The Dialogues of A Course of Love (The Course of Love) [Paperback]

Mari Perron (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Course of Love | Publication Date: May 5, 2006

The prophetic messages of A Course of Love culminate with the end of thinking and learning as we know it. “You do not think your way through life, but instead draw your knowing forth from the well of spirit, from the shared consciousness from which these words are given and received.” Direct relationship and communication has commenced and you are a full participant in this dialogue with and within Christ-consciousness. A Forty Day and Forty Night experience of union and relationship “on the mountain top” is truly transformational.

For those willing to open their minds and hearts to a new way of being, this radical work is a call to come to voice and to engage in dialogue as who you truly are.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The messages of this Course were given by Jesus and expressed in writing by Mari Perron. This revelation was a gift of solitude. Since completion of the Course, the orientation of solitude continues to guide Perron’s life and has been enhanced by the cabin retreat her husband built for her. Perron is the co-author of The Grace Trilogy: Message of Love, Grace, and Peace, and recipient of the University of Minnesota’s Jean Keller Bovier Award for Literary Accomplishment.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Course of Love Publications (May 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972866841
• ISBN-13: 978-0972866842
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,080,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A friend and her eleven-year-old daughter were over the other day. Allie, the daughter, was one of two students from Minnesota who wrote a letter to President Obama (as part of a school project) that was so good it was sent to him and even garnered her a reply. I asked her if she might want to be a writer. She said, "Yes."

Later she asked me what I write about. I'm a new grandmother, so I told her that in my new book I write a fair bit about my grandson Henry, and squirrels, and being who we are. "That's my main topic," I told her, "being who we are." I couldn't tell from her silence, or the look on her face, whether she is still too young to find that an issue or not. Her mom said, "I'm always telling her that. Just be who you are." It's got to be a universal mother message: Be who you are and everything will be fine.

When do those other messages start? Those that tell us we need to be other than who we are? It's hard to say. Whatever those messages are for each of us, getting beyond them, and back to our most natural, or given selves, is part of my passion as a writer and a person, a passion that feels as if it springs from my soul and needs to find expression. It seems as if just about all of us struggle to walk this path back to our most authentic selves. I've appreciated (that word "appreciated" doesn't feel nearly strong enough) so many authors who've helped me see my path more clearly, but the ones I love the most are those who've made me feel as if we're in it together, companions on the way.

It's in that spirit that I introduce myself and invite you to browse my books.

Having served as the writer for the books of A Course of Love, I've been blessed with correspondence from readers all over the world. Many of these readers have become friends. It's one of the graces of the experience: new relationships. There's a lot of talk within the Course of Love books on unity and relationship - that both/and experience of oneness and union "with," but sometimes it feels as if it's more comfortable, and just plain human, to talk of friendship. I'm big on simple humanity, which, of course, isn't so simple.

For those of you unfamiliar with them, you might want to know that A Course of Love came to me by way of an inner voice. I know this makes some people jittery. I get that. Then when I add that the inner voice is the voice of Jesus, I can understand if you might think that's too much and this isn't for you. All I can really say about that is that you might want to browse inside the books. If they speak to you, you'll know it. If they don't, they don't.

I was a Course in Miracles reader long before A Course of Love came to me, and I think ACIM and other heart-opening experiences prepared me to accept it. I forget sometimes that there are those who are as unfamiliar with A Course in Miracles as they are with A Course of Love, so I'll just tell you a little about my experience with it.

I read about ACIM in a newspaper article that did not name it as a book that came in the voice of Jesus. When I started reading it, I still didn't realize that it was, and when I became aware of it I didn't believe it. But by then I wasn't about to put the book down because I felt everything in it was Truth with a capital T. I felt this mainly because I was hearing the truth about "me." It was as if someone was able to look inside my head and see everything that went on in there. After a while I started to figure than maybe it really was Jesus. Who else could do that? Then the same thing happened with A Course of Love -- as if Jesus was peering into -- and describing, the very heart of me.

The way of thinking that was described so well that I could see it as my own is called "insanity" in both courses, and after a while you get to agreeing with that assessment and to letting yourself be led toward sanity.

Some call A Course of Love a sequel to ACIM; some deny it. I don't know that it really matters. All I can tell you on that is that I was asked to receive a new course in miracles that would be for the heart what the original is for the mind.

This is a really different orientation and it has an alarming affect. It really changes people, and you know how hard it is to really change. It's all about letting our hearts guide us back to our own true selves, and being our true selves in the world here and now.

A Course of Love was first published in 2001 (I know, I know...I get it all the time...why is it still such a secret?), and it wasn't until almost 2010 that I came out with another book, this one, The Given Self, written in my own voice. It's not a telling of the story of how ACOL came to me, but there's a bit of that, and a lot about how the experience affected me.

The long and the short of it is that what we're seeking isn't about mind alone or heart alone but joining them so that we're not caught in internal conflict all the time.

A Course in Miracles may prepare some readers for A Course of Love. Or it may be that some people need a course that is for their mind or intellect -- that's the way they learn, and some need a way that is for the heart -- basically an unlearning and a greater reliance on intuition and feelings and receptivity.

Receptivity is what I've decided is the key. It's as if A Course of Love gets into you, opens you up, and makes you more receptive. That receptivity is thoroughly you, unique to you, and what you gain comes from that. You gain insight into who you are and what your gifts are and you start to long to find expression for them.

The yearning for God (by whatever name) and for our own selves has always been pretty much the same thing, and you start to feel that and really follow that yearning, that longing, to know yourself and God.

I know I'm biased, but I feel that this course suits this time, as all prophetic messages do. We need the wisdom of our hearts now, and the world needs us to find expression for that wisdom.

I hope you'll join me on this great journey of discovery back to our true -- our given selves -- and forward to bringing your gifts to a world in need of them. ~ Mari

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Way of Mary, June 29, 2008

By 

Patrick Curren "The no self" (The Happy Dream) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dialogues of A Course of Love (The Course of Love) (Paperback)

This book appears to be the third and final book to follow "A Course of Love" (ACOL) and "The Treatises" of ACOL. Read those books before you read this book. As indicated in my reviews of the two (2) prerequisite books, ACOL uses the same vocabulary or thought system as A Course In Miracles (ACIM). ACOL is different than ACIM and if you take ACOL you will learn that "different" or individuation is not "bad". ACOL assumes that you have mastered the ability to deny the Ego thought system, deny the personal self and deny "old" thought patterns. Old thought patterns such as the external having greater power of the self than the internal Self (or external directed life vs. the internal directed life). ACOL teaches how to combine the mind with the heart (or center of being). ACOL teaches how to recognize thoughts that come from the heart (or the collective consciousness in unity). As you are able to recognize these thoughts (or listen to your feelings) you know (gnosis) how...to respond. What is your response? As you listen and respond to the whole hearted state (or Christ consciousness) of being, you can respond (in dialogue) and create the New. What is the New? It is the Elevated Self of Form! (TransFORMation).

This book contains what I consider to be a mini-course titled "The Forty Days and Forty Nights". This course takes you on a spiritual journey to the Mountain top with Jesus as your teacher. While the mini-course is simpler than ACIM, it is by no means less powerful. The you will no longer "be" the same. If your are successful, the You will stop becoming and start being.........in Unity.

The following is an excerpt on the concept of the Elevated Self of Form: "What I am striving to help you see, once again, is that union isn't achieved with a flash of light from above, but that it quietly infiltrates the dot of the self in its unguarded moments. I am attempting to help you to become aware and comfortable with the idea that, released of old patterns, the self will join with unity more and more frequently, until finally you will sustain Christ-consciousness and live in the world as the elevated Self of form."

The following helped me understand the Gospel of Thomas, Verse 42, "Jesus said, `Become passers-by.'": "Expression, movement, and being are about what is eternal passing through what is temporal. Thus I return you to the lesson on `pass through' which was contained within the Course. The Course sought to teach you to develop a relationship with all that passes through you. Now is the time when the fruit of those efforts will be reaped. For what passes through you now is relationship without end. What passes through you now is the eternal come to replace the temporal."

While ACIM refers to the "Treasure" ACOL clearly defines what it is............"You needed to first know yourself as a being existing in union before you could know anything else with the certainty you seek, for union is the treasure that has been locked away from you.

"What many forgot, after the passing of the first of my disciples, was that they had access to this treasure. They still knew that it existed, but since they knew not how to access it, they called it the Kingdom of Heaven and longed for access to it after death."

The time on the "Mountain" continues with that we have entered into a time where we can still travel the Way of Jesus (Time of Learning in separation or BEcoming) but there is a new way called the Way of Mary (Time of Knowing in Unity or BEing)..............."My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, turn your thoughts not to ideals of social activism, to causes, or to championing any one side over another. Turn not to your thoughts but to your feelings and go where they lead. And everywhere they lead you, remember one thing only. Remember to embrace your power. The power of love is the cause and effect that will change the world by returning you, and your brothers and sisters, to who you are in truth. This cannot be done from without but must be done from within. It is the transformation that is caused within that will affect the world without."

Finally, the ending of ACOL is sincerely climactic and truly transforming but I cannot tell you what it is. Why? Because it is YOUR path to individuation! (not a path to separation or time/space).

"What we have called illusion is this simple nothingness of existence without relationship to God, and thus existence without relationship to the power of creation. The illusion is an illusion of simply being. Is this not how you have seen yourself? As a simple being doing your best to live the life you've been given? All the choices in the world save this one before you now, have made no difference to your state of being. You have just kept being, kept making choices between one illusion and another in your separate reality. A separate reality that cannot exist in truth but only in illusion."

Our return to Union is a force of nature and while your awareness of it can be delayed it cannot be stopped.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most important book you will ever read, March 20, 2009

By 

J. Lee "Truth Seeker" (Glen Carbon, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dialogues of A Course of Love (The Course of Love) (Paperback)

Not only is it important, it is the last spirituality book you will ever need. It absolutely requires reading the two prequels. It is the ACIM Course on steroids! It is the advanced Course for TOG and, if you choose to open your eyes, your life will finally be transformed WITHOUT FEAR of going forward.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delivering awareness into the accomplished Self of Unity, March 5, 2010

By 

F. Smithson "energetic awareness" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dialogues of A Course of Love (The Course of Love) (Paperback)

This series exists as a call to the discovery of unity as it is accessed and sustained by all who find themselves within the embrace of the emerging awareness of Oneness consciosness as it unfolds within uniqueness.

Providing the sustanance for true, natural and complete authenticity and wholeness of being, guided by each one's inner authorship.

Providing a language that supports and enhances the succesion and complete inheritance of all that we truly are. No matter what you are drawn to here, you will be spoken to directly, exactly where you are, and as you are.

Designed to invite and direct awareness into a direct encounter with the interoceptive knowledge of a true, full consciousness of all that we are.

A true, living companion for those who abide within the realm of direct discovery. For those who abide within the process of realization of their true nature. For the forerunners of a fully engaged relationship with the unknown.

An invitation to embrace the arts of complete acceptance, open receptivity, transformation, surrender to the reality of unity and of birthing the new, the expression of wholeness within form, of the love that we are in truth.

This series exists as a living companion to the unfoldment of the embodied awareness of wholeness.

It exists as an invitation to enter fully into a direct relationship with all that we are in truth.

It exists as a signal that the realization of all that we are in truth is being accomplished.

A companion for the deliverance of awareness into the truth of a joined reality.

A living expression of Oneness to it's Self in form.