When people apply the teachings and commandments of A Course in Miracles, they will find that they have come to a new understanding of forgiveness. They are able to study and learn why you hurt yourself and others when you don't forgive.

That's why it's so important to forgive when someone hurts you. We often hear someone say, "I can never forgive him/her for this." But they have to! The one who needs to forgive is affected as much as the one who needs to forgive, if not more deeply! You can forgive the offender whether he asks for forgiveness or not. This will release you from the pain that person has caused you and free you from any anger and negative emotions. This will be the first of the miracles that are granted and gained by the power of forgiveness learned from A Course in Miracles.

A very brief history of A Course in Miracles

More than 40 years ago, a Columbia University psychologist began receiving revelations from a spiritual being she believed to be Jesus himself. She and her assistants created teachings that filled hundreds of blank pages over seven years, which later became "A Course in Miracles."

That psychologist was a Jewish lady named Helen Schucman and she told people that Jesus Christ himself was her own spiritual guide for these lessons and teachings. These lessons were meant to give people the credibility to learn that they are the only ones in control of their own feelings, attitudes, actions and destinies. Learning has removed many of the penalties for action from the equation. A hallmark of the ACIM course is that evil itself does not exist. ACIM teachings insist that by properly training your mind you can learn that there is no such thing as evil and that it is just a perception or something set up by other people to frighten and control the actions and thoughts of those who are incapable of independent to think. ACIM insists that the only thing that exists is pure love and that an innocent mind and spiritually correct thinking will not allow such a thing as evil to exist.

These ideas and beliefs angered many people who belonged to some of the main faiths, because while they held many of the same principles, this course also sought to make people believe that evil was not real and therefore not real sin. ACIM itself seeks to make people believe in the sanctity of right and wise belief and behavior and the fact that nothing can harm you unless you believe it can. The New Age gurus quickly grasped these concepts because many New Age religions are based not on sin and redemption, but on the power of one's own mind and spirit.

A Course in Miracles from The Foundation for Inner Peace

a course in miracles is a collection of self-study materials published by the Foundation for Inner Peace. The content of the book is metaphysical and explains forgiveness in everyday life. Curiously, the book has no author anywhere (and thus is listed without an author's name in the US Library of Congress). However, the text was written by Helen Schucman (deceased) and William Thetford; Schucman recounted that the book's material is based on communications with her from an "inner voice" she claimed was Jesus. The original version of the book was published in 1976, the revised edition was published in 1996. The contents include a teaching manual and a student workbook. Since its first publication, the book has sold several million copies with translations into nearly two dozen languages.

The origins of the book can be traced back to the early 1970s; Helen Schucman's first experiences with the "inner voice" led to her supervisor at the time, William Thetford, contacting Hugh Cayce of the Association for Research and Enlightenment. On the other side, Kenneth Wapnick (the later editor of the book) was introduced. At the time of the show, Wapnick was a clinical psychologist. After the meeting, Schucman and Wapnik spent more than a year editing and revising the material. Another introduction, this time by Schucman, Wapnik and Thetford to Robert Skutch and Judith Skutch Whitson of the Foundation for Inner Peace. The first copies of the book intended for distribution were in 1975. Since then, copyright lawsuits by the Foundation for Inner Peace and Penguin Books have established that the contents of the first edition are in the public domain.