ACIM Revelation, Time and Miracles. 5 Revelations are indirectly inspired by me because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to the revelation-readiness of my brothers. 6 The miracle minimizes the need for time.
Revelation, Time and Miracles, P 5, 6
II. Revelation, Time and Miracles, P 5
Paragraph 5
5 Revelations are indirectly inspired by me because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to the revelation-readiness of my brothers. I can thus bring down to them more than they can draw down to themselves. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct channel from God to you open for revelation. Revelation is not reciprocal. It proceeds from God to you, but not from you to God.
Reading about revelation and hearing from those who have experienced revelations, I cannot help but desire this experience for myself again. But I accept that it will happen as I am ready for it. Jesus says he is alert to my level of readiness. He says he can inspire revelation when it is time. I trust Jesus. Revelations will occur when they will be a blessing to me.
We are told that the Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower communication which I take to mean from God to me. Another word for mediate is facilitate. I like that word because I understand facilitating. I facilitate courses for my students. This is different than teaching them. As a facilitator, I don’t tell my students how they should see the lessons; I witness, encourage, and guide. I make it easier for them to do the lessons.
Revelation Inspired
When Jesus knows the time is right, he will inspire revelation and then bring it down to me. The Holy Spirit, Who keeps the channel from God to me open, will make it easier for me to experience a revelation. My sense is that revelation readiness may depend on how much the fear of God has been loosened. But really, I don’t know.
I looked up revelation in the dictionary. It says revelation is the revealing of something previously hidden or secret. Or, in Christianity, a showing or revealing of what is believed to be divine will or truth. So when Jesus says that revelation is from God to me and not from me to God, I have to laugh. I will assume I don’t have any secrets to reveal to God or any divine truth that is unknown to Him. ~smile~
Paragraph 6
6 The miracle minimizes the need for time. In the longitudinal or horizontal plane the recognition of the equality of the members of the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. However, the miracle entails a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception. This introduces an interval from which the giver and receiver both emerge farther along in time than they would otherwise have been. The miracle thus has the unique property of abolishing time to the extent that it renders the interval of time it spans unnecessary. There is no relationship between the time a miracle takes and the time it covers. The miracle substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does so by the underlying recognition of perfect equality of giver and receiver on which the miracle rests. The miracle shortens time by collapsing it, thus eliminating certain intervals within it. It does this, however, within the larger temporal sequence.
What is the purpose of the miracle? To make my life here more comfortable? No. To cure the body of disease? No. To prove that God exists? Not that, either. These effects can happen, and often they do. But they are not the purpose. Right in the first sentence, Jesus tells us that miracles save time. Later in the paragraph, he says that a miracle can substitute for thousands of years of learning, so he is not kidding when he says it saves time.
What Are We Learning?
We are learning that all members of the Sonship are equal. And how does this work? How does the miracle help me to know that we are all equal? Well, here is something I learned about this. You may remember that I talked about my son having a procedure that went wrong and left him in pain.
When my son was in physical distress, at first, I had trouble taking my eyes off the problem. In focusing on “his” problem, I was separating us. I saw him as the one who was sick, the one who needed a miracle, and me as the one who should provide that miracle. But how could I help if I was as lost in his story of pain and suffering as he was?
Here are some of the thoughts and feelings I had about him and the situation. I am his mom, and so I should be helping him. I should be performing the miracle, relieving him of his pain and healing him of his injury. As a Course student and teacher, I was falling down on the job. I was teaching one thing and doing another. This belief caused me to feel very guilty, on top of feeling afraid and upset for my son.
Making the Right Choice
I also knew that all this was wrong-minded thinking, but I had a hard time stepping out of it. I stayed with it, though, asking the Holy Spirit to help me let go of my fear and see clearly. Slowly, I began to back out of the ego-thinking that was preventing me from being helpful. I began to remember that as a teacher of God, I am always teaching what I need to learn. So actually, there was no reason to feel guilty that I was not being a “perfect” teacher. The teacher of God teaches perfection over and over until she learns it.
In my frustration, I finally made the right choice. I said, “Jesus, I want your miracle!” And when I said that, I realized that something had changed. It was as if all of Heaven let out a sigh, “Finally, she asks.” I began to remember that the miracle is a change of mind, not a change of circumstance. This was really hard because I desperately wanted a change of circumstance and felt guilty for even thinking I should ignore my son’s physical pain for an instant. The ego is very attracted to guilt, isn’t it? But again, I continued to ask for help even through my doubt and fear.
What happened is that as I slowly rejected each ego belief, the truth began to emerge. I began to realize that, in this situation, as in all situations, there is no separation. A couple of mornings after this all began, I awoke to Jesus speaking to me through my I-Pod. (No, that was not the miracle. It was A Course in Miracles recorded. ~smile~)
Looking Within
It was saying, “There is nothing outside your mind.” Of course. If nothing is outside my mind, then my son is in my mind. His injury is in my mind. His pain is in my mind. So, what needs healing? My mind. I began asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, but this time I had a different understanding of that request. My son and I are not separate. We are the same, and we are equal members of the Sonship. I am not the teacher doing for the student, but a part of the Sonship healing Itself.
I may become distracted from this truth at some time in the future, but I will never forget it. Who knows how many years (maybe a thousand) of learning I would have had to experience if not for the miracle? The miracle healed me of the belief that healing takes place outside my mind. It healed me of the belief that there is someone else who needs healing and that I am somehow different and apart from that someone. That I am greater or lesser than that someone.
A Vertical Shift
This miracle raised me up in my thinking. This is the vertical shift in understanding, and both my son and I emerged further along the horizontal line (time) than we began. By the way, my son is fine now. He healed much faster than he “should” have, according to medical expectations. The doctor is in my mind as well as is my son’s body. The treatment is in my mind, and the idea of time is in my mind. There is nothing outside my mind. The cause and the effect are both in my mind, and so as the cause was healed, the effect changed. Even if the effect was not something we see in form, we can rest assured the miracle healed the mind.
If you would like to read an article I wrote titled, Nothing Is Outside Us, click here. this link will take you to my blog on the Pathways of Light website.