By Gonny 
If you look at the world from a little distance, not too far, just enough to see patterns, something becomes very clear. Humanity has created thousands of religions, paths, traditions, and sacred systems. Some researchers speak of four thousand, others of ten thousand…..and if you include all the variations, splinter groups, and “my cousin started a new spiritual community last year,” the number becomes almost funny.
One of them is Christianity.
One tradition, rooted in one figure ‘Jesus’, with one holy book ‘the Bible’,
and yet there are tens of thousands of Christian denominations worldwide. Estimates often mention around 40,000 to 45,000 different branches.
Did you say woooow?
I did!
One tree, tens of thousands of branches.
Each with its own style, structure, rules, favourite Bible verses, and of course the quiet feeling:
“We’re the ones who really understood Jesus!”
From an ACIM perspective you can look at this with a very big smile. Because this is exactly what the ego does: it splits. It divides one idea into many forms, and then divides those forms again, and again, until everybody is absolutely sure they are separate… and preferably a little more right than the others.
So, when someone opens A Course in Miracles and sees words like God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, the mind makes a quick jump:
“Oh, this must be Christian too. Another branch… number 40,001!”
But ACIM is not a religion… unless you turn it into one.
Can you imagine titles like these?
-The true ACIM
-the pure ACIM
-The non-dual ACIM
– the dual ACIM
– Jesus-centred ACIM….a modern ACIM…a new ………
and so on.
The ego won’t hesitate to build a new religion around a book that actually came to undo ‘religion as identity’.
Fortunately, the Course is not interested in that game.
It doesn’t want defenders or need a building. It doesn’t ask for a new label on the door. Instead, it offers a very practical inner path:
not to give you the truth, but to remove the blocks to the awareness of the truth you already carry.
That is why it helps to remember this:
While the world has thousands of religions, all those forms still circle around the same longing:
<< the longing to go Home >>
The Course simply simplifies that whole spiritual jungle into one clear choice in the mind : fear or love ?
Not forty thousand options…
not ten thousand spiritual brands…
just one tiny, powerful shift in how you see yourself and your brother. With fear or love?
When we remember who we truly are, all labels soften, and what remains is very simple, very still, and very familiar:
We are One Mind in God.
Nothing real can be threatened (divided)
And nothing unreal exists (can keep us apart).
With love and light,
G.