"Teach Only Love, for that is what you are."
- A Course In Miracles

Teach Only Love, for that is what you are. This phrase occurs in two sections of A Course In Miracles. It appears in "The Message of the Crucifixion" and "The Relinquishment of Attack." Both sections are close to each other in the text.

The words ring with much comfort for me as, when I see them, I hear the voice of Dr. Jerry Jampolsky speaking them. I met Dr. Jampolsky in January, 1983. But, before I go on to tell about that meeting, let me first tell about how I first knew of Dr. Jampolsky.

From 1979 to 1982 I attended classes and workshops at a holistic educational center called Interface Foundation. It was at an event in the autumn of 1981 that Interface presented a documentary film on The Center for Attitudinal Healing, a center founded by Dr. Jampolsky. The Center for Attitudinal Healing was a meeting and outreach center for children with catastrophic illnesses. The film showed children talking about themselves, their short lives, and the meetings at the center. I remember one of the children saying that he thought living here was like being one of God's books; you're on loan to the world, your family and the people you know and, when your time is up, you go back to God's library.

Dr. Jampolsky spoke also. One of the things he said was that, when he read the words, "Teach only Love, for that is what you are," in A Course In Miracles, that those were the words that inspired him to start The Center for Attitudinal Healing. He said the children taught as much as anyone at the center.

Interface Foundation was (Interface Foundation is now closed, but in its place is the Omega Institute) in the Boston area. After the showing of the documentary, there was an invitation to form a group to start a similar center in the Boston area. I became a part of that group, but there was something missing and, more than a half year later, the group did not seem to be any closer to founding a center than it was at the start.

Dr. Jamposky was inspired by words from A Course In Miracles to start The Center for Attitudinal Healing. It was not necessary for everyone who worked or volunteered at the center to have studied ACIM, but there was a practice that took place at the center, and in the early days, the first few years after the Course dictation was completed. The practice was of "asking together." Whenever they had a question about how to proceed, what to do next, how to answer or respond to a situation, they would, as a group, sit quietly and ask silently for direction.

This "asking together" was what was missing from the Boston meetings. At the start, there were several health practitioners who wanted to offer services. And there were others who had no health practice, but saw an opportunity to get brand name people on a board of directors and raise huge sums of money to run a center.

The Center for Attitudinal Healing sent us a copy of their entire procedure, how they started, what they did, and how they did it. We each received a copy. Still, the group did not get off the ground. The following summer, the group was fading and I made plans for a cross country trip.

I had not intended to stay on the west coast beyond autumn, but to fast-forward a bit, I was there, in the Bay area into the beginning of the following year. After the holidays, I decided to look up The Center for Attitudinal Healing. It was in Tiberon, just across the Golden Gate Bridge. As it happened, in those days, one afternoon a week Dr. Jampolsky held an open house at the center.

Here is a funny part: when the Boston group talked about starting a center, it would sound as if a fifty story building was going to be needed to house the elaborate center. When I found The Center for Attitudinal Healing, it was funny because it was just a small house, painted yellow with a hand painted rainbow sign outside. The meetings were held in a large room that was the main room of the house. Yet there were the profound healing stories from the children in the film. The place seemed larger than life because what happened there was "all encompassing." It was larger than any of us and it was us. It was Love.

The meeting room filled with people that afternoon. Dr. Jampolsky talked and answered questions for two hours. When the session was over, Dr. Jampolsky crossed the room and shook my hand. We talked a minute, but there wasn't much else to say. I knew that he knew what he was doing, that he had grokked the Course. He must have seen something in me because, at that time, I hadn't studied the Course myself, but I had studied with some of the outstanding teachers of healing, and I would remember the day.

Later, when I first began teaching the Course, I'd tell people that, if they got the section, "The Message of the Crucifixion" in the Course, if they would fully understand just that one section, they would understand the whole Course. But, A Course In Miracles is, in essence, an intellectual spirituality. It takes quite a lot of focus to really get it and practice it. This is, of course, why the Course tells us that we are needed to teach it. Not in the form of proselytizing, but to live its teaching, to teach by example, to show, in defenselessness, who we really are.

Understanding the lengthy intellectual pursuit that A Course In Miracles is, Dr. Jampolsky wrote Love is Letting Go of Fear. This is a little book that is the distillation of A Course In Miracles. In the realm of A Course In Miracles, this is a classic. I recommend it highly for anyone just starting the Course or for anyone who finds the Course difficult to get through.

One of Dr. Jampolsky's other book's, Teach Only Love: Twelve Principles of Attitudinal Healing is also a classic and a natural progression from Love is Letting Go of Fear. You will find several other books and recordings by Jerry Jampolsky. He has a gentle way of telling a story, many of which cause teary eyes.