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 sinlnessness,
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 sinlessnes 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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