“A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, breaking up erroneous perception and reorganizing it properly. This places you under the Atonement principle, where perception is healed. Until this has occurred, knowledge of the Divine Order is impossible. (T5)”
Affirmation: “I would invite miracles today.”
Reflections:
1 – Definition of a Miracle
The selected passage gives one definition of the miracle, a definition offered by Jesus. The wording of this passage is straight-forward, but may be difficult to understand on first reading.
2 – Two Aspects of the Miracle
Jesus links the miracle with Atonement. In addition, he says that our perception will be healed. These two aspects of the miracle make it imminently desirable.
3 – Atonement
What is meant by the Atonement? There is no single definition given in A Course in Miracles. I think Jesus assumes that we will understand, but many of us remain puzzled. We remain puzzled because traditional Christianity sees the crucifixion as having purchased our salvation from an angry God by the sacrifice of His only Son. A Course in Miracles differs on this, though. ACIM sees the resurrection as the crucial point. ACIM does not try to describe the resurrection, but A Course of Love does describe the Jesus following the resurrection as having a “new form.” The resurrection is never denied, though we do not presently understand, through our limited science, how the resurrection could have happened. (We may also question the New Testament raising of Lazarus.)
4 – Take the Understanding that We Can
I think that Jesus would take us where we are, and have us accept as much as is needed for Atonement to be effected in us. We are at one with him in Christ (shared by the Self of all–A Course of Love tenet). We are justified by God’s sight when we have turned our way over to a Higher Power. We do not try to blindly save ourselves anymore. We may study ACIM diligently, but we know that the Awakening is only a God-given gift.
5 – Perception – Healed?
Second, how can our perception be healed? We will no longer have the kind of mind that projects evil onto the world. And, as we have seen repeatedly in A Course in Miracles, projection makes perception. All is within; there is nothing without. That is a theological concept in ACIM, and if we find it difficult to accept, then Jesus would not have us delayed by theology. We look within, see what we wish to see there, and then project with our human eyes the outside; we perceive the exterior world.
6 – Mass Hallucination?
Of course, I believe that we are part of a mass hallucination (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM). It would be particularly pernicious to deny what our physical eyes show us. But we do know, from ACIM, that what we see is illusion. A Course in Miracles says, “There is no world!” That is what we must ultimately see (ACIM tenets).
7 – Healed Perception
When our perception is healed, we will not look out on the same world, because projection makes perception (a Course concept). Our lives will work better in this new world (called by the Course the “real world”), and we will live in calm and quiet. This indeed is what miracles hold out for us. What a blessing!
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I would look out on the world with a healed perception today. That is my goal for today. Help me to reach it.
I may not sustain a healed perception, but I ask You to take me farther along the pathway today. May we understand the Atonement as much as is humanly possible. May we realize that there are physical laws of which we are as yet unaware.
Be with us as we live through the illusion of this world. May we join with our brothers and sisters to we seek to find the reality that underlies our world–Your reality. I would see the real world with healed perception today.
Amen.
