ACIM Wholeness and Spirit P 6. The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by me in Christ’s service.

6 V. Wholeness and Spirit. P 6


6 The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by me in Christ’s service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow Him. All shallow roots must be uprooted, because they are not deep enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened, and thus made to hold, is one of the distortions on which the reverse of the Golden Rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable. However, nothing is less stable than an upside-down orientation. Nor can anything that holds it upside down be conducive to increased stability.

A Shallow Root

Anything from ego is a shallow root that gives me an upside-down perspective. There is no way that I can make this perspective better or make it work for me. For instance, let’s say that I am unhappy because something I did has come back to haunt me. I wish I had not done it because it is now affecting my life in a way I regret. I feel foolish and helpless.

The shallow root is that I would be happy if I had made better choices, and another would be that I would be happy if only circumstances were different. I try to deepen the root by berating myself. Yes, that’s right, I think it would help if I fussed at myself. That it would help if I pointed out my errors and piled on some guilt. The ego reasoning is that this way, I won’t make that same mistake again.

Another way of deepening the roots is to learn enough not to make that same kind of mistake again, to get wiser and smarter, and more experienced so that I don’t make those kinds of mistakes. I can read self-help books and practice spiritual concepts. It will probably help, but it will never work all the time. There is no way I can know all I need to know to make better decisions. I would have to know everything about the situation, now and in the future, and how it will affect everyone in a chain of events. That is not possible.

Change Must Come from Within

Sometimes it is someone else who did something that seemed to have a negative effect on my life. It’s the same either way, another person or me, and the reaction is pretty much the same except directed outward. But what if, because of my study of the Course, I thought that this person could not have acted any differently? This was their script. It is the same as the many times that I seemed to have made a mess of things.

I could not have done things differently either because I didn’t know what I know now. How silly that I would find either of us guilty. What a waste of time to try to fix the world from within the world or to expect the other person to do that. This did not happen from within the world, and so it cannot be fixed there. That is the shallow root, regardless of what form it seems to take.

It might seem to be that I am sick, so I go to the doctor and start taking medicine. I look online for the cause of the illness to see what I need to do to prevent this from happening again. I change my lifestyle. This is the same shallow root. I think the body gets sick, and I think I can make things better by changing what the body does or does not do. I think the problem is in the world, and I can make things better by changing the world.

What Is the Point?

So as the truth began to dawn upon my mind, I realized that it is perfectly silly and useless to think that someone should have acted differently than they did. I had to laugh at the idea of blame. How could I ever find anyone, even myself, guilty of playing out the script as it is written?  For a moment, I felt as if the underpinnings of my world were loosened, and I was free floating. It felt unnerving. But then, as I allowed the Holy Spirit to help me see differently, my mind righted itself.

I asked what I was supposed to do in the world. If the script is written and I know it, am I supposed to just walk through my part, mouthing words? What is the point? The answer I received is that I am supposed to watch and remember. As I become detached from the meaning I have given life and stop trying to deepen shallow roots, I begin to use what is happening to remember the truth.

Inception

I remembered the movie Inception. It has a lot of action, fighting, close calls, and a complex plot. When I watched it for the first time, I noticed an underlying metaphysical meaning, but only in a general way. I was so caught up in the story that I missed a lot of the meaning. I watched it several times, and as I did so, I lost interest in the adventure and was able to catch more of the less obvious storyline, the deeper hidden meanings.

This is how it is in life. As I take my eye off the outer story, stop paying attention to the shallow roots, and stop trying to strengthen them, I am able to notice the underlying meaning. I am able to see what is really going on and work from that perspective. The first thing I had to do was to forgive the situation and the people involved. It’s funny, but once I forgive it, I have to laugh because I can no longer see what there is to forgive.

Restoring the Mind to Peace

From this more detached perspective, I can ask the Holy Spirit to show me this in a different way. This works in my life just as it did in the movie, Inception. I lose interest in the cover story, the obvious plot, and the dream, and I begin to notice the story behind the story. I start to remember who I really am and that the story is ancient and over long ago. It seems I am just watching it unfold yet again. Perhaps in my new choices, I will leave bits on the cutting floor so that it becomes a shorter story and shorter still. These are the lessons I have learned and so no longer need to experience them again.  

That experience and many like it restore my mind to the peaceful state I have come to expect. That is no small thing in itself, but it also helps to awaken me from the belief in the story, and as it does so, it awakens the entire Sonship. Truth is spread throughout our one mind, and this makes it easier for the next person who is ready for the truth. This is the miracle. The effects of a changed mind are the outward appearance of the inward miracle. The more willingness I give to the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, the more miracles I experience and the more abundant their effects.

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