times my enthusiasm for the Course wavered and I was not always certain of my direction.

But when I read David's book I had a powerful, uplifting experience. I learned the importance of these words in the Manual for Teachers about the developing teacher: "When he is ready to go on, he goes with mighty companions beside him... He will not go on from here alone." David is now my mighty companion and I am sure of my direction. David wrote Awakening Through A Course In Miracles so that all of us might come to awakening more quickly.

Andrew LeCompte is the author of Creating Harmonious Relationships.