ACIM Study Group at A.R.E.

There was a group that met to study A Course in Miracles at the Association for Research and Enlightenment. It met one evening a week. I made a point to attend the meeting during my stay at Virginia Beach.

Since the library at A.R.E. closed at 4 or 5 and the ACIM meeting was in the evening, I went across the street and walked on the beach to pass the time between the two.

The meeting was held in a partitioned section of the large conference room in the main A.R.E. building. Chairs were arranged in an oval shape with the "instructor" at the head of the oval. Around 40 to 50 people arrived. They all seemed to have been at this meeting in the past and they were, for the most part, older people, many were likely retired.

Everyone had the Course book with them, except me. For the first time, I was traveling without the paper version of the Course, and had only a digital version with me. I think I brought my old laptop in with me, but it would not stay on long without being plugged in to electricity. So, I probably stood out from the crowd and maybe appeared to be a newbie to the Course to some.

The class began. I cannot say I remember everything that took place in this meeting. I remember that the content was a lecture, or sermon, on one lesson in the Workbook of A Course in Miracles. It was a one-way talk in which none of the attendees said a word. When the meeting was over, again, no one said anything and most people busied themselves returning the chairs to their linear configuration.

The format of the meeting did not appeal to me. But there was to come: I decided to go back another time, thinking that maybe the first time was an off night, one dull night in a series of lively meetings.

The next time I went to the meeting, it was the same, though I do remember the Workbook Lesson from this meeting. It was Lesson 169. I remember this because it was announced at this meeting that the following week the instructor would return to the beginning of the Workbook and start over with Lesson One. The reason for this, we were told, was that the Lessons after 169 were too esoteric for the class! I must have had a jaw-dropping look of exasperation on my face on hearing this announcement, and several times I made eye contact with the instructor, but he never budged a moment from his talk to acknowledge anyone in the group.

The language in Lesson 170 is dramatic. It might have been the basis of an Anne Rice novel. Yet the lesson is thoroughly logical and a beautiful and lyrical passage in the Course.

Lesson 170 begins with this:

And it ends with this:

I did not understand the decision not to continue with the more "esoteric" lessons. For me, the more intense or esoteric the Course becomes, the more involved with it I am. My ego wanted to consume me with fury. Would the people in this group never pass Lesson 169? That would be like repeating elementary school over and over, I thought. But who was I to judge?

Every group that meets to study A Course in Miracles is different. None of them would be satisfactory to everyone. Like the Course itself, they are highly individualized. Some play recordings of other teachers, some focus in the search for the mind since they have acknowledged that they are not their bodies, some spend much time on analyzing anything that comes to mind, some are lectures, some are interactive. Wherever we go, we find what we need.

At the end of the second ACIM meeting, a lady smiled at me as she began to carry her chair back to the line. I carried mine back behind her. She turned and smiled once again. I returned the smile. Nothing was said. I left immediately after. So, that was the Holy Instant that occurred and that I remember.