What is a miracle?
Our new special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all.”
Recently, we played a game based on the teaching in Rupert Spira’s book, The Transparency of Things. We used a book or some other piece of paper with words on it as a prop. First we read the words on the page, and we noticed what they said, and then we shifted our focus to notice the paper on which the words were written. We became aware of the paper that was already present, even though we weren’t consciously aware of it when our attention was focused on the words.
A miracle is similar to that shift in focus.
When we shifted our attention from the words to the paper, we did not create the paper. We merely became aware of it. In fact, nothing changed at all. The words already appeared on paper. There was no material change. The only change, if we call it a change, was that we became more aware of the paper.
A miracle is like that. It shifts our awareness from the specific focus of the ego to another focus that is not of the ego.
I can attack but my own sinlessness, And it is only that which keeps me safe.
We can use this sentence from our workbook lesson to notice how a miracle works.
If I read the sentence with emphasis on “attack”, I may see the sentence in this way:
I can attack but my own sinlessness,
and it is only that (attack) which keeps me safe.
The sentence may look a little crazy written that way, but the ego’s perception is crazy. And in fact, the ego perceives exactly as that sentence is written above.
When thinking with the ego thought system, don’t you think attack keeps you safe?
Pause and look at this for a moment. Remember some subtle ways that you have attacked, because you thought that was the way to be safe.
Now, if we shift the focus in the sentence, we will see the sentence differently. Let’s put the emphasis on “sinlessness”:
I can attack but my own sinlessness,
and it is only that (sinlessness) which keeps me safe.
Now the meaning of the sentence has changed completely, although the actual sentence itself remains the same. The only “change” is a shift in focus, but the shift in focus changes everything.
With this shift in focus, we move outside the ego’s way of thinking entirely. Now attack is the opposite of safety, because if I attack anything, I attack my awareness of my sinlessness, and only my sinlessness keeps me safe.
A person who reads the sentence with the emphasis on attack, and believes that emphasis, is going to understand, think and act much differently than one who reads the sentence with the emphasis on sinlessness and believes (or puts faith in) that meaning.
This shift in perception from seeing attack as my safety to seeing non-attack as my safety is a miracle.
In order to help initiate this miracle in you, please contemplate the following today:
- Remember a time that you used attack for perceived protection or safety. How did you feel in that moment? Write those feelings down as honestly as you can.
- Are those feelings synonymous with “safety”? To help you answer this objectively, open a thesaurus and look at the synonyms for safety. Can you find the feelings that you have already written down in that list of synonyms?
- Next, contemplate what your sinlessness is. In order to get a real sense of your sinlessness, which is present right now, don’t contemplate sinlessness as an idea or concept. The mind defines some ideas as sinless and some ideas as sin. If you contemplate this by thinking, you will only define a part of you as sinless, or you will only define yourself as sinless sometimes. We are looking for sinlessness that is whole, perfect and always present. So without thinking, look at yourself now. Can you find whole, perfect and always present sinlessness? Don’t give up until you do.
- Once you have realized whole, perfect and always present sinlessness, read this sentence again with emphasis on what you have found:I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe.
- What is that? What does the sentence mean with emphasis on that? Write what it means as you see it now, with the shift in perspective that occurred through following these steps. As you write, additional insight may come. Continue to write with insight until it comes to a quiet end. This will help initiate the miracle in you.
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