Can you go 'beyond' the Course?

        Recently a friend asked, “Are you still studying ‘A Course in Miracles’ or have you stopped studying and gone beyond it?”
Hmmm, I thought – a trick question.
And so I answered, “Yeeesss,” rather hesitantly. And then added emphatically, ‘No!”
O.K. so I answered the trick question with a trick answer, but the question was not a very simple one. For the last several mornings I have awakened thinking about that question and a slow, but unrelenting and expanding answer unfolded. So, here I am, thinking out loud, so to speak, onto this blog page to share my insights with you.
My immediate answer of yes/no to my friend was short, but this definitely needs expanding, let’s start here:
       In the late 1970’s and for the next thirteen solid years I did those Workbook lessons everyday without fail, over and over. A full baker’s dozen.  Concurrently, I read section by section through the Text and Manual for Teachers finishing the books each year and starting again, for those same thirteen years. (In case you are interested, if you read one section in a chapter each time you do a lesson you will finish all the material at about the same time.)
      Why, you may ask, did I repeat a one year course for thirteen years? Well, maybe I’m just a slow learner, but then again I was lecturing on the Course across the country, as well as Canada and Australia during this time, as well as running classes on the Course several days a week. I needed to keep reviewing the material along with my students, taking them through the whole Course in a one year timeline. By the 1990’s I slowly cut out my travels and actually got a personal life, met a lovely Course student named Dan Cundiff, married, and now in 2014 enjoy almost a full retirement. 
Now, back to the burning question, “Have I gone beyond the Course?”
       Ha! How can anyone go beyond the Course unless they have reached the level of what the Course refers to as Teachers of teachers, those who are truly ascended masters, like Jesus, who no longer need their bodies and so share their enlightenment from a much different realm of existence? So if you, just like me are  still in your body, walking and talking, reading and listening, wondering and questioning, then you have not gone beyond the need for the Course. (I may enjoy writing a blog on how individuals still walking around become misguided and like to think they have actually reached Teacher of teachers level.)
      After thirteen years of constant study of the material, though, the basic concepts have become deeply embedded. Note, however, and this is a SUPER important distinction - understanding the concepts intellectually is NOT, repeat NOT, the same as experiencing and practicing them seamlessly in my life. 
        And what are those concepts? 
       First, we are spiritually One and perfect -  a powerful though basically simple concept. Many get stuck here and miss the really important next concept.
       Second, we are entangled in a dream of less than oneness and perfection – this concept is just as powerful, but it just ain’t true or simple! Once entangled in this psychological nightmare, deepening levels of denial become darker and harder to undo. This takes mucho effort and digging into the muck and mire of our psychies.
      Third, our saving grace – we all have within us a Voice that can guide us through the maze of emotional destruction to the truth of that first concept – we are One and perfect. Learning to distinguish this Voice from ego logic takes a really long time to learn, like lifetimes.
       For those who believe they can be finished with the Course and are ready to go beyond it – HELLO!!! If you are in a body, rest assured there are nasty layers of dark cornerstones sneaking around in your subconscious still needing to be undone. And quite frankly, I don’t believe you can accomplish this undoing in a one year period even if you do your lessons without fail everyday and read through the Text and Manual for Teachers one time thoroughly. I can guarantee you that your subconscious survival tactics, called ego, will not allow you to understand fully what you have studied in only one year. When you go through the Course again, and again you will actually think someone snuck in and rewrote the book adding much more depth and richness. Everyone who repeats the Course always exclaims, “Why didn’t I see that the first time I studied the Course?”
       I still enjoy returning to the lessons periodically and turn to a page here and a page there in the Text for the beauty as well as the clarification. And each morning, Dan and I read together from many different books and disciplines in a shared ritual that keeps us both on track. This is not ‘going beyond the Course’, but instead an exquisite renewal each day of Course concepts that we both studied for all those years, refreshingly rediscovered in words from other sources.
      And so, have I gone beyond the Course? Yes – in that I no longer do the lessons daily.  But emphatically, NO!  Every day I am challenged by the ego and its next layer of dark emotions and dangerous logic. Like you, I am still in my body, so there is still much to do.
      Thank God I have access to the Course books and the habits of all those years of studying and teaching. 
      And thank God we can all share this journey together.