Gerald G. Jampolsky - Shortcuts to God: Finding Peace Quickly Through Practical Spirituality

Copyright 2000 by Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D.
Illustrations 2000 by Leslie Cabarga

C ELESTIAL A RTS
P.O. Box 7123
Berkeley, California 94707

No part of this book may be reproduced by any means mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for the public or private use without the written permission of the publisher.

Portions from A Course in Miracles Copyright 1975, 1992, 1999, reprinted by permission of T HE F OUNDATION FOR A C OURSE IN M IRACLES , 1275 Tennanah Lake Road, Roscoe, NY 12776-5905
The ideas represented herein are the personal interpretation and understanding of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the copyright holder of A Course in Miracles

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jampolsky, Gerald G., 1925
Shortcuts to GOD : finding peace quickly through practical spirituality / Gerald G. Jampolsky; foreword by Hugh Prather; illustrated by Leslie Cabarga.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Love is letting go of fear.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81489-0
1. Spiritual life. 2. Mental healing. 1. Title.
BL624 .J436 2000
291.44dc21

00-024124

v3.1

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book, with boundless love and gratefulness, to God, my grandchildrenJacquelyn, Grant, Jalena, and Lexieto all the children who have come to the C ENTERS FOR A TTITUDINAL H EALING , and to the children of the world who teach us all what unconditional love, light, and innocence, are all about.
They give life to the statement, And a little child shall lead them.

W e experience God when we see only the light in everyone we meet .

I wish to share my deep and loving appreciation to my wife, Diane Cirincione, and to my dear friend, Hal Zina Bennett, for all of their loving encouragement and editorial assistance with this book. I wish to thank Gloria and Ken Wapnick, of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles for their permission to quote from the Course. There are times when I have paraphrased the Course according to my understanding. I have indicated any direct quotes from the Course with endnotes.

M ost of my life, in spite of efforts to the contrary, I took the wrong roads and the long cuts through life, never the short cuts. Being dyslexic I confused right and left. If I tried to follow someones directions, I invariably ended up going in the wrong direction, adding hours to my journey. I was a master at doing things the hard way.

In my younger days my friends called me Wrong Way Jampolsky, a nickname borrowed from Wrong Way Corrigan, a man who flew across the Atlantic, telling authorities that the reason he did it was that he got lost.

Feeling lost has been an unpleasant theme during a great deal of my life. Its been easy to blame getting lost on my dyslexia. But I now think it had more to do with my stubborn egos fight with God. Now, having gained some expertise about taking long cuts, I feel I have gained some insights about short cuts as well.

During so much of my past I have been like a rudderless boat going around in circles. At long last I feel that I have a rudder and know where I want to goand that is the direction of going home to God. Most of my life this was certainly not my goal! As a child I was confused about God, partly because I frequently read the word God backwards, so it came out as dog.

Most of my early adult life I was a militant atheist, running away from God, denying Gods existence, fighting with God, and blaming God for the many awful things that happened to me. If God came up in a conversation at a party, I left that conversation and fled as far to the opposite side of the room as I could.

In spite of many achievements in my life, I still felt empty inside. My success with outer goals did not bring me the happiness and peace I was seeking. It never occurred to me that what I was looking for was the God-Self that was inside me and that I had never really been separate from God.

In 1975, following a painful divorce that ended my twenty-year marriage, and ending a long period of alcoholism, I consciously chose a spiritual path and started healing my relationship with God. That same year I helped to found the C ENTER FOR A TTITUDINAL H EALING , now located in Sausalito, California, which in turn helped to inspire the growth of over 150 Centers or groups around the world, all of which offer free services to people who are faced with catastrophic illness and their family members. Additionally, these Centers offer free support to people in all walks of life interested in using Attitudinal Healing to deal with personal, as well as professional challenges.

That same year, I was also introduced to A Course in Miracles, which radically changed my life, helping me listen to the voice of Love rather than the voice of fear.

All the books I have written were inspired by my hearts resonating with the heartbeat of God which I found in A Course in Miracles. In 1979, I wrote my first book, Love is Letting Go of Fear. I only used the word God once in that book. Though that book was about spiritual transformation, I avoided the word God because I still didnt feel comfortable with it in my vocabulary. Any time I used it, it seemed to stick in my throat.

Today I look at things differently. In writing this booka sequel to Love is Letting Go of Fear, some twenty-plus years laterit is as if I have been guided to write a book about remembering God.

This book is about finding the shortcuts that will lead us to God regardless of the theological or philosophical paths we use to get there. It is about removing the obstacles we have placed in our own paths. It is about knowing and experiencing God.