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