Many who have taught A Course in Miracles since the early days tend to close down their minds and go into resistance at any mention of the possibility that the tradition of small ACIM study groups might someday evolve into building larger spiritual organizations or even a religion. But would such an evolution really be the end of the world?
The Center For Total Enlightenment and Holy Instant Church is not a large organization. The house we rent has a few bedrooms, but very limited bath facilities. Our session room has space for 10 students to dance around as the spirit moves them, but not for many more. If all our students showed up at once, or if a few newcomers began joining us, we would be a literal full house as well as a spiritual powerhouse.
Our group has advertised very little and done next to nothing to attract students. In fact, we have often told potential students to not consider visiting us unless they are really, really ready for new breakthroughs into vastly expanded spiritual experiences which might have them giving up their previous belief systems and life styles.
We have always been satisfied to work very deeply with a few students sent to us by the Holy Spirit as opposed to using saturation advertising to draw hundreds, then perhaps not being able to work at real depths with very many.
But what happens when the light of a small spiritual group gets so powerful, the love so strong, the joy so overwhelming, and everyone who enters into the energy receives such great spiritual breakthroughs that there is no longer any such thing as a student not going deep no matter how large the group becomes?
There may come a time when such a group starts looking for a place to facilitate gatherings of larger numbers of students, maybe even a place with more beds and showers to allow more live-in students.
We are reminded of the original work of God's Country Place in Wisconsin which eventually became Endeavor Academy. Their first facility was built while they still had very few students and in fact even before their students had reached the kind of bright light expansion we enjoy today at the Center For Total Enlightenment here in Utah.
That small group at God's Country Place must have quite early in their experience heard their inner voice saying, "If you build it, they will come." They have never quit expanding their facilities and students have never quit coming from all over the world, making Endeavor Academy the world's largest and most influential spiritual work teaching A Course in Miracles.
Maybe "If you build it, they will come" has to do first with the mind becoming illumined. "If you give up resistance in your mind, a million angels will come." But using such an analogy one would have to admit that what gets built on earth by such a group is really the work of angels.
No one at God's Country Place in the early years ever dreamed that they would grow into Endeavor Academy and become the world's largest ACIM school and be forced to argue in court the truth that Jesus, not Helen Schucman, wrote A Course in Miracles.
Nor could anyone in the original small God's Country Place group have imagined the misperceptions, misunderstandings, and outright twisting of the truth that fearful ones have used in recent years in decidedly non-angelic attempts to discredit Endeavor Academy.
Having seen or heard about the libelous attacks Endeavor Academy has experienced, why would any small but extremely advanced spiritual group in their right mind ever allow themselves to grow in numbers and become a larger, more well known group? It would be like asking for crucifixion.
The answer lies in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is directing the whole show and the Holy Spirit's work is being done wonderfully, everyone being pulled up in the vacuum created when one group is willing to undergo the ultimate spiritual experience and let it expand.
There is a time when a spiritual group becomes willing to go through the experience of crucifixion to bring about the ascension.
You might laugh and say, "Hah! That's been happening to me ever since I began doing the Workbook Lessons in A Course in Miracles. So what's any different?"
Bingo! There is no difference in principle between the spiritual expansion process of an individual and the spiritual expansion process of a group. We could have a bumper sticker saying, "It happens."
Nobody in a small group sets out to build anything like an Endeavor Academy. It happens. It happens irrespective of the initial resistance of the original group members. It happens because the Holy Spirit needs it to happen for a higher purpose than we can imagine.
It happens because deep down inside themselves everyone secretly prays for the total enlightenment experience, therefore the whole world is expanding into light. Nobody can stop it. It's happening.
Some might ask, "Isn't it the case that small groups intensely asking for total enlightenment would be tempted to get sidetracked into diluted goals if their group expands in numbers?"
That's what happened with most religions, isn't it? The small group having enlightenment experiences began to expand in numbers until pretty soon the movement became a religion with all its temptations to defend beliefs and structures.
A Course in Miracles students tend to think of religions as the letter of the law instead of the spirit, leaning toward ego-control. We find it hard to imagine the Holy Spirit saying, "Hey, I am the one who started all those religions. They have served as devices which have lifted everyone higher. If I guide your group to evolve into a religion using A Course in Miracles, then that's what I want you to evolve into."
Yes, it does seem that religionists invariably lapse into defending their beliefs and structures instead of becoming enlightened by having no defense whatsoever. But with the help of the self-correcting nature of A Course in Miracles, such dilution of goals doesn't have to happen, does it?
What if the Holy Spirit wants to see a religion dedicated to teaching and using A Course in Miracles, but also wants the seeming "religionists" to religiously refrain from defending any beliefs or structures and thus become totally enlightened each and only one?
Far fetched? Who would dare guess what the Holy Spirit has in mind?
We know from watching the evolution of Endeavor Academy that, all other things being equal, it's far easier for members of a large group to open to total enlightenment than for members of a small group. Certainly the expanded Endeavor Academy has produced more than a small group of enlightened masters. So why wouldn't the Holy Spirit want smaller groups to evolve into larger organizations?
Maybe the Holy Spirit has in mind a broad inclusive religion called "Enlightenment Christianity," or some such name, to temporarily differentiate its goal from that of other brands of Christianity which have not focused on first things first. Maybe Enlightenment Christianity would include a whole spectrum of forms of worship ranging from brothers worshipfully listening to Ken Wapnick's intellectual lectures to brothers abandoning intellectualism altogether and "going to light" or "becoming one with God" as in Endeavor Academy sessions.
In the late twentieth century people would ask a student of A Course in Miracles, "What's your religion?" The student might answer: "I don't have a religion." Hardly an answer to inspire holy instants.
Maybe in the twenty-first century the dialog will be more along these lines:
Questioner: "What's your religion?"
ACIM Student: "Enlightenment Christianity."
Questioner: "I've never heard of Enlightenment Christianity. What do you believe?"
ACIM Student: "Actually we use the Bible and modern day revelation from Jesus called 'A Course in Miracles' to take us out of beliefs. But we are into experiencing heaven. We actually go to heaven whenever we give up our beliefs."
Questioner: "That sounds weird. But where do people get this Course in Miracles anyway?"
Would A Course in Miracles actually spread it's healing influence farther and faster if it's students said their religion was Enlightenment Christianity?
Would greater numbers achieve total enlightenment quicker if there were more large groups like Endeavor Academy?
There may be only one way to find out.
We may have to open up our minds, release all resistance to possibilities, and see what happens.
Imagine a hundred billion eager angels in heaven joyously singing to themselves, "If they will build it, we will come!"
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