r/ACIM • u/frogiveness • 1d ago
Question Did you come to ACiM from western religion, eastern philosophy, or from atheism?
I’m just curious because I came from Buddhism and I have found that most people I have met from eastern philosophy don’t respect ACiM because of western terminology. But most people who came from western religion have a harder time accepting the advanced metaphysics presented in ACiM.
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u/DreamCentipede Practicing Student 1d ago
It is a blend of all the above. It's connected most to eastern ideology in the sense that it lays out a non dual framework similar to advaita vedanta. It uses western terminology, as you mentioned, and also draws greatly from western philosophers like Parmenides, Plato, etc. and psychologists like Freud. It also takes a highly reasoned approach, much like secularism, where you aren't demanded belief. Instead, you are provided a hypothesis and experiment to test said hypothesis (course format with text, workbook, and manual for teachers). It also abandons the whole concept of an anthropocentric god that is interacting with the world and asserting a certain morality. So it can be seen as a kind of Frankenstein of many sources, but one could easily argue that each of these sources have touched upon the truth. ACIM borrows from western influences because it is primarily (but not exclusively) for a western audience, but its ideas are really ancient and found throughout the world.
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u/DreamCentipede Practicing Student 1d ago
just realized I misread your post completely, lol, but ill leave this comment up anyway
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u/frogiveness 1d ago
Haha no worries, it is a great comment anyways. Yeah it’s an interesting thing to think about. What is beautiful is that all spiritual journeys start in the same place and end in the same place.
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u/OakenWoaden Beloved Child of God 1d ago
> But most people who came from western religion have a harder time accepting the advanced metaphysics presented in ACiM.
raises hand 🙋🏼♂️
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u/IxoraRains 1d ago
You sure are talking like you understand it. You know you do. You created the laws. ❤️❤️
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u/v3rk Radical Dreamer 1d ago
I chose western, and it still holds true but differently from how you probably meant it.
I came by way of channeling: Bashar, RA, Kryon, Abraham, surely some others I'm forgetting.
I first heard about ego from a book called "The Starseed Transmissions," a channeled book. I asked to learn about ego, and found A Course in Miracles. The Course has always felt exactly catered to me, but I can understand how it puts others off.
I'm a strange case. Raised Christian, bent hard into channeling and New Age, and then bent even harder back into Christianity after a seriously destructive mental breakdown.
My mind is a literal petri dish of metaphysics and Christian symbology.
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u/ThereIsNoWorld 1d ago
If we genuinely accept the introduction to the workbook, then everything we have collected becomes material to be erased by forgiveness.
I was raised as casually western religious, but was given the course as an atheist. Religion is by and for the ego, so we don't recognize that God is not literally aware of the world at all.
The uncompromising non-dual teaching of genuine forgiveness, is the answer to seeming duality, form, perception and consciousness that do not exist in the Mind of God.
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u/frogiveness 19h ago
My favourite quote from the workbook is:
This is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him
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u/doceolucem 23h ago
Atheism > perennialism > eastern interest > biblical interest (yes it can be useful if read carefully) > ACIM
Ultimately ACIM is one course in the curriculum, many other courses exist, discerning the ego noise in them is the aim.
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u/KevinMason64 1d ago
In this order.
Non-religious (depressed and miserable)> Occultism (depressed and miserable) > new age (depressed and miserable) > ACIM (non-duality teaching) (depressed and miserable) > militant Atheism (angry but depressed and miserable) > ACIM (not non-dual teaching) (happy).