A Course of Love (ACOL) claims to be a continuation of A Course in Miracles (ACIM). It was heard inwardly and written down, as was ACIM, and in both cases the "voice" claimed to be from Jesus. However, the literary style of ACOL, though similar to that of ACIM, is not the same and appears to be an attempt to mimic it. In addition, there are major differences between these two works that need to be pointed out, because some of the teachings in ACOL contradict core teachings in ACIM that have helped and still are helping many to purify their minds of earthly illusions and the limiting beliefs of the ego, so they can receive the blessings of the Holy Spirit. If people believed the teachings in ACOL, the spiritual help they would otherwise receive from many of the teachings and practices in ACIM would be nullified. The purpose of this article is to shed light on some of the fundamental differences between the two works.

The following page and section numbers refer to ACOL: Combined Volume.

P. 280-282:

In 1.1, 7, 12, ACOL says that now - at this point in learning this course - the ego has been separated from the reader's personal self, and the reader's "remembrance of the Christ-Self has abolished the ego-self... " In other words, it claims the reader has now realized the Christ.

P. 340-341:

ACOL says if you try to help others who are suffering you may lose your inner peace, that you should minister to those in illusion only if your unity (oneness) with Jesus Christ is accomplished and if, without being in unity, you try to help others leave illusions behind and return to unity, it will not work (20.14-15). This is not true. If you seek and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit within you when trying to help others, you will not lose your inner peace, and it is always helpful to recommend the teachings of ACIM to those who are receptive and ready.

If ACIM has benefited you, you can mention this to all who would be open to hearing what you have to say. By sharing with love and a desire to help others, our love increases, for we receive what we give. This is a divine principle, and those who live in love and in harmony with God's laws help others. A Course in Miracles speaks of the laws of God, which have not changed. ACOL tells us that the time of Christ is now upon us, that new laws are now in effect, and that we no longer need the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. There is no evidence of this. The time of Christ may be fast approaching, but the Holy Spirit is still with us. And when we listen to and follow His gentle guidance, He leads us to the Christ... the wisdom, love and light within... the truth of what we are.

P. 559-560:

These sections contain many false statements in an attempt to convince the reader that, in order to realize the one Self, one has to unite with oneness by separating from oneness.

In 11.5, ACOL tells us, "It is only in relationship that the oneness of the self separates from oneness and so knows oneness." What could this possibly mean? If oneness is oneness, it could not separate from oneness.

ACOL also says, "God is the oneness and the separation." How could God be the oneness and the separation? ACIM teaches that God is real, separation is illusion, and reality cannot be part real and part illusion.

Furthermore, in 11.5-6, ACOL says that, without relationship between separate selves, personal selves of form, God would not know "He" existed, and God would not know God. This is not true. The illusion of separate selves was not needed for God to know Himself and His existence. God is omniscient. He knows He exists and what He is through direct knowing of His reality, unlike human thinking, which depends on words and images in the mind that almost always represent physical perceptions, which are the mind's interpretation of sensations caused by energy currents coming from sensory nerves in the body. When we think of something, even something spiritual, we almost always use words and images that are normally used to represent physical perceptions, which are illusions, not reality. God is reality and through direct knowing knows Himself and His existence.

In 11.3-5, ACOL also tells us that God, the self of form, and the One Self (the Christ) within the self of form, are capable of being either the observer or the observed only through the means of separate relationships joining in union and, in 11.6, that what is separate and joined in relationship is All because it is all that is knowable. To say that what is separate and joined in relationship is everything implies that, without separate selves of form (separate selves in physical bodies) joining in relationships, nothing else (which includes God and the Self) could have existed. The message of ACOL is that the existence of God and the Self was made possible by man. It is the opposite of what Jesus teaches in ACIM. In ACIM, Jesus tells us that God is our Author (Creator). He encourages us to set aside the false concept that we can create what we are, Chapter 3, VII (4), and to affirm that we are as God created us.

The Self - the Higher Self, or Son - is one's reality. We may not be aware of the Self, but it is what we really are. The Self is blissful, loving, omnipresent consciousness, one with the Supreme Consciousness, God, and is changeless, ever as God created It. It already is elevated, in other words, is of Spirit, not flesh, and has no form. It is eternal, although individual souls under the influence of the ego identify with the body - the mortal, physical form they inhabit for a time - and thus do not experience their eternal reality.

God is the Supreme Blissful Reality beyond form, and it is our relationship with the Holy Spirit, whom God created to guide us home, and with those who are united with this loving aspect of God, that enables us to transcend form and become aware of our eternal reality as the Self.

ACOL is an attempt to persuade us that we needed to separate from oneness and relate to each other as individuals with bodily form in order to know God and the Christ, and for God and the Christ to exist. This is the antithesis of truths that Jesus and others who have known God and the Christ have taught down through the ages.

The paradise of Eden was a perfect world in which the first humans, symbolized by Adam and Eve, were in an exalted state of consciousness and experienced oneness with each other and God. They already were in relationship with each other and God and did not need to separate from oneness. God and Christ already existed, and they could commune with God, and perceive God in the life, beauty and intelligence of nature as one. They experienced diversity, the individual characteristics of each other and different things, but were also aware of the oneness of everything.

They could have remained in this paradise and after a short time become fully united with the Father while still retaining their individuality, but they misconceived and did not appreciate the gift of their creation as individual souls, like individual rays of light issuing forth from One Light, and the opportunity of experiencing the perfect world of Eden. They did not understand the purpose of their new existence and did not want it, so they mentally rejected it. Thus they separated themselves in thought, though not in reality, from God's creation and from God, and fell from the heaven of harmonious unity with their Creator. They tried to compensate for this loss by finding pleasure in the imperfect world that resulted, but failed. Eventually, illusions almost totally replaced their awareness of God and of God's creation. Today, our human consciousness and the world we perceive are a legacy of the fall of mankind in Eden.

The oneness and glory beheld by the Son in Eden before He fell into delusion may have been what Jesus meant by "what is true in earth" when he said, "Think not you made the world. Illusions, yes! But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming" (ACIM Workbook, Lesson 184: 8).

Most of the teachings in ACOL make little or no sense, especially those presented toward the end of the book, and they contradict timeless truths, not only those set forth by Jesus in A Course in Miracles, but those that were written about by Christian mystics and great masters who experienced, and therefore knew, the peace, omnipresent awareness and love of the Christ Consciousness.

The Christ Consciousness - the Christ, or Son - is omnipresent throughout the universe, and our awareness of It develops by degrees. The more we lift our consciousness above the level of sensory experience, the primary domain of the ego, and focus on that which is acim by the highest faculties of the soul, the more we unite with the Christ Consciousness.

Christ Consciousness is an extension of God, not as ACOL says, "the awareness of existence through relationship" (p. 560, 11.7). Christ Consciousness is in the Christ Light that exists just behind the world we perceive with our physical senses. It is the pure reflection in creation of the loving intelligence of God. It has existed since the beginning of time and is omniscient, changeless and without form. It is the Christ Mind, the Son of God, who manifested in Jesus and in time will manifest in every human being.

This is the way Jesus describes Christ Consciousness in Conversations with Christ by Alexander Soltys Jones. It is what enlightened beings have sometimes said, but often do not say, because words give an incomplete idea of higher truths, which need to be experienced in order to be known. Paramahansa Yogananda, an enlightened master, described Christ Consciousness using almost the same words. Yogananda had realized the Self as this divine consciousness, or awareness, omnipresent throughout creation.

ACOL is filled with false statements about the nature of God and the Christ. It was transmitted to the receiver from December, 1998 through October, 2001 and claimed that the time of the Holy Spirit (the Voice for God) had come to an end. It would be a grievous error to accept its false teachings, which contradict the very essence of Jesus's teachings in ACIM, and give up listening to and following the Voice for God just because a spirit pretending to be Jesus said we were in the time of the Christ and no longer needed to listen to the Voice for God. It is now 2015, about fifteen years since ACOL was received, and while many souls are waking up, there is no indication that many have entered the state of Christ Consciousness, the omnipresent, loving intelligence in the Light of God just behind the world we see with our physical eyes. Moreover, in the ACIM Workbook Epilogue, Jesus says that the Course is a beginning, not an end, that there is no more need of specific lessons and that, after one completes the Course, the Voice of the Holy Spirit will be their guide and comfort as they continue on their journey homeward to God.

When I bought ACOL, I looked forward to learning more about the nature of the Self but found that many statements about the Self, God, and Christ Consciousness were vague, and I had to struggle to try to determine what they meant. However, by reading certain sections over and over, the meaning of these statements became clear, and I realized they were not true and I had been trying to make sense out of false teachings that could not have come from Jesus. In fact, many of them are the opposite of the teachings of Jesus and others who achieved God-realization - who had consciously united with (become one with) the Christ and the Father.