Annotated Syllabus
by Tom Baker
Date: August & 1st week of September
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Assignment: Text, Chapter 8, VI. The Treasure of God
Key phrase: "You made neither yourself nor your function. You made only the decision to be unworthy of both. " (paragraph 5) & "The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself." (paragraph 9)
Study questions: In a few words, what is your illusion of yourself like? How might God see Himself? What is the one question we should ask of ourselves? What is the nature of the spiritual journey? What are the conditions for the experience of truth?
Pertinent Lessons: Lesson 102, I share God's will for happiness for me.
Lesson 157, Into His Presence would I enter now.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Assignment: Text, Chapter 8, VII. The Body as a Means of Communication
Key phrase: "The ego separates through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches through it to others." (paragraph 2) & "Healing is the result of using the body solely for communication." (paragraph 10) & "Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind that is working through the body, but not in it." (paragraph 11).
Study Questions: If what the Course says about the body is true, how would that change how we see ourselves and others? From the perspective of the Course, what does it mean that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? What is the cause of disease?
Pertinent Lessons: Lesson 199, I am not a body. I am free.
Sunday, August 22, 2010 NO COURSE MEETING
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Assignment: Chapter 8, VIII. The Body as Means or End
Key phrase(s):"The whole does define the part, but the part does not define the whole." (paragraph 1) & "Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly." (paragraph 9).
Study Questions: As per paragraph #1: What is the dynamic of holistic thinking? What is the outstanding characteristic of every end the ego has accepted as its own? What does sickness demonstrate?
Pertinent Lessons: Lesson 136, Sickness is a defense against the truth
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Assignment: Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception
Key phrase:"The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal all errors, to take no thought of the body as separate and to accomplish all things in my name. This not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. The Name of God's Son is one, and you are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this Oneness. Our minds are whole because they are one. If you are sick you are withdrawing from me. Yet you cannot withdraw from me alone. You can only withdraw from yourself and me." (paragraph 7)
Study questions: If Jesus is Lord, what is he the Lord of? What is your favorite form of sleep? What constitutes "the unification of purpose?"
Pertinent Lessons: Review IV: Lesson 161, Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
Sunday, September 19 & 26 2010
Assignment: Chapter 9, I. The Acceptance of Reality
Key phrase: "Ultimately everyone must remember the Will of God, because ultimately everyone must recognize himself." (paragraph 9) & "Willing against reality, though impossible, can be made into a very persistent goal even though you do not want it?" (paragraph 12)
Study Questions: How have you understood the Will of God before A Course In Miracles?
What does it mean to ask the Holy Spirit "only for what you want" (paragraph 7)?
Study questions: If Jesus is Lord, what is he the Lord of? What is your favorite form of sleep? What constitutes "the unification of purpose?"
Pertinent Lessons:
Lesson 100, My part is essential to God's plan for salvation.
Lesson 101, God's will for me is perfect happiness.
Lesson 102, I share God's Will for happiness for me.
For those beginning the Course, see my website: and look at the the article, The Clarification of Terms, and for the following articles under Archives 2010: Beginning A Course In Miracles, Projection, and Lesson 25 & The Meaning of Meaning.
Paragraph #1: We have become afraid of our own will which is identical with God's will. God's will for us is perfect happiness that in Lesson 101 is taken to mean no longer suffering for penance for our "sins."
Paragraph #2: What we experience as the fear of God is really the fear of our own reality. When confronted with our own reality we panic. In front of and blocking our own reality is the self we think we are and this is where we find refuge: love me for who I think I am. Yet beneath this demand is a longing to be loved and accepted for the "uninvented self" or the "holy self" that is the will of God or the "I am" that is still as God created. In other words, God's will for me is to be what I really am and that feels like joy.
Paragraph #3: However, what we really are is mostly outside of our conscious awareness and we are afraid of this unknown, mostly unexperienced consciousness that we are delightfully one with all. As a result we need a Guide who does know what our reality is to help us back to the experience of what we really are.
Paragraph #4: Our true will cannot help us because we have imprisoned it beyond our own awareness, thus we must depend upon the Holy Spirit or Jesus as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit to recognize what we have hidden from ourselves. Kathy has been the Holy Spirit for me sometimes when she has loved me just for me. Children and animals are often excellent channels for the Holy Spirit and the Teacher of God makes himself or herself as channel on purpose so we can be the occasion for a person to recognize their true selves. We tend to experience our own holiness better when we behold it in someone or something else.
Paragraph #5: We are afraid of recognizing our true selves because that would mean losing our invented selves, yet this loss is actually the loss of something that makes us extraordinarily miserable. In the Bible Jesus refers this loss of the invented self as "dying to yourself". In popular Christianity we have reduced this to self-denial or the sacrifice of what I want in favor of what others want. The Course does not see it this way. In fact, the Course suggests we are letting go of a suffering, sacrificing, doing penance self in favor of our real selves that are in communication with everyone and everything.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2010