Introducing Circle Course Community

This is a preview page, some of the links on this page are not active. Once you join, all the links on the live community pages will be active.

Do you feel a deep connection with A Course in Miracles but are unsure about how to actually live its transcendent teachings? Have you spent years with the Course, convinced it is a towering work of great truth and beauty, yet feel that you haven't really put both feet on the path? Do you perhaps have a sense of the lofty journey it has set before you, and have even devoted yourself to making that journey, but have still not gotten as far as you would like?

For those who answer yes to these questions, we have launched the Circle Course Community (CCC). The purpose of this online community is to provide members with maximum support in walking the path of the Course. A Course in Miracles is not the easiest path to follow. It asks us to study challenging teachings and do frequent inner practice. It asks us to spend our time giving love and healing to others. It asks us to do the last thing our ego wants to do—forgive. Perhaps we have considered these things too difficult to really do. Yet we all know that difficult things are best done with expert guidance and strong group support.

Course fidelity

The foundation for the CCC is what we call "Course fidelity"—taking the Course at its word. We want to understand it and practice it according to its own words. In our experience, the Course gets more amazing, profound, and even more practical when we seek out its viewpoint alone. This does not mean we consider other paths invalid; it just means that this is our path. The CCC will be based on the Circle of Atonement's approach (for more, read The Circle Of Atonement's Approach to A Course in Miracles), but what makes our approach distinctive is that we treat all views, our own included, as subject to being measured against the Course.

Joining with others of like mind

One of the main forms of support this community will provide is simply being joined with people of like mind. In today's dizzyingly diverse spiritual marketplace, finding others who share a common point of view can be a source of great comfort. In a world focused on conformity, setting out on an unconventional path can be extremely difficult unless you have the strength of others walking beside you. It is very easy for those of us who are students of A Course in Miracles, and who want to seriously follow it as our literal guide, to feel alone. This leaves us with a deep need to, as a friend put it, "huddle together for warmth."

The PathMap

Perhaps the main support provided in the CCC is what we call the PathMap. The purpose of the PathMap is to provide you with specific and extensive guidance to help you actually walk the path of the Course. The PathMap is a collection of hundreds of resources that the Circle of Atonement has produced over the years to help students with the practical activity of living the Course. Many of these will only be available on the PathMap. To view a copy of the PathMap, click here.

We have organized these resources under four major headings: study, practice, extension, and the path. Under each of these headings are several subheadings. For instance, under "practice" you will find the Workbook, meditation and prayer, forgiveness, other practices, and listening to the Holy Spirit. Then, under each subheading are the actual resources for that particular topic. For instance, under "forgiveness" are all the resources we have produced for helping students with the practice of forgiveness. These include books, book chapters, articles, handouts, and audio programs.

Once you join the Circle Course Community, you will be given your own personal PathMap. It will contain the same resources as everyone else's, but you will focus on the places where your need lies. The process of determining where your need lies will be aided by questionnaires that will guide you to your areas of need (both at the start and on a continuing basis). For instance, if you conclude that your need is to learn how to listen for guidance more successfully, you would focus (for now) on the resources under "listening to the Holy Spirit." We are also offering an optional 30-minute consultation with Robert or Greg to help you get started with the PathMap—help you understand how the PathMap works, and guide you, based on your need, to where you should initially focus in the PathMap.

You will also customize your PathMap to enhance your use of it. The changes you make to your personal PathMap page will be viewable by you and no other member. The customizing features include:

The primary activity of the Circle Course Community is meant to be its members walking the path of A Course in Miracles, aided by the PathMap. For PathMap FAQs, click here.

Bloggers

Another key form of support will be the blogs. We will have a number of people maintaining blogs (web logs). These are people from the Circle's staff and board, as well as several others who are close to the Circle and particularly in tune with our model. These blogs, which are available only to CCC members, will in essence be public spiritual journals, in which the bloggers share about their ongoing process of walking the Course's path. The blogs will provide spiritual nourishment to the community as well as model what it means to walk this path. They will also spark community discussion, in that discussion will take the form of members posting comments to particular blog entries. Click here to see a sample blog page.

Members

We will also have a Member Directory. This will let you learn something about the other members, as well as make contact with them. We hope that many fruitful, long-term relationships will be formed in this way.

Classes

We also plan to have regular classes for CCC members, which members can listen to live over the phone and can watch video recordings of afterwards. These classes will be geared around community needs. They will cover topics in the Course that are relevant to walking the path and they will answer questions that have arisen from community members.

Anchoring a tradition

Much of the reason for joining the CCC is to receive support in your own journey with the Course and give support to other members. But there is a bigger picture. The Course did not come for just us few. It came for the world. It has something to give the world. Yet it will only be able to give that gift when it is wrapped in a living tradition, made up of generations of serious students and teachers helping each other walk this groundbreaking path of enlightenment (to learn more about our vision of a Course tradition, read The Promise of the Course: A Statement of Intent).

After observing the Course in Miracles scene for many years, we at the Circle finally realized that, even though many have spread awareness of the Course in the world, a tradition such as this has not gotten underway. We have therefore committed ourselves to this task, and the Circle Course Community is the cornerstone of this. It will no doubt be a very small beginning, but we all know that great things can come from tiny seeds. Thus, while you consider whether or not you will join, and think about receiving support and huddling together for warmth, try also to ask yourself these larger questions: Do I want to see A Course in Miracles give its gift to the world? And do I want to be part of that? Do I want to be part of a community that could make that possible?

Two levels of membership

The CCC has two levels of membership: student and teacher. What is the difference? You would sign up for the teacher level if you are in a role of helping other students with the Course—as a study group leader, for example—and you want to have access to resources specifically designed to assist you with that role. This level of membership will give you the opportunity to deepen in that role and to take advantage of more in-depth teacher training when it becomes available. Below are the benefits for both student membership and teacher membership:

Student Membership

Sign up for student membership here.

Teacher Membership

All of the above plus:

Sign up for teacher membership here.

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