For more than sixteen years, I have been aware that I am on a path toward spiritual enlightenment. In the beginning, the course seemed very uncertain and confusing, for it didn't seem to make sense according to the ways of the world. Now, it makes more and more sense every day, and I now know that all of the loving help I have received must be extended, for giving is a great part of the learning of Love.

Thus, these thoughts, and the circumstances that led to their discovery, are offered and shared with the hope that they will affect.....for good those that read them. I ask no-one, however, to accept them as their beliefs, for each needs to find his own truth, his own way. There is no right way, and no-one needs fixing.

I grew up in a very loving family, and was taught to be industrious, moral and religious. When I reached high school, learned to think for myself and learned physics, the old, limited religious teachings made less and less sense. I could no longer accept beliefs because someone told me to believe, I had to learn for myself.

Growing away from religion, I began learning of positive thinking and self-determination. Proceeding into mind stuff (psycho-cybernetics, alpha-cybernetics, self-hypnosis, bio-feedback, etc.).

At age twenty-five I set a goal to be a millionaire by age thirty. The newspaper carried a 2-page story, Pity Poor Dennis Krum....He Failed To Make His Goal, when I was thirty... and a half. I had missed by six months.

Still hard-working and moral, I became a big-shot, a big ego, one of the movers and shakers in Hawaii. I built my little empire, taking on all comers and winning, until the U. S. Government showed me I wasn't so big after all, and I lost my fortune.

For a time, it was Why me? I always played the game fair, and yet I lose my fortune while the crooks get richer. I had, after all, only the limited ego view of the world I had learned to that time, and had no idea that I was ready to learn, and had thus started to create the perfect learning experience for myself.

It was then that I read an article in Psychology Today entitled The Gospel According To Helen, which told about A Course In Miracles. The article convinced me to get the book. As I began to read, two things happened. First, though intelligent and a great skeptic, I concluded that no human mind could have written that book. Second was the AHA syndrome, where you ponder an unanswerable question, and then the answer appears, and it is so simple you say Why didn't I think of that?

But these were the BIG questions, such as the ones that drove me away from "religion" years before. And the biggest question for me, Why did I lose my fortune? That answer was simple. I had, to a large degree, mastered the material world. I had to lose it to learn it didn't really have value, and then I was ready to learn what did have value. When I was ready to learn, all of the tools and teachers I needed to help me learn began to appear, including the Course.

About a year before, I had met a wonderful, very successful man, and I began to see that he lived his life according to the principals I was reading. Though he had never heard of A Course In Miracles, he was brought up as a Christian Scientist, which follows the same Truths. His philosophy was I wasn't put here to make money, I was put here to do good, and God takes care of me. And do good he does, including helping me financially during my struggling times. Since that time I have been blessed with the most wonderful teachers/helpers I could imagine. And I have learned, slowly and painfully at first, but ever more easily and happily.

And today, I have more than I ever had. Though my stack of dollars isn't as large, I now have more than I ever need. I have more peace, more happiness, more joy, and more Love than I ever dreamed possible. And I am ever so grateful for the Love that has been shown me, and that I now share with YOU!!!

Dennis Krum
is@is1.org