ACIM Principles of Miracles 49 The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. Principle 50 The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.
ACIM Principles of Miracles 49, 50
Principles of Miracles 49, 50
49 The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness.
Perception is either true or it isn’t. All errors are simply errors, not bigger errors or worse. One is not harder to correct than another. If I have an experience of cancer, it is the same error I experience when I have a headache. Each of these experiences is the result of believing in pain, suffering, and death.
There is no such thing as pain. As Jesus tells us in Lesson 190, ³If God is real, there is no pain. ⁴If pain is real, there is no God. (ACIM, W-190.3:3-4) Pain cannot be real because if it were, then the pain would be part of God because only what is of God is real. God is Love, and Love is not pain. The same is true for all forms of suffering. If I suffer from physical pain, emotional pain, and the belief in lack and loss, it is all the same error. So, what is this pain in my foot all about if it is not real? It is my belief in pain projected onto the foot.
Just a Belief
When the error is corrected, and I understand the impossibility of pain and suffering, none of the causes will be meaningful to me. Pain and fear of cancer disappear with the same ease as does the pain from a headache and the fear of poverty. When I absolutely know that death cannot exist because Life is all-encompassing and has no opposite, there is no grief. What is there to grieve when I realize there is no death, nowhere to go, no state other than Wholeness, other than God?
All that changes is a belief. An untrue belief is replaced with a true belief. How could one belief be bigger or harder than another, and yet it certainly feels so? It was hard for me to even write the words “the death of a child.” That feels big, enormous, awful, and impossible to face, but that is because I still believe in death and loss.
I don’t believe that anything happens to us when we die other than we let go of the idea of a body, but I believe that the person who does so is out of my reach, and so I suffer from a sense of loss when someone dies. That, too, is just a thought, just an idea, and can be healed. This is what the miracle is for. I ask for perception correction in this area. I ask for a miracle.
Principle 50
50 The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.
This is my favorite principle, I think. It is so simple and so clear. I feel that process in my own mind. This is what happened when I was working on the idea of pain. I said to Spirit that I was in pain and that I was ready to have my perception corrected. So each time I felt pain, I brought that belief to Him. I still do this every single time, no matter what form the pain takes, physical or emotional. I ask for the truth, and I know that pain is not real. God did not create pain, so it is not the truth.
I feel grief, and I bring it to the Holy Spirit for the miracle. God did not create grief or loss, and so it cannot be so. Again, this is something I made up, so it’s not real. I am released as my perception is corrected. If I feel lonely or fearful or bitter, it doesn’t matter the story that seems to be the cause. What is not real cannot be made real with a story, no matter how compelling the story is.
When I first began reading the Course and doing the lessons, it created a crack in my mind that let in just a little light, and I began to doubt what I thought I knew. It took a long time practicing what I was learning before I was able to accept the healings being offered to me. I was fooled at first when these teachings started making sense because I thought that meant I had changed my mind.
The Miracle
I thought that just because I could see the sense of it, I was no longer under the sway of ego beliefs. It soon became obvious to me that was not the case. That was a confusing and frustrating time for me. I was trying to use the ego mind to heal the ego mind, and it wasn’t working. All that was really happening is that I was convincing myself that there was another way and that I wanted it. Next, I had to practice what I was learning.
The actual healing, the miracle itself, arises from the mind that is made ready for it. As it says in principle 7, “Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.” Bringing my thoughts to the Holy Spirit for healing and choosing that healing over anything else I think I might want seems to be the way of purification.
The whole process seems to revolve around desire. What is it I desire? Do I desire a pure mind, free of ego thoughts? That is not always as simple as it seems just reading the words on the page. I notice that I sometimes still place value where there is none, such as holding onto fear. If I place value on something that is not a creation of God, my mind is not pure, and this is why I cannot ask for a miracle from a place of fear.
When My Son Was in Pain
My son had a reaction to a medical procedure and was in excruciating pain. There was potential for damage and even for death, depending on the cause of the reaction. My first reaction was fear, and all I wanted to do was pray that he be saved from pain and that I will be saved from loss. I wanted that miracle. I wanted to tell him to get up and walk because he was healed.
But I did recognize that I was praying, not out of conviction but out of fear, and I knew this was not right. I became open to true healing a bit at a time as I was able. I asked others to stand with me on this. As number 19 says, “Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created.”
At one time, I could not have done this. I could not have stepped out of my fear. Later I could have done so after the fact after circumstances had changed enough for me to see more clearly. Even later, after more practice of the Course, I could eventually see through my fear even while it was happening, but it would take some time, and it was not certain. This time it was different. Even in the midst of my confusion, I was absolutely certain I wanted a healed mind.
With a Little Help From My Friends
My friends helped me with their unwavering support and by being the strength, I leaned on. They sent me words to point the way back to the truth. Overnight my prayer became that my mind be healed of the belief in pain, sickness, and suffering. What else is there to heal, after all, but the mind? Accepting the atonement for myself is my only function.
As my mind began to clear, I realized that I do trust Spirit. I trust my script and my son’s script to provide only and all that is needed for our awakening. I went with him to his next procedure, and the pain was really awful, and the doctor did not instill confidence. When I felt fear rising in me, I acknowledged it, and then I remembered to ask the Holy Spirit for help to see clearly. When I felt fear, it was as if a fog encased me and kept me from the truth, but I knew what I wanted, and I refused to believe in the fog, and so it went away. I did this each time fear came.
It seems like it is a body that needs healing, and the more desperate our fear, the more this seems to be true. But it is always the mind that needs correction. We made fear and pain. We made sickness and suffering. Just as we made death. Now it is time for us to compare these things with creation and to reject what is out of accord with it. I see that fear is the first of these. When I let go of fear and embrace truth instead, all the rest follows. I give my complete willingness to healing, and the miracle is the result.
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