L e s s o n  345

I offer only miracles today, For
I would have them be returned to me.    

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Hear Today's Lesson~Voice & Music by Martin Weber-Caspers[maz] 

IAMBIC PENTAMETER 
Format from URTEXT by Lee Flynn 

   "Father, a miracle reflects Your gifts

    to me, Your Son. And every one I give

    returns to me, reminding me the law

    of love is universal. Even here

    it takes a form which can be recognized,

    and seen to work. The miracles I give

    are given back in just the form I need

    to help me with the problems I perceive.

    Father, in Heaven it is different,

    for there there are no needs. But here on earth

    the miracle is closer to Your gifts

    than any other gift that I can give.

    Then let me give this gift alone today,

    which, born of true forgiveness, lights the way

    that I must travel to remember You."

   Peace to all seeking hearts today. The light

   has come, to offer miracles to bless

   the tired world. It will find rest today,

   for we will offer what we have received. "

     ~ Original Handscript of ACIM   

All the lessons in this part of the workbook are prayers. This is a beautiful prayer as a reminder to our own minds that we try to remember the importance of this law of love that what we give returns to us. Knowing this, we are motivated to apply this lesson in our lives all through the day. In this lesson we are reminded to see everything that happens as an opportunity to have the hateful judgments of the ego transformed through forgiveness. Thus it is the undoing of the wrong-minded thinking where we think we can benefit at someone's expense. The miracle shifts our perception from the wrong mind to the right mind. This means that we recognize that external events and circumstances are not the source of our happiness. Our loss of peace is caused only by our choice for the judgments and grievances of the ego thought system that we hold in the wrong mind. The Holy Spirit, reflects the part of the mind that remembers we are One with our Father. When We are willing to look at the ego by bringing our projections back into the mind and be  willing to have our misperceptions brought to correction, then we will experience the miracle, which is the reversal of the ego thought system.  This means not blaming anyone or anything for the lack of peace we experience, and remembering that it is the effect of the choice we first made in the mind to listen to the ego. We thus forgive others by releasing them of responsibility for our state of mind and for our experience in the dream. We remind ourselves that if we don't have peace it is because we have chosen to throw it away and hold our brother responsible. Now we learn to "forgive the Son of God for what he did not do" (T.17.III.1:5).

We are not asked to deny that others may do hurtful things to us, but we are asked to accept responsibility for the choice we have made to see the cause of our feelings of hurt and betrayal as coming from outside of our own mind. It does appear to come from others' behavior toward us but this what the conditioned mind believes. The recognition that we are responsible for the choice we make in our minds is the most loving thing we can do for ourselves and for others. It is the recognition that if we are hurt by what someone has said or done, it is because we have interpreted their behavior as attacking instead of a call for love and understanding which is our own call. Acknowledging that we are all the same  means that what we do to another we are actually doing to ourselves. Whether we listen to the ego's lie of separation or to the Holy Spirit's message that we are One with our Father, provides us with the choice to offer and receive the miracle.   When we are willing to practice forgiveness in this way, we invite the Holy Spirit to respond with love through us. Forgiveness is the reflection of God's gift of love to us. It is simply undoing the way we see now. It is a reversal of the ego's thought system. And thus we come to see that we are not the dream figure but it is our dream. When we see this then we demonstrate to our brothers that their attacks have no effect on us.

We must be willing to see the judgments we make with the ego and then, with willingness, to let them go, and ask for a new perception. This clears the way for the extension of love, which is effortless because it is natural: "Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. His perceptions are your natural awareness, and it is only the distortions you introduce that tire you" (T.11.VI.3:7,8). The only "effort" we are asked to put forth is a "little willingness" to question our interpretation of everything.  It is enough to introduce a slight suspicion that we may be wrong in our belief that we are separate from our Source and from each other: "Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule" (T.26.VII.10:1). Each time we make this little effort, our belief in the ego's thought system lessens and our fear of the Holy Spirit's loving perception diminishes. This is the miracle we offer to each brother and thus we receive it for ourselves in a form that will be of help to us. "The miracles I give are given back in just the form I need to help me with the problems I perceive." (1.4)

What the Course means by a miracle is a correction of our projections. It is a Course in Miracles because it is a Course in learning to change our minds from thinking with the ego to thinking with the Holy Spirit. It is a process of undoing the ego by learning a new perspective that reverses the ego's view on everything and everyone. The ego tells us we are bodies, separate from God and from each other, subject to change by external forces. The Holy Spirit tells us we are minds, one with our Father and with each other, subject to change only by the power of the mind to choose. We accept miracles for ourselves to the extent that we accept this teaching, and apply it to all events, situations, and experiences in our lives. We offer miracles to others as we recognize the same power of their minds to choose. As Jesus tells us in the text: "The miracle extends without your help, but you are needed that it can begin. Accept the miracle of healing, and it will go forth because of what it is. It is its nature to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and received. No one can ask another to be healed. But he can let himself be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received" (T.27.V.1:3,4,5,6,7). 

 Nothing external to our minds can cause us to feel anything positive or negative, and therefore, no one is responsible for how we feel. That is what is meant by Jesus' invitation: "Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do." Thus forgiveness is the miracle we offer to our brothers. In recognizing that our experience is the result of a decision in our minds to identify with the ego or with the Holy Spirit, all our brothers are released from blame, and their innocence is brought to our awareness. This is the miracle of the healing of the mind, given and received.

A miracle has nothing to do with anything external. Miracles pertain only to what is going on in our own minds. In that sense, they are not at all what traditional religious systems have thought of as miracles. Traditionally, conditions in the body and the world have been viewed as the problem; and therefore miracles, simply put, were viewed as the healing or removal of those conditions, usually through some kind of divine or supernatural intervention. A Course in Miracles, on the other hand, teaches that the body and the world are projections of thoughts in our minds: "It [the world] is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition... Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world" (T.21.in.1:5,7). Now, if you could really accept that the world is merely a projection of a thought of sin and guilt in your mind, you would realize that trying to alter things in the world or the body is ultimately futile, and that changing your mind about the reality of sin and guilt is truly healing. That is why the workbook states: "A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false" (W.pII.13.1,2,3).  

The miracle corrects our thinking, not a condition in the world or the body. Yet this passage also implies that we are not to blithely dismiss our perceptions of the world either. Rather, we are to look at the devastation in our lives, or the world-at-large, and bring our perceptions to the loving presence of Jesus in our minds. There, in our choosing to join with that reflection of truth, we will remember that what we are perceiving is but the content of a dream, not reality. "The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true" (T.28.II.7:1). 

This takes a lot of practice, which is why we have a workbook with 365 lessons, at the end of which Jesus tells us that we are just at the beginning stages of this process of thought-reversal. The entire Course is about this. Our thinking right now is the reverse of what the truth is. What we are so used to thinking about as cause for our distress are really effects. A miracle occurs when we remember and accept -- for just an instant -- that the cause of our lack of peace, sickness, deprivation, etc., is not something of the body or the world, but rather a choice we are making in our minds to identify with the thought system of separation and sin, guilt, and fear. "The miracle is the first step in giving back to cause the function of causation, not effect" (T.28.II.9:3). 

A miracle occurs when we do not take another's attack personally, recognizing instead that we all share the same needs and goals; we all share the same insanity of the ego, and we all share the same sanity of Christ's vision. Sometimes we are not aware of having made that shift in our minds, sometimes we are. Miracles occur as frequently as our willingness makes space for them. They come in the form we need based on our own individual experiences and in the context of our unique special relationships. Thus "the curriculum is highly individualized, and all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance". (M.29.2.6)     "If you but knew the glorious goal that lies beyond forgiveness, you would not keep hold on any thought, however light the touch of evil on it may appear to be". (T.29.V.6.1) So we are called to be discerning of our hateful thoughts so that we won't tolerate them but instead turn them over to the Holy Spirit so that the miracle can shine forth in our minds and extend to all those who cross our path.

Love and blessings, Sarah
 
 Sarah's Home Page

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