ACIM Principle 28 Miracles are a way of earning release from fear. Principle 29 Miracles praise God through you. Principle 30 By recognizing spirit, miracles adjust the levels of perception and show them in proper alignment.
Principles of Miracles 28, 29, 30
Miracles Principles 28, 29, 30
28 Miracles are a way of earning release from fear. Revelation induces a state in which fear has already been abolished. Miracles are thus a means and revelation is an end.
This one is pretty simple. Through revelation, we have no fear. But how do we get to revelations? We get there through miracles. So how do we get to miracles? We do not make miracles happen any more than we make revelations happen. However, miracles occur because we have made our minds ready for them.
I experienced a couple of miraculous physical healings. I did not do this by making the body ready through exercise or healthy food. And I didn’t do it through magic words such as affirmations. However, when I added conviction to those words, I became ready for a miracle to occur through me.
My Objections to Miracles
When I first began my study of the Course, there were many passages that I knew were meaningful but that I could not accept. For example, the Course has always said there is no pain, but my mind was so filled with the belief in the body as real that I could not understand what the Course was talking about.
I had to continue my study and my practice and hear the same thing in many ways before I had emptied my mind of the belief in the body as reality enough even to begin to accept the truth that I am spirit and not body. This “emptiness” made a place for the truth, and the truth led to miracles. Miracles then lead us to revelation, which is direct communication from God to us. This communication induces a state of fearlessness. We will be talking a bit more about revelation in Part II of Chapter 1.
Principle 29
29 Miracles praise God through you. They praise Him by honoring His creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm spirit-identification.
First, let me look at the opposite of the miracle. My son hurt his back, and so he must find some treatment that will correct the damage done. I pray that he will find the right doctor. I pray that he will have no more pain. In my more enlightened moment, I pray he will accept a miracle. But all thoughts are prayer. So because I believe in the body so strongly and because all thoughts are prayers, I also pray that he cannot be healed without the right treatment. And I pray that treatment is not available to him and so he will suffer all his life. And even if he receives a miracle, I know he doesn’t believe in them, and so I pray he can’t accept it. Yikes!
However, since I study and practice the Course, which tells me that I am not a body and that I am under no laws but God’s, I begin the process of emptying my mind of the false beliefs that were the source of my fear prayers, my prayers to the idol that I had allowed to take the place of my Creator. As I make room for the truth, it rises in my mind, and the Power that is God is manifested through me as a miracle. I am told that a healed mind is no small thing, and my experience is convincing.
The Source of Crazy Prayers
My belief in ego manifests the fear and body identification that was the source of those crazy prayers for pain and suffering. While thinking with the ego mind, I was worshipping an idol. As I allowed my mind to be healed, I denied the body identification and began to know myself as spirit. While identified with the body, I can only hope for relief; identified with the spirit, I expect miracles. In the first, my praise was directed toward the ego as the maker of the body, but in the miracle, I praise God as I honor His creation of me as spirit.
Every time I experience pain in my neck or believe in my son’s back injury but then turn my face from those illusions to the truth that I am as I was created and so is my son, I praise God. I praise Him through my certainty that His creation cannot be undone. If I see any part of His creation as sick and broken, I must be mistaken. I must be dreaming. This cannot be.
There cannot be pain, suffering, or death because there is God and only God. When my mind wanders to the scary stuff of ego thoughts of separation, I shake myself awake and remember I am spirit. I am the perfect creation of a perfect God, and nothing else can be true. I praise God as I allow the truth to fill my mind and the miracle to manifest in my life.
May God’s Will Be Done
In the past, I would pray for what I thought I needed to be happy. Now I pray only for a healed mind. I pray that God’s Will be done. I used to pray for God’s Will to be done but with a lot of reservation because there was too much fear of God for me to trust His Will was in my best interests. But as my mind has healed, I recognize that I share in God’s Will. His Will is my will.
When I pray that God’s Will be done, I am praying that I know myself only as He created me, and in the answer to that prayer, there are no problems, no suffering, and no death. And so, this is how I pray for my son and all others who ask for my prayers, that God’s Will be done in their lives. This is the only meaningful prayer that I could say for us all.
Principle 30
30 By recognizing spirit, miracles adjust the levels of perception and show them in proper alignment. This places spirit at the center, where it can communicate directly.
As I realized that I am spirit, I began to hear the Voice for God. The more I have listened to that Voice, the stronger it has become. This is spirit at the center. Here is something I wrote in my journal when this began to happen. It is a conversation I had with Holy Spirit. It was not an audible voice but rather thoughts that came into my mind when I opened to it.
Holy Spirit, what would you have me know about this?
Holy Spirit: You do not need to know how this works, and it would not be possible to explain this completely in words. Your desire and acceptance are what is needed to allow this to happen. From desire, it flows naturally and will flow until impeded by non-acceptance.
Me: Is this like when I desired to know who I was but could not believe I was ready?
Holy Spirit: Yes. Your doubt was the block that kept the process stalled. In a holy instant, born of desire and faith, you joined with your sister in purpose, and what you call a “shift” occurred. Do you recall doing anything to make this happen?
Me: No. I simply said, “Yes.” Everything else just happened. After that, there was still doubt in my mind, but it was like a shadow, there but not there. I felt like waiting to see what would happen, knowing that what would happen would be perfect and the timing would be perfect. It was joyful.
Moment by Moment Decision
Holy Spirit: You must protect your decision by making it again daily. You will find this effortless and just as joyful if you dedicate a few moments of time each morning and each evening for this purpose. Do not feel the pressure to do something in those moments. Your desire to give that time is all that is needed. The rest will be done for you.
Me: Here is how it feels. I learned that when I didn’t know what to do to be happy, I could ask You, and You would guide me to the right action, or all that was causing my distress would just dissolve away. These were miraculous moments. I began to do this more and more until there were fewer instances of stubbornness where I thought I didn’t need help.
Then it seemed that I was doing this almost without any gaps at all, but I couldn’t figure out what to do next. I knew that I could step aside completely, but I didn’t know how. I just kept asking You to help me. That is when my sister stepped forward to offer me her hand. Through her You told me that I could just be where I longed to be.
Stepping Aside
If I were to describe it, I would say that instead of continually stepping aside and allowing You to lead when I was in trouble, I simply stepped aside. Now You are at the helm. You are the unwavering Presence in my mind. Even when I have moments of confusion, I am never confused about that. I know that the only thing that happens when I feel confused is that I am looking out at the world through the ego’s eyes. It means nothing, and I stop. When I think how hard I made this seem in the past, I laugh.
God at the Center
I will protect my certainty as You suggested. I want You at the center, and I want You to speak through me. When I trust my perception, I am wrong. Why would I want anything but your guidance now that I have had it? With You at the center, it feels like “I” am not really standing aside, but that “I” have dissolved away along with the unhappiness. I used to be afraid that this would happen, afraid of the thought that “I” would disappear into You. Now I long for that process to be complete. What a delight to discover that it isn’t scary at all and that I have lost nothing.
Over the years, this helpful and happy experience of stepping aside as ego and allowing my higher Self to live more fully through this story of Myron has increased. And as it has done so, the peace of God has become a more consistent state in my life. Joy is my experience more than not. I protect these changes by deliberately surrendering this life to God every day. I would use this body only as a way to deepen this shift and to help others reach peace and joy.
To read what Pathways of Light has to say about the Introduction to A Course in Miracles, click here.