ACIM begins by stating some of it's concepts that are most difficult to grasp and so they will remain unknown to you for quite awhile. Don't push it, don't try to squeeze the meaning from it but allow it to surprise you and to reveal itself for you instead.

The guiding rope for you to navigate this section is understanding: miracles are not some magic tricks. Behind the word a "miracle" hides mental process of shifting your perception and the tool to make it happen is forgiveness, although the way this book is looking at "for giving" is not what you may think of it right now.

In swapping "miracles" -- "forgiveness" confusion goes away. An act of genuine forgiveness is meant to be applied to every thing that blows your peace, from major accidents to seeming little things like unwashed dishes or just cold outside.

When you maintain that there must be an order of difficulty in miracles, all you mean is that there are some things you would withhold from truth. T-17.1.3

And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve all errors and make them sins. T-22-3.4

It is not easier to forgive one sin than to forgive all of them. The illusion of orders of difficulty is an obstacle the teacher of God must learn to pass by and leave behind. M-14.3

The miracle forgives; the ego damns. Neither need be defined except by this. C-2.10

Forgiveness is the key to happiness. W-121

Please do not take these notes as my attempt at teaching you the Course, look at it rather as (hopefully!) the Holy Spirit's answers to my own struggles with the book.

The focus here is on the piece entitled "Principles of Miracles" because I still remember how confusing and overall unreadable it felt, despite the fact that it's the very intro to the Text. I later realized that all these short yet powerful one-liners are reminiscent to the quotes of Jesus compiled together in the Bible under the so called Sermon on the Mount. And so although the Principles are minimal in form, they all reflect the foundations of The Holy Spirit's thinking framework presented in this Course and that allowed historic Jesus to reach Enlightenment and see no threat nor value in this world.

This is what now I understand, but back in the beginning of my study I just kept asking Holy Spirit to unfold the meaning of these lines because I had been thinking: if I can't understand and put together in my mind the very first few pages of the book, how can I dare to read it on? Hoping that the answers I received could be of help to more than only me, these notes are offered.

If you are interested in hearing more about my personal experiences with this, please consider visiting this channel on youtube.

The goal of any journey has to be determined right at the beginning or else you wander idly as a leaf in winds. Consider carefully now: why did you take this book? You've read a lot of other books, you have been listening to many gurus, you even might belong to a religion of some sort, and yet you're here and reading this. Inquire: why?

There is a splinter in your mind that fuels your strangeness, it does not allow you to just settle down and "live a normal life". But what's the goal of this desire? What is it that this splinter wants? The only reason that could motivate you to pick up this giant brick of paper and at least imagine taking in its yearly course is very simple: you are deeply disappointed and unsatisfied. All of those books and gurus didn't work for you, as well as many other things that you have tried in "normal life", but something deep in you continues striving forward refusing to give up, it looks for something so majestic that nothing is compared to that. Before you say this strive is meaningless and never could be reached, let me invite a simple question: what if the splinter's goal is happiness? Is this too much to ask?

This course is a unique and self-sustained instruction for guiding you to happiness and it requires not from you to have a background in any other system of a thought. In fact, you'll do yourself a major favor if you would drop all that you've grasped before - those books and gurus failed you, hold on to it no more. Don't try to fit this course in well known patterns, accept the fact you need a teacher and open up your mind abroad. There is no stamp and sign on paper, no court supported guarantee this course is genuine, but if you follow it you'll get experience and only this can ever make you sure.

If happiness is your desire but you do not abide in joy, then it is logical to figure: you must be doing something wrong. Depression, fear, anxiety are rather more familiar to you and so it follows that your habits and your entire thinking framework is dedicated heavily to those. There is a saying that to get a thing you never had, you gotta do what never tried. Another quote asserts: in goodness you are asked to bite the poison and after that the honey flows, while ignorance is giving you the honey barrel, but when you bite it - poison flows. To sum it up, you must be ready for a challenge, because ACIM is going to disturb, you will resist against what it is asking you and yet what if behind of your resistance is the key that's gonna make at last all of the difference in the world?

Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone its value should be questioned. T-8.1.4

You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for you believe that misery is happiness. T-14.2.1

Resign now as your own teacher. T-12.5.8

Remember nothing that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. T-28.1.7

you are studying a unified thought system in which nothing is lacking that is needed, and nothing is included that is contradictory or irrelevant. W-42.7

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold.T-24-in.2

If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you back to God. T-4.1.4

God's Will for you is perfect happiness ... You are indeed essential to God's plan. Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. W-100.2,3

Ignorance of the love's presence does not exempt you from being loved.

The steps you take in this direction produce consequences you cannot comprehend. Amazing things will happen when you are willing to be guided, and ask the Gentle Titan instead of following YOUR plan.

Some of your greatest advances you have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats you have evaluated as success. T-18.5.1

I do not perceive my own best interests. W-24

You know not what you do, but He Who knows is with you. His gentleness is yours, and all the love you share with God He holds in trust for you. He would teach you nothing except how to be happy. T-14.5.2

The Prince of Peace, also known as Jesus or Jeshua or simply J calls YOU! To join his Holy Crusade in undoing your ego!

I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind. T-4.1.13

Once you have developed a thought system of any kind, you live by it and teach it. Your capacity for allegiance to a thought system may be misplaced, but it is still a form of faith and can be redirected. T-6.in.2

You have been called, together with your brother, to the most holy function this world contains. T-18.1.13

This brings the light to yet another facet of the diamond which genuine forgiveness is: you practice not in it alone. Your willingness and your allowance are the key to let Divinity step in.

The seekers scroll through stacks of books and pick the things they liked from each to cook their own salvation's recipe. But if it's you who is in charge of your atonement, then why you're not enlightened still?

You cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them necessary. T-14.11.7

You have not made truth, but truth can still set you free. Look as the Holy Spirit looks, and understand as He understands. His understanding looks back to God in remembrance of me. T-5.3.11

Follow the Holy Spirit's teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what I meant when I said that miracles are natural, and when they do not occur something has gone wrong. T-9.4.6

Think not that you can find salvation in your own way ... Give over every plan that you have made for your salvation in exchange for God's. T-15.4.2

Only God's plan for salvation will work. W-71

You child of God, the gifts of God are yours, not by your plans but by His holy Will. His Voice will teach you what forgiveness is, and how to give it as He wills it be. Do not, then, seek to understand what is beyond you yet, but let it be a way to draw you up to where the eyes of Christ become the sight you choose. S-2.3.2

I merely follow, for I would not lead. W-324

46: Lean not on your own understanding.