What Is a Miracle?

Our special theme says, “The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there.”

When talking about the phases one goes through in the development of trust, A Course in Miracles Manual for Teachers says:

[The teacher of God] thought he learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for.  …  He must learn to lay all judgment aside, and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance.  Were not each step in this direction so heavily reinforced, it would be hard indeed!

This paragraph comforted me during many trials along this path. The trials were times that I feared real sacrifice was about to occur. For example, there were times that I feared running out of money, because by following guidance I left a traditional job and began to do what I was guided to do without any direct source of income. I was worried about how I would care for my daughter and myself; my daughter was only a little girl at the time. That paragraph from the Manual for Teachers reminded me to ask only for what I really want, which is awakening, and it promised that the rightness of that choice would be “heavily reinforced.”

My experience has been that this works. It is as Jesus taught, “Seek ye first the kingdom, and all else will be added to you.”

Again today, we are looking at the power of faith and asking, with asking focused on truth and not on conditions in the world. As we stay focused on seeking truth, the creative principle responds by providing the most helpful material circumstances.

When our special theme says, “faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there,” it is pointing to both the shift in perception and its material effects. Both are “witnesses,” which “heavily reinforce” our choice to abide as unaffected.

It is a mistake to expect a specific material outcome as a result of faith. Whenever we expect or desire a specific outcome, we think with ego, and so it is the energy of ego that is fed into the creative principle on our behalf. To feed the energy of the miracle into the creative principle, we must seek only for truth (in whatever way your mind words that aspiration). It is this seeking that brings the miracle, its effects and the positive reinforcement.

I have no cause for anger or for fear, for You surround me. And in every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me.

Today’s lesson says, “Father, let me remember You are here, and I am not alone. Surrounding me is everlasting Love. I have no cause for anything except the perfect peace and joy I share with You. … God’s grace suffices us in everything that He would have us do. And only that we choose to be our will as well as His.”

Today, let’s notice our concerns.

1. What material changes do you think you need in order to be happy, feel safe, be relieved of anxiety or to focus on God/Truth? Write them down.
2. Look at each desired change, one at a time. Notice how willing you are to let go of that specific desire in trust that as you seek truth, everything that is genuinely helpful will be given. Also notice where you do not feel that willingness or trust. (Simply look and notice.)
3. After looking at yourself in this way, contemplate what you noticed. Just sit and be with what you’ve noticed without judgment or guilt. Our goal is to become more clear regarding ourselves, our fears, our motivations, etc. If you feel guided to write as you contemplate what you noticed, please follow that guidance.
4. When you feel complete with #3, see if a prayer arises in you. If so, pray the prayer that is in your heart.

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What Is a Miracle?

Our special theme says, “The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand.”

There are two points from today’s selection that I would like to contemplate. First, let’s look at faith.

Bernadette Roberts wrote, “Indeed, it is because Truth is unbelievable that man needs faith—faith, which is beyond belief.”

What is faith? Faith is trust or confidence in something based on spiritual understanding rather than proof.

I have learned that faith is better than seeking proof, primarily because we cannot find proof until we have walked the journey and experienced it for ourselves. As Bernadette also wrote, “Complete understanding can only come at the end of the journey.” That’s because complete understanding comes from direct experience.

Every phase of the journey that still lies ahead is not understandable and not provable from the perspective of where we are now. This is why we need faith. We need faith that there is truth or higher seeing beyond our current way of seeing in order to motivate us to continue the journey. Without faith in something beyond our current knowing, our journey may stall.

A hiker keeps up the hike because there is still something to see that hasn’t been seen yet. It’s as the old song goes:

The bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
to see what he could see.

Faith is trusting there is something to see that hasn’t been seen yet.

The second point I’d like to contemplate from today’s selection is this: “because to ask for it implies that the mind has been made ready…”

It is wonderful to ask. In my Buddha at the Gas Pump interview, Rick Archer commented that when I asked for something, I received it. It’s true. All along my spiritual journey, as I became ready for a particular phase of the journey, I found myself asking for it, and then that phase of the journey would begin. Of course, I didn’t always know what to ask for. I just knew I was ready for whatever was next. For example, just before The Teachings of Inner Ramana came, I asked for something that would take me to the next step. Just before a massive phase of purification started, I asked for something that would take me higher into love. In fact, the entire spiritual journey began when I asked for truth regardless of what it is.

Asking is grand! I like to begin each day’s contemplation by asking to see whatever is most helpful for me to see now. I begin each meditation by putting the meditation in the hands of Ramana and asking that it be whatever is most helpful for me now.

When we ask from a state of readiness, Grace responds. It is as NTI Revelation says:

You will never be asked to take a single step alone, but you must always be willing to take the lead by deciding the purpose and calling it out to Us.

Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me.

Today’s workbook lesson demonstrates asking when it says, “Straighten my mind, my Father.”

Of course, the words themselves are never the prayer. The prayer that moves Grace is the heartfelt readiness and faith that is at the foundation of the prayer. Until one sees for herself how hurtful judgment is, genuinely tires of the judging mind, and has faith that it is possible to be free of judgment, she will not ask with the dynamism that moves mountains. (Ref: Mark 11:23)

How do we prepare ourselves for a sincere prayer?

We simply be where we are on this journey now to the best of our ability and pay attention to everything. As we do that, we are naturally prepared for our next step. When we are ready for our next step, we will feel it, and we will ask for it sincerely.

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What Is a Miracle?

Our special theme says, “Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.”

This reminds me of the opening of the Book of John in the Bible. It says:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. …

Once I looked up the word “word” in the dictionary to try to get some clarity on this passage from John. As I read the definitions of “word,” they seemed not to apply until I came across this definition:

an utterance

I looked up “utterance,” and found it to be the expression of an idea.

With that, I looked back at the opening paragraph of the Book of John and saw this:

In the beginning was an utterance—an idea expressed—and the utterance was with God, which is life, and the utterance was inseparable from life. It was with life in the beginning. Through utterance combined with life all things were made manifest; without utterance nothing was made that has been made. In the utterance was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. …

From that understanding of this scripture, I came up with this formula:

Life + Utterance = Manifestation

To make this simple, let me express it this way:

When we give expression to an idea by believing it and giving attention to it, it becomes infused with the life of our awareness, and it becomes manifest in some way. This is universal, divine law. It is the Third Principle of God, the creative principle.

With this little bit of clarity, let’s look back at today’s selection from our special theme:

Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.

We’ve already seen that the “lily of forgiveness” is our choice to abide as unaffectedness, which is also the Loving All Method. Each time we abide as unaffected—each time we practice or live the Loving All Method—the expression of that choice becomes a silent utterance fed into the creative principle (the Word of God, the universal altar to Creator and creation) and results in a perfectly pure and joyous manifestation. These manifestations are often called Grace.

Grace shows up in the world in innumerable ways, in any way that is helpful in the moment. Grace is usually seen as a miracle, but Grace is actually the effect of the miracle.

The miracle is the shift in perception from seeing one’s self as affected to seeing one’s self as unaffected. This miracle, the lily of forgiveness, fed into the creative principle, creates its likeness in manifestation, because all ideas manifested through the creative principle manifest in the likeness of themselves.

Today the peace of God envelops me, And I forget all things except His Love.

Today’s workbook lesson says, “Father, I wake today with miracles correcting my perception of all things. … I do not seek the things of time, and so I will not look upon them. What I seek today transcends all laws of time and things perceived in time. I would forget all things except Your Love. I would abide in You, and know no laws except Your law of love.”

In other words, today we do not seek to fix, change, get or avoid things or circumstances in the world, because we know that judgment, as well as thought and action based on judgment, goes into the creative principle and creates like itself—more to fix, change, get or avoid.

Instead, we awake today with the realization of how divine law works. We understand that our safety and the world’s safety lies in our unaffectedness. It lies in living the Loving All Method, because when the safety of the Loving All Method is fed into the creative principle, it manifests like itself, thereby manifesting true safety as Grace.

Our way of being is a more important choice than most humans ever begin to imagine. The miracle today is that we accept this as true, and because we accept this as true, we put more effort into being the Loving All Method.

Be Loving All.
See yourself as that,
instead of as a person.

Being Loving All is forgetting “all things except God’s Love.”

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love.”

Others may not notice our miracles—that is, others may not notice our individual shifts in perception. That’s because each one sees through the filter of his/her mind. If we tell them about our shifts, they may not believe us or they may quickly forget. And that is as it is.

That’s why our special theme refers to the “silent miracle of love.” It is a miracle that is free to go unnoticed by everyone except the one who is the medium of the miracle. The one who abides as the unaffected Self to the point that a shift occurs is aware of the miracle. He/she is also aware of the universality of the miracle, although the miracle may have effects the he/she will never be aware of.

This means that we cannot look outside ourselves for evidence of a miracle or for understanding of what has occurred. The miracle is ours to behold as it has been revealed to us, while also knowing a miracle could never belong to us alone.

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

When we offer miracles, we do not offer corrections for the problems we see in the world. We offer miracles by living the Loving All Method. It is as simple as that. If something is to change in form as an effect of our miracles—well, we leave that to the unpredictability of the creative principle. Outward effects are not our concern. Forgiveness is our only function.

In the Bible, Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1, 2)

He also said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38)

These two scriptures point to the same universal law—we receive whatever we give. As today’s workbook lesson says:

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.

As we live from the unaffected Self, we become unaffected. In this way, we transcend (or overcome) the world. This can be reflected in how we see a situation, and it can be reflected in the situation itself. A situation can change as a result of our way of being. However, it is never for us to decide that a situation must change, because by deciding that is so, we have also decided that we are affected by that situation. By that very decision, we have judged instead of abiding as unaffected.

The subtlety of this teaching is confusing to the mind. When this teaching is explained, people ask questions like, “So, if my husband is beating me, I just continue to let him do that?” Or, “If someone is abusing an animal, do we just stand by and watch?”

As Chapter 12 of The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss explains:

The Loving All Method refers only to your emotions. No changes in your external behavior are required.

For example: if a vase falls and you would normally try and catch it, you will also try and catch the vase while you are practicing the Loving All Method. You do not allow the vase to fall because you are loving the falling.

If someone were to try to punch you in the face and if you would normally duck, you will also duck while practicing the Loving All Method. The fact that you are loving the fact that someone is trying to punch you does not mean you will not duck. You also love the fact that you are ducking to avoid being punched.

The Loving All Method is about emotional acceptance. The Loving All Method is not about changing your actions.

Interestingly, when people ask about the abusive husband or the abused animal, they are usually not in those situations, they are only thinking about them. Thinking is trying to confuse a teaching that can be quite simple. If you forget about hypothetical examples and simply live in the moment, the simplicity of the teaching reveals itself. You will know what to do in each moment, and you will do it.

Today, as you live the Loving All Method, let doing remain in the moment instead of in thinking. Let the day unfold naturally, including your doing, as you concentrate on loving, accepting or allowing, whichever is your highest possibility in the moment.

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness is the home of miracles.”

I find myself wanting to sit quietly with this sentence. For me, this sentence is like animated glitter, sparkling with aliveness. It is the key—the answer. We abide as our unaffected Self, both during meditation and while living in the world, and this simple abidance ushers in a whole new world.

This brilliant clarity is so obvious to me that I just want to be as silent as silent can be and then whisper, “Do you see it? Do you see how simple it is? Do you see how we can do this all the time until the doing is done?”

If I could give a gift to every single person on the planet, it would be the gift of seeing the simplicity of this statement:

Abiding as your unaffected Self is The Way.

No one, no thing, nor any circumstance can prevent you from making this choice. It is a choice that is always available to you. As NTI Revelation, Chapter 7, says:

You choose the purpose for everything you see,
and the purpose you choose is the one that is given to it.

The purpose of everything can be to get better and better at abiding as the unaffected Self.

How do we abide as unaffected under all circumstances?

The Loving All Method explains the way.

Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

Two interpretations of today’s lesson immediately come to mind.

1. As I accept the atonement for myself by abiding as the unaffected Self, the service I render is for everyone.
2. As I teach my brother that what he has done has not hurt me, I grow more and more aware of the truth of my unaffectedness.

Today I feel to focus on the second interpretation of this lesson. It’s an extremely practical interpretation, and one that is very good for each of us to practice.

I LOVE to teach others that no matter what they do to me, it’s okay. I am not hurt, and my love for them is totally unaffected. I have practiced this under what some may say are extreme circumstances. For example, one friend became jealous of me and went on an internet tirade spreading lies about me. This tirade lasted about 6 months. During this time, I stayed out of it. I did not respond to her posts or defend myself in any way. When this tirade ended, a few years passed. She did not contact me, and I allowed her to have no contact with me. I did not initiate contact with her, because she did not want contact, not because of a grievance on my part. I allowed her to have her perception and her feelings about it. And then one day something difficult happened in her life, and she called me for help. I responded as if nothing had happened in-between our last friendly conversation and this one. The moment she wanted me to be her close friend, I was her close friend again.

That’s just one example of how I teach that I am not hurt, and you did not hurt me. I am unaffected, and you are innocent. These are two of the most beautiful lessons that can be taught.

Now, there is a difference between teaching this lesson and enabling unwholesome behavior. It’s very difficult to explain the difference with words, because the guidance that explains the difference is a feeling within.

However, as an example, the Awakening Together Sanctuary is a place that has been set-aside as a sanctuary, a place free of disrespect and attack. So, if my friend were to come in there and begin telling lies about me, we would need to follow our etiquette guidelines and remove her from the Sanctuary. At one point, if she were to return and follow our guidelines, all would be forgotten, but for as long as she persisted, she would continue to be banned.

At the same time, my heart would remain open and loving toward my friend, even as the behavior is not being condoned.

Another example was the time I had a stalker. He called and emailed me several times each day. His ideas about our relationship were ideas from a mentally ill mind. The guidance was to ignore him, because whenever I responded to him in any way, I encouraged him deeper into his mental illness. Although I was slow to learn this lesson, I finally learned to ignore him with an open heart. I loved him and had compassion for his illness, but I did not pick up the phone or return his emails.

In other words, you can love an alcoholic without buying him a drink.

Of course, this fine line between enabling and loving is one each person needs to find for himself/herself.

If there is a situation with someone in your life that is confusing for you, please ask a question of inner wisdom, and then begin to write in order to receive more clarity and personal guidance. As you write, remember that you are not guilty and the other person is not guilty. If anything comes into your writing that indicates that either one of you is guilty, realize ego has gotten into the writing. Take a break, get in touch with your desire for truth and healing, and then try writing again.

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. … It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.”

Once again, we see the theme of a gentle awakening from ego consciousness to consciousness, and finally to truth. Forgiveness and its effect, a shift in seeing or knowing, is the medium that prepares us for the final awakening, but the shift that is the miracle is not the final awakening. Many shifts or miracles may occur before the final awakening dawns. (Sometimes these shifts are referred to as awakenings.)

While reading Bernadette Roberts’ book, The Experience of No Self, I noticed she went through a number of shifts. I also noticed that with each shift, she thought she had arrived at the final seeing, and yet months or years later, another shift would occur. Bernadette was not attempting to fool herself, yet each shift in seeing was so dramatically different than the one before it—and she had no idea about what was yet to come—that she perceived each shift as the final shift until the next one came, and the next, and then the next.

She made this observation in retrospect:

One way to look at this journey is to see it as a process of acclimating to an unselfconscious mind, or as a transition from a relative to a non-relative way of knowing.

Ego consciousness is a fully self-conscious and relative mind, meaning that it is always thinking of itself in relationship or comparison to everything that is not it. Truth has no sense of self, so it is fully “unselfconscious.” Also, it only knows its Self, so there isn’t one in relation to or compared to another. Each miracle, or shift in perception, carries us further from the fully self-conscious and relative mind that is ego to the unselfconscious, non-relativeness that is truth.

As our special theme goes on to say, “[The miracle] illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because [the world] fails entirely to understand its ways. The miracle inverts perception, which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth.“

The miracle moves us, one shift at a time, from the sense of self relative to something else, including relative to God, to the edge of unselfconscious or no sense of self. At this edge, which we gradually acclimate to one shift at a time, we are ready for the final movement beyond any sense of self or other. As our special theme says, “Now is forgiveness seen as justified.”

I’d like to look at that last sentence for a moment before we move to today’s workbook lesson. It says that when we are at that edge, which is sometimes referred to as the edge of a cliff—also referred to as the edge of the bridge in previous tips—“forgiveness is seen as justified.” If we need to get all the way to that edge before we see forgiveness as justified, then prior to that final perception we will sometimes (or often) think forgiveness is not justified. We will think we have a right to feel affected, offended, afraid, hurt, angry, controlling, etcetera. However, if we believe we are fully right about our right to be affected, we refuse the miracle.

That is the purpose of faith. Before we arrive at the edge of perception and see clearly that all forgiveness is justified, we need to have faith that forgiveness is justified. Even if we cannot understand how it is justified, we need the faith to forgive anyway. This faith, followed by a conscious choice, is how we open up to the miracles that usher us gently to the threshold of truth.

I am not asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God.

As already seen, at times along the way we may feel that we are making a sacrifice by choosing forgiveness over some other option, like fear, anger or control. The ego may even jump up and down screaming, “This isn’t fair; something valuable is being taken away!!”

That isn’t true. That is only the ego’s perspective as it tries to stay in control of you. By practicing the Loving All Method or Rest, Accept and Trust with this idea of sacrifice, you make way for a miracle, which will take you one step closer to truth, eternal awareness-love-bliss.

Today, pay close attention to the mind. Be open to seeing something the mind does not want you to forgive, let go, accept, allow or love. When you find it, you also find the opportunity to take another bite out of the ego by practicing the teachings instead of practicing the ego.

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. … It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false.”

I had a dream a few nights ago. In the dream, my daughter, my boyfriend and I were traveling to Yellowstone National Park in a station wagon very much like the one my parents had when I was a child. Jasmine, Ron and I rode in the front seat. In the backseat, there was an unattractive woman and her mindless daughter. The woman was Ron’s new girlfriend, which he added to our family. I was being nice and accepting of our situation; I welcomed her and her daughter into our family.

We stopped at a Route 66-like truck stop. Ron and Jasmine got our dog out of the very back of the station wagon and took the dog for a walk. I opened the backdoor to let Ron’s new girlfriend and her daughter out of the backseat, intending fully to be polite—even believing that I liked them—when all of the sudden, my anger burst out unexpectedly.

I couldn’t believe how rude I was to this woman. My intention was to be nice! So, I tried to apologize, but again anger and hatred poured out of me.

I ran away from the car, horrified by my own behavior, and ran into the truck stop restaurant to hide. There, inside the restaurant, I met Dolly Parton. She showed up as a fairy godmother type of character. She was there to help me look at my feelings and to discover what was true for me. Since I had been lying to myself about how I felt, this was important and helpful.

That’s the end of the dream. However, when I woke up, I saw where all of the components of the dream came from.

1. Recently a friend told me how her partner of many years has invited another female partner to be part of the family. My friend appears very happy with this arrangement, but I thought she wasn’t being honest with herself about her feelings.
2. Another friend was recently divorced. Her ex-husband has a new girlfriend. This friend is very angry about the new girlfriend. She has openly shared her anger about this with me, including telling me repeatedly how ugly this new girlfriend is.
3. The friend who was recently divorced has told me many times how mindless her teenage daughter is. She gets very angry at what she perceives as her daughter’s refusal to think.
4. On our last family vacation, Ron, Jasmine and I traveled on Route 66 in Arizona. Our next planned vacation is Yellowstone National Park.
5. Every day in my household, we take a break from whatever we are doing to walk our dog. It’s a necessary part of our life right now.
6. Whitney Houston played the fairy godmother in one version of Cinderella. Whitney Houston also sang, “I Will Always Love You,” which was written by Dolly Parton.
7. My parents had the station wagon that was in the dream when I was 11 years old. That is also the year my parents divorced.

If you look at these seven details, all of which are stored in my subconscious mind, you can see that the subconscious pulled these details together in a new way to create the dream. The dream was simply old memories and impressions woven together to create a new temporary tapestry.

I am sharing this with you, because this is how our world is made too. All of the old ideas—old thoughts, perceptions, impressions and beliefs from the collective subconscious—are woven together to create what appears to be a new present, but it is actually just a regurgitation of old thoughts, perceptions, impressions and beliefs. And the miracle sees it as meaningless regurgitation.

Some people may give my dream meaning by analyzing it and saying, “This means that, and that means this,” but that misses the point entirely. The point is that the dream (and the world) is meaningless. When we give it no new meaning, we accept the correction. If we give the dream meaning, the subconscious is rebuilt, and the regurgitation continues.

It’s true that I can look at my dream and see what is in my subconscious. The seven elements above show that. But seeing that enables me to look at the dream and realize, “Oh, the dream was just made up from a random reordering of the subconscious.” In other words, what I see in the dream is merely false.

And that is true of the world we see also.

I let forgiveness rest upon all things, For thus forgiveness will be given me.

Today’s lesson says, “I thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. It is not real. And you have given me the means to prove its unreality to me. The key is in my hand,…”

The “means to prove its unreality to me”—the key—is forgiveness, which is abiding as the unaffected Self. Abiding unaffected is giving no new meaning to the regurgitation that is the world.

The Loving All Method is a gentle way of abiding as the unaffected Self. Therefore, living the Loving All Method is forgiveness. It is the key.

Let’s review the Loving All Method today. Although you have read this more than once before, it is always possible a sentence or word that did not stand out to you before will now shine with new, previously unseen clarity. Therefore, although the mind may want to skip reading this, because the mind thinks it knows it already, let’s bypass the mind’s opinion and read Chapter 12 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again today.

Note: I would like to point out an error in my mind, and how error manifests into suffering. If you look back at the seven elements from my subconscious, which created the dream, you will notice that element #1 included a judgment I made about another. That judgment, left uncorrected, is what led to the suffering of the Regina-character in the dream. Without that judgment, the dream could have been completely benign, like the real world. Loving everything exactly as it is (the Loving All Method) corrects all errors.

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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:

1. 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.
2. 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?
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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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What is the ego?

The ego is almost everything we know and consider to be real. It is:

• Me, including everything good and bad about me
• My thoughts, beliefs and mental images
• My personal will, intentions and desires
• My ideas of God, morality, reality and truth
• All emotions
• All perceptions
• The known world and universe of objects
• My relationships with others
• Birth and death and nearly everything in-between

It seems that life without all of this is no life at all. Or at best, it is life in a meaningless void. These words—no life at all, and meaningless void—are a perfect description of the ego’s idea of what exists beyond itself.

It is true that what most humans seek as God, truth, Heaven, Nirvana, etcetera does not exist, but that is because we are currently limited to the ego’s point of view. In order to discover what truth really is, we need to let go of:

• Me, including everything good and bad about me
• My thoughts, beliefs and mental images
• My personal will, intentions and desires
• My ideas of God, morality, reality and truth
• All emotions
• All perceptions
• The known world and universe of objects
• My relationships with others
• Birth and death and everything in-between

Where do we start?

Most of us start with what causes our own suffering. It’s the easiest place to start. When we feel a twinge or stab of pain, we can look at our own ideas in the moment and find a piece of ego waiting to be let go. But eventually we will learn that in order to transcend the self and realize ultimate truth, we must let go of more than our suffering. We need to let go of anything that isn’t true—anything and everything that comes and goes—in order to realize the one eternal reality, which is the only actual truth.

This is well stated in A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 189, paragraph 7:

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

I can be free of suffering today

“Be glad today! Be glad!” Gladness is the best way to walk this path. It is also possible to drag one’s feet and cling to the unreal as if it is a prized possession, but that will not change the fact that you are on the journey to truth now. It will only make the journey longer and harder.

Be glad! Choose the easy path of joyously letting go of anything that you recognize as ego. In the words of Peace Pilgrim, make it a “quick relinquishment.”

The faster you let go of something, the easier awakening is. The longer you hold onto something, the more it hurts. In that way, awakening is like a great big game of Hot Potato.

Interestingly, even though awakening can be fairly easy, most people choose to make it hard. That is simply because of the value we put on that which has no value at all.

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What is the Ego?

Our special theme says:

The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God … of sorrow and of suffering … of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack… the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws, and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails… crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.

Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever…

The path of awakening is a passage through all that is not true in order to arrive at the destination of truth. As Sister Bernadette so eloquently put it:

I had learned long ago that the essence of life’s movement was not contentment or security; rather it was growth, change, and challenge, wherein the external circumstances of life merely reflected the needs of each moment in the thrust of life’s flow. … We never know the time or place where our destiny will catch up with us…”

In other words, we have to face the darkness if we want to reach the light, but we are not in charge of when, where or how our opportunities to face the darkness will come.

A lot of false believing has occurred, and a lot of it is much darker than our imagination would like to believe. We will face harsh hatred that is directed both outward and inward, deep—seemingly bottomless—guilt, stark terror, and even what feels like the edge of insanity. We will face everything imagined so we may see that it was only imagination and never, ever, anything more than that. All of this imagination is part of the ego.

The way to face the darkness when it comes is to keep one eye on unaffected presence. It would be good if one could keep both eyes on that presence, and maybe some have been successful in doing so, but I have always experienced some split in eyesight when going through extreme darkness. Part of me is watching the passing darkness and part of me is aware of the silent, present unaffected Self.

One thing that is interesting about the unaffected Self during great trials of darkness is that it isn’t doing anything. It isn’t like the hero in the movies who dives in at the last moment with a shiny sword to battle the darkness and win the fight. The unaffected Self does nothing. It stays out of the fight. It doesn’t participate. It’s simply present, being itself, as it always is.

This may not seem like much of a hero from the ego’s point of view, but this uninvolved, silent presence that is way in the back of our awareness is our savior, and all we have to do to let it save us is keep one eye, or at least a portion of an eye, on it as the darkness comes and passes through.

We may experience some of our purification in meditation. Maybe if we were like Buddha and we did nothing but meditate, we would experience all of our purification through meditation. However, since most of us are not destined to 12 hours of meditation per day for years on end, some of our darkness will arise in the throes of everyday life, which means we need to learn to keep an eye on the unaffected Self in the midst of moving about in what at times may seem to be a very dark world.

Keeping one eye, or at least a portion of one eye, on the unaffected Self is the “one lily of forgiveness” that changes “the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself.”

I will receive whatever I request.

We think we want joy, but what we don’t always see is that we want a shortcut to joy, which is false joy. If we don’t walk through the darkness, we don’t get to the light.

This is why we need to investigate deeply to discover what we really want. Do we want true and everlasting joy, and are we willing to walk the journey that one must walk to that final reward, or do we prefer to piddle around in a pale comparison and call it joy, because we are afraid of the journey?

“Everyone will receive what he requests.”

What do I truly want?

Am I ready and trusting?

We are ready to the degree that we trust. If we need more time to build more trust, it will be given naturally. We do not have to hold back in fear. We can move forward with whatever little trust we have. The process knows how to lead us forward; it knows what we need and it will give that.

Here are two quotes to contemplate today:

The purpose of these verses is to again assure you that there is nothing to fear. The four angels who are holding back the winds represent the holding back of the end of perception. The end of perception is held back…it does not come to you to be looked at and let go…until you are ready and call it forth in your mind. ~ NTI Revelation, Chapter 7

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ~ Jesus at Matthew 7:7-11

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