The course is a system of self-study under the guidance of our inner teacher, the Holy Spirit, towards awakening to ourselves. It emphasizes the experience of healing our suffering, the source of which is the belief that we have separated ourselves from God and are in spiritual exile.

The course emphasizes healing our interpersonal relationships as a means of awakening, because the relationships we have are a projection of the unconscious relationship we believe we have with God.

Forgiveness is the primary spiritual practice in the course.

By letting go of judgment and being willing to see things differently, the belief in separation from our true Self and from God can be healed. A Course In Miracles According to the Course, the only reality is a state of perfect union with God and Christ (God's true creation and our true identity).

We cannot understand it in our dualistic mind, but it is the whole thought system of the Course.

All our suffering comes from the 'dream of separation'. This insane belief that we have separated ourselves from God is what the Course defines as sin or unloving perception. The consequence of sin is guilt, self-hatred, and the expectation of punishment. This is defined as the 'unholy trinity'; sin-guilt-fear. The name the Course gives to this whole illusory thought system of duality, separation, guilt, sin, and fear is the ego.

The goal is to awaken from the nightmare of separation into a 'happy dream' where we perceive a deeper understanding that there is only One Mind. Through the Holy Spirit (God's answer to separation) we are connected back to our true identity and to the memory of God's love. The principle of reconciliation is the destruction of the belief in separation and the reminder that everything but love is an illusion.

The course states, “The world you see is what you have given it, nothing more. But even if it's not more, it's not less. It is a witness to your state of mind. The outer image of the inner state."

This passage expresses that what we see shows us what is in the unconscious. So the solution is to go to the projection in our mind to change it. There are only two projections; ego and the holy spirit.