ACIM Wholeness and Spirit 1. The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they become unnecessary.
V. Wholeness and Spirit, P 1
V. Wholeness and Spirit, 1
1 The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they become unnecessary. When spirit’s original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While you believe you are in a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression. You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing. But you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential. You did not create yourself.
What Will the Body Be for Me?
After reading this paragraph, I can only say, “Thank you, God, for the nature of my creation.” I am so grateful that while I can refuse to use my creativity, I cannot destroy it. I can be in a state of denial, but denial does not change me. Since I did not create myself, I cannot make myself different. I can only pretend to be different.
The body is the symbol of the change I am pretending to be. Used by the Holy Spirit, it becomes the learning aid that helps me return my mind to Reality. I notice my body’s changes and see that it cannot be part of Reality because Reality does not change. So, I know it is not me. Jesus tells us that the body is a communication device. I can use it as such, or I can use it to block communication.
⁵The Holy Spirit sees the body only as a means of communication, and because communicating is sharing it becomes communion. (ACIM, T-6.V-A.5:5) If I share what is real, I am using the body in the service of the Holy Spirit. Sharing joy and peace and love is communication. When we do that, we are in communion with each other and closer to our reality.
Communication Is Sharing
I used to think that all words were communication, but communication is sharing, and not all words meet that definition. For instance, there are two ways to approach talk about climate change. If I were in fear, I would probably talk about how horrible the future will be. I might place the blame for this on deniers or on the companies that try to prevent green solutions because it would mean loss for them. This would increase fear and cause more division. Fear and separation lead to attack. Attack breaks communication.
If I see fear in my mind and I ask the Holy Spirit to choose for God for me, the fear dissolves. Without fear, there is no desire to attack. I would be able to talk about solutions without causing more fear in anyone. If I am not caught in a web of fear, I am open to guidance and so will communicate only love. The ego promotes fear and says that without it, nothing will get done. But Spirit knows that love is a stronger motivation for change than is fear.
The Miracle Is the Way
The miracle is the way I reach this new understanding and eventually leave behind the world I see. As I notice the use to which I put the body, I ask that my mind be corrected of these mistaken beliefs. The healed mind no longer imagines lack of love and so no longer projects its distorted vision onto the world.
As ever greater numbers of us are healed, and the miracle transforms the world, it will become what it was meant to be, and for a while, we will enjoy our little experiment as a happy dream. How lovely the world will seem without pain and suffering, greed and selfishness, and all the effects of guilt and fear. These are states that do not in reality exist but that we continue to animate through our belief that we need them.
No wonder God loves the real world. Here is what Jesus has to say about this. ²God does love the real world, and those who perceive its reality cannot see the world of death. (ACIM, T-12.III.8:2) And, The real world was given you by God in loving exchange for the world you made and the world you see. (ACIM, T-12.VIII.8:1)
Seeing the Effect
I know that this is going to happen because it is beginning to happen now. I see it in my own life and in the lives of others. In fact, I had an example of that this morning. I was more active yesterday than usual, and when I woke up, instead of feeling revived and refreshed, I felt draggy and achy. But I couldn’t sustain that illusion because I have spent a lot of time remembering that the body is not sick or tired. What happens is that the mind creates these states and then projects them onto the body.
I have asked for healing of the mind often enough that I can no longer stay in pain like I used to. I didn’t think about it a lot. But I noticed the discomfort, and I had the thought that pain is not real. Then I went about my business and, at some point, realized that all the false symptoms were gone. They cannot exist without my active participation.
As I write this, I notice a pain in my neck that has been very persistent. I don’t seem willing to let it go, and I don’t allow the reason for this reluctance to rise to the surface of my mind. But I do trust. I trust that everything that appears in my life is there to support my awakening, and when I have used it for that purpose, it will leave. I trust myself to be awakened enough to desire to heal and to allow the miracle to manifest in perfect timing.
How the World Changes
It has been my experience so far that as my mind heals, my world changes. Sometimes it is the way I see the world, and sometimes it appears as an actual change, such as it did with some of the physical healings I have experienced. Another way I see the effects of a healed mind is the ease with which I live. I need something, and there it is.
Sometimes I did not consciously know I needed it until it showed up. I need help, and someone volunteers. I need a solution to a problem and am inspired with the answer. A long-time grievance is simply dropped as if magically removed from my mind, and of course, it is not magic, but it’s the opposite; it is a miracle.
I am not in conscious control of the miracle. I do my part in being vigilant for the need for healing and accepting the change of mind it brings. Then I observe with wonder and delight as the miracle makes itself known, but I don’t try to direct it. When that desire enters my mind, I know it is the ego trying to gain control that it thinks it lost. It never had control, so there is nothing to be gained.
Just as the body is here for as long as needed, the miracle, too, is only temporary. When I fully accept my true Self, I will have no need for a body or for miracles. For now, however, I am so grateful for them.
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