Classes and Seminars
Classes
For nearly 45 years, I’ve done weekly classes here in the Research Triangle, North Carolina. For the last couple of decades, my classes have been hosted by the Unity Church of the Triangle in Raleigh. I can’t say enough about how gracious and supportive they have been to me. And a special thank you to Senior Minister Rev. Neusom Holmes. Like so many other activities during the pandemic, we have gone online. Here’s the information you need to get to the Monday Night Class.
Study and practice of ACIM that emphasizes the non-dual tradition of removing the unreal to reveal the real – your own True Nature. Focus is on learning the language and concepts as a guide to daily practice – the actual method of the Course. It’s not a matter of learning or gaining anything new, but of letting go of the person you think you are, and the world you think you are in.
Prior to the publication of the Course, I was taught, and authorized to teach, by an Order of awakened Christian mystics.
Online Class: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Eastern – Miracles Class online using Skype Meet Now.
Here’s how you can join the class:
Joining from link for the first time?
Sign in as a guest. Click green “Join Call” button when it appears. It should appear in the upper right-hand corner.
Participant who has joined from link previously: Sign in as a guest. Select Group Chat (ACIM) This should show up on the left side of the page if you have linked in previously. In conversation window to the right, click green “Join Call” button in top right corner when it appears.
Anyone clicking “Meet Now” is starting a separate call, and will not be connected with the ACIM group. This may have happened to some of you, which sent you to a seemingly open call, but no one was there.
Finally, if you try these steps and are still not getting through, email me, and I will try to walk you through it.
We recommend you try getting on 5 or 10 minutes early so that if you have problems, there will be time to work them out. Class will begin at 7:00pm.
Should you have any difficulties accessing the meeting, you can contact David Beaver at 919.271.6605 or email at mindsmagic@nc.rr.com
Donations – Payment is on a donation basis with a suggested minimum of $10/session. Jeff Singh, an old friend, long-time Course student (and in whose family-owned house I live) set up a donation button for me through his PayPal. While it lists his Empowerize Media account, any donation comes to me. The “other amount” button will accept amounts as small as one dollar.
Seminars
For the past few years, I have been on a self-described “Retreat” where I focused on my classes and my own practice, while maintaining my service work in the world by bringing the “Overview Effect” of the astronauts’ perspective altering space experiences into the culture. You can see that work in the two organizations I put together; The Overview Institute, and the new Center for Planetary Identity.
But over the past decade or so, I’ve developed a series of seminars when various groups have asked me to speak. Here are the major ones. While the pandemic holds sway, I may do one or more online if there seems to be interest in them.
These talks are based on radical Insights into the heart of daily spiritual practice distilled from four decades teaching and learning A Course in Miracles; including material drawn from the world’s non-dual traditions as well as talks with awakened individuals met along the way.
“You Are Not the Dreamer; You Are the Dream”
In this talk, I turned a Course passage around and looked at it from the other side. The passage says; “Thus you are not the dreamer but the dream,” and uses this to explain how it seems that the world just happens to you, rather than being a projection of the mind of the character you think of as yourself. But you are not asked to give up all dreaming, for that would just lead to fear and depression. You are asked to exchange your dream of separation for the dream of the Holy Spirit, or of your Real Self, your Only Self. While the dream of separation exists only in the seemingly separate mind of your character, the dream of the Real World is shared by all living things, even by the Universe itself. Thus, in this dream, you are not the single solitary dreamer, you are the whole and entire dream itself.
“Learning to See the Real World”
Our perception of the world is a projection deeply rooted in our sense of separation, denying the oneness of reality and seeing an illusionary world of separation – the source of all our suffering. True forgiveness is a Shift in Perception, undermining the false sense of separation. The final Awakening to our True Nature cannot be taught or learned, only recognized or remembered, but learning to see the Real World makes us accessible to the Grace that leads to Awakening. We will explore the practices that lead to this Shift.
“Forgiveness is a Shift in Perception”
Forgiveness is the key to happiness. It shifts our perception from the world of separation to the Real World, which reflects the oneness of reality, where forgiveness is perceived as always merited. But our separate perception seems to show us a separate world, one outside the mind. The Course says, “If the world were truly outside the mind, True Forgiveness would be impossible.” In this seminar/workshop, we’ll learn how seeing through our false understanding of the perception of an outside world overcomes one of the more persistent barriers to True Forgiveness.
“A Course In Miracles and the Experience of the Astronauts”
How Understanding the Worldview- Shift Experienced by the Astronauts Helps Us to Understand the Shift in Perception Enabled by Non-Dual Spiritual Practice
Since the beginning of human spaceflight, astronauts have described profound shifts in their perspectives on many of the major issues confronting the world simply by seeing the Earth in the context of the universe of stars. In the space field this is known as the Overview Effect, an effect we do not get on Earth.
We will examine these changes in the minds of the astronauts, and the analogy they provide to the relationship between spiritual teaching and spiritual experience. We will examine the barriers to spiritual experience, and how non-dual practices like A Course in Miracles overcome these barriers.
Seminar leader David Beaver has taught A Course in Miracles for more than 40 years. David is also the Initiator, Co-Founder, and Chief Cognitive Researcher of the Overview Institute, the only organization in the space field researching and educating on the Overview Effect of spaceflight. David’s site is davidbeaver.org, and the Overview Institute site is overviewinstitute.org.
David’s Seminar Endorsements
“David Beaver is one of the most gifted and engaging speakers that I have ever met. His experience as a cognitive researcher and as a Course in Miracles teacher and facilitator, make David a unique and compelling speaker who challenges as well as entertains his audience. Response to David’s afternoon Work Shop at Unity of Charlottesville September 6th, 2014 was extremely positive and most complimentary. We look forward to having him back again sometime in the near future.”
Sincerely,
“David Beaver is simply one of the most compelling and fascinating speakers I have ever seen. He has spoken, participated in panel discussions and led seminars for the Miracles Community here many times over the years, always to a packed house. Always entertaining, he’s intelligent and insightful, explaining the Course in ways everyone can relate to and understand.”
“We were privileged to host David Beaver as a guest speaker at Unity of Charlottesville’s Sunday morning worship service this past September. When we consider the range, depth and potential of human consciousness, it seems to us as vast as the vastness of outer space. David’s presentation was a brilliant, informative, entertaining, and inspiring bridge between subjective and objective science. He deftly navigated the profound teachings of A Course in Miracles, with empirical information from this fascinating work with space exploration. We highly recommend David as a guest speaker.”
“David has always been a seeker of Truth and likes to dig deep. He brings a combination of expertise and training in the fields of theology, religion and cognitive science along with his knowledge and vast experience as a student and teacher of ACIM to his students. He uses ALL his gifts and tools to facilitate an experience of learning and understanding the course in ways that can be applied to the situations happening in our daily lives.”
“His ease in relating the principles of the course and his gentle, loving nature make him an excellent speaker and teacher for those who just want an introduction to ACIM, or are beginning students or lifetime students. David has a way of tailoring his classes to what is most needed in any given class or circumstance.”
“He encourages open and honest discussions, whether it’s to express difficulty in applying ACIM to a specific situation or to disagree with one of the course’s principles. Whether you’re considering attending a one day workshop or becoming a student of ACIM, you will find it to be time well spent.”
“I began my study of A Course in Miracles in 2004. I was a little wary of its claim to be “a course in mind training” which I equated with “brain washing”. I certainly didn’t want a teacher or guru that would do just that, so the first year I decided I would read it cover to cover by myself without any outside influences. “
My experience was cathartic and healing, the opposite of what I had feared. I discovered the “mind training” it spoke of dealt with discovering and releasing the misperceptions and beliefs I had overlearned by living in a society designed to keep duality and separation “real”. I cried as I allowed wounds deep within me that I had stuffed and long forgotten, to rise to be released once and for all. I would sit, read, sip coffee and cry for much of that year.
Nowhere in my reading did I find it attempting to “control me or brain wash me”. It DID however, lovingly and gently invite me to consider that the excessive self-talk, judgments of self and others, my perceptions of EVERYTHING, just might be the cause of my suffering and that if I CHOOSE to be WILLING to allow a different perspective, a kinder more expansive and inclusive one to enter into my thinking that perhaps I’d find my chaotic and insane life a little more peaceful, loving and kind.
Enter David Beaver, who is one of the very first students of ACIM when it was still a loose leaf transcript before it was ever published. Like many in this first ever study group of ACIM, he felt a “shift” and was compelled to facilitate study groups of his own. This was around 1977-78 and he has been faithfully teaching ACIM every Monday night at UCT ever since to the delight of many students who have also found ACIM to be their path.
I attended David’s Mon night class for over 6 years and attribute much of my understanding and comprehension of its principles to David’s expertise as a gifted and knowledgeable teacher.”
Enjoy the journey,