We often hear how all spiritual paths lead to the same place. I question the statement. If one is on a path of destruction then how does that lead him to the same place as The Kybalion of The Three Initiates and its complementary A Course in Miracles ACIM? I find it’s always a question of consciousness or unconsciousness of core identity; higher consciousness opening to spiritual paths with heart. A path of destruction has no heart and can only be based in a blind ego. But what is ego? Some interpretations of A Course in Miracles ACIM says the ego doesn’t exist. Yet if we have no ego then how do we perceive? The ego is nothing but our beliefs projected onto the screen of life. That is what creates our perception, our view of reality. But are all beliefs bad? Is the ego always a bad thing? And where does The Hermetic Philosophy of The Kybalion of The Three Initiates complement A Course in Miracles ACIM? The Hermetic Philosophy of The Kybalion says to use the higher laws over the lower laws. But what is our position in regard to these higher laws and lower laws? The laws of the universe are constant, so even though we may act from blind ego (lower laws) we can use the higher laws taught by The Kybalion over the lower laws. But if we use higher law over lower law then doesn’t that validate the existence of the ego, which uses lower law in its blindness? Thus the paradoxical interpretations between the two philosophies. But spiritually there is no real duality. At our level of evolution our perception is polar. This is where the philosophy of The Kybalion of The Three Initiates comes in. Although many A Course in Miracles students come away with the notion that the world and everything in it is illusion, The Kybalion of The Three Initiates seems to say to use the illusions or how else can we infuse the vibration of higher thought into the vibration of lower thought? So does this mean illusions are real? That would be a contradiction in the English language. What it means to me is that our manifestations, although not absolute realities, are made from the energy we put into them as co-creators in the neutrality of the universe. This makes them appear real to us in our, generally speaking, limited perception. Whether or not it’s a perceptual fluke doesn’t change that fact. In this Oneness, this unified field, we believe our realities to be solid and set. Could it be that the A Course in Miracles ACIM meaning of denial is not the same as the usual English use of the word? I think that’s the case because denial usually means to stifle something and I don’t believe that to be the A Course in Miracles ACIM philosophy, which is open to interpretation just like the bible and other philosophies. A Course in Miracles ACIM is cyclic and can be misunderstood by some to say many different things when it is designed to say only one thing. I believe the A Course in Miracles ACIM‘s use of the word denial means to set something aside in a clearer perspective, in this case the manifestations that we’ve “frozen” in their own autonomy, which of course can never be since it is we who feed them life energy. They don’t exist as absolutes, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t the value we’ve assigned to them in exact ratio to our level of consciousness as individuals and as a collective. The Kybalion of The Three Initiates complements A Course in Miracles ACIM by expanding perspective. A Course in Miracles ACIM can be a life changing study. It brings viewpoints of the singularity of truth from many angles. But The Kybalion of The Three Initiates imparts the seven Hermetic Laws which also, of course, stems from the singularity of all life, the Substantial Reality underlying everything, which is the unsaid basis of A Course in Miracles and the crux of all the great religions of the world. Many of us were raised and conditioned by religion and have a tendency to unconsciously try to make a religion out of new thought. But A Course in Miracles ACIM and The Kybalion of The Three Initiates are not religions. They are living perspectives which can open us to higher understanding of our place in a greater purpose. So in these types of studies it’s a good idea to question words like “illusion” and “existence”. Our world is real to us here on the frequency of the physical dimension. I am not an illusion. You are not an illusion. The only illusion is to miss the point that what we see is but a very small piece of endlessness. What many term illusions are actually circumstances we have made and reinforced through all too often blindly wielding universal omnipotence. But since we have made these vibrational circumstances, and everything is vibration, the Principle of Vibration is that we must tend to them in order to effect them; not by ignoring them as “illusion” but by interfacing ignorance with knowledge and having gratitude for the experience while we wake up to the fact that life is simply about being.