The following words from A Course in Miracles (ACIM) are probably the most frequently quoted words from the Course.  They sum up the essence of profound work and carry implications which are not at all apparent to most upon first reading:

"The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance.  The opposite of love is fear, but what is encompassing can have no opposite.  This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:  Nothing real can be threatened.  Nothing unreal exists.  Herein lies the peace of God."

In the preface of the ACIM Text, which Helen Schucman (the Scribe of the Course) wrote about a year after ACIM had been published, she stated: "It is not intended to become the basis for another cult. It's only purpose is to provide way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher." (Text: Preface, p. viii)

Being able to access that "Internal Teacher" is central to allowing forgiveness to guide one's life in the world, hence to be at peace and of service.  The Course is not about making a better world, but it is about making a more peaceful human existence through the agency of spirit and the memory of the Love of God that the "Internal Teacher" holds for all in that part of spirit called "mind".  A better world will occur when minds are healed of their ego believes in separation and competing interests.

ACIM, then is not a religion, but a spiritual psychotherapy designed to help us to learn true forgiveness, which in turn produces healed relationships, changing our experience in the world to peace rather than turmoil.