Principle 22: Miracles are associated with fear only because of the belief that darkness can hide. You believe that what your physical eyes cannot see does not exist. This leads to a denial of spiritual sight. (T-1.I.22)

COURSE REFERENCES

You are the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your mind and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation and separation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own. Before the separation you did not need guidance. You knew as you will know again, but as you do not know now. (T-5.II.4:1-5)

No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom. Your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind. (T-6.II.13:3)

The escape from darkness involves two states: First, the recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually entails fear. Second, the recognition that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. This step brings escape from fear. When you have become willing to hide nothing (and nothing of the ego is worth the effort it takes to hide it), you will be willing to enter into communion with the Father and will also understand peace and joy. (T-1.IV.1:1-5)

Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but you can deceive yourself about it. This deception makes you fearful because you realize in your heart it is a deception, and you exert enormous efforts to establish its reality. The miracle sets reality where it belongs with ease, not effort. Reality belongs to spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only truth. It thus dispels illusions about yourself and puts you in communion with yourself and God. (T-1.IV.2:1-5)

The miracle joins in the Atonement by placing the mind in the service of the Holy Spirit. This establishes the proper function of the mind and corrects its errors, which are merely lacks of love. Your mind can be possessed by illusions, but spirit is eternally free. The mind that serves spirit is invulnerable. (T-1.IV.2:6-8,11) Whom will you serve?

Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love. It has no unique properties of its own. It is an example of the “scarcity” belief, from which only error can proceed. Only error comes from the ego as the ego is always wrong. Yet truth is always true and always abundant. Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no needs of any kind. The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything to you; or rather, to restore it to your awareness. You were given everything when you were created, as everyone was. (T-1.IV.3:1-7)

The emptiness engendered by fear must be replaced by forgiveness. That is what the Bible means by “There is no death,” and why Jesus could demonstrate to all that death does not exist. It is those who have not yet changed their minds who brought the “hell-fire” concept into it. All those who witness for Jesus are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned the belief in deprivation and in hell in favor of the abundance of life and joy they have learned belongs to them. (T-1.IV.4:1-2,5,8)

You can do anything Jesus asks. He has asked you to perform miracles, and has made it clear that miracles are natural, corrective, healing and universal. There is nothing they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear. When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. (T-2.II.1:1-5) You believe in what you value. So, value wisely.

If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly. Your understanding will then inevitably value wrongly, and by endowing all thoughts with equal power will inevitably destroy peace. That is why the Bible speaks of “the peace of God which passes understanding.” This peace is totally incapable of being shaken by errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial. It is not used to hide anything, but to correct error. It brings all error into the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it corrects error automatically. (T-2.II.1:6-14)

True denial is a powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is not a concealment but a correction. Your right mind depends on it. Denial of error is a strong defense of truth, but denial of truth results in miscreation in the projections of the ego. In the service of the right mind the denial of error frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is really free it cannot miscreate, because it recognizes only truth. (T-2.II.2:1-7)

You can defend truth as well as error. The means are easier to understand after the value of the goal is firmly established. It is a question of what it is for. Everyone defends his treasure and will do so automatically. The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? Once you have learned to consider these questions and to bring them into all your actions, you will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. The means are available whenever you ask. You can, however, save time if you do not protract this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably.

The Atonement is the only defense that cannot be used destructively because it is not a device you made. The Atonement principle was in effect long before the Atonement began. The principle was love and the Atonement (undoing of error) was an act of love. Acts were not necessary before the separation, because belief in space and time did not exist. It was only after the separation that the Atonement and the conditions necessary for its fulfillment were planned. Then a defense so splendid was needed that it could not be misused, although it could be refused. Refusal could not, however, turn it into a weapon of attack, which is the inherent characteristic of other defenses. The Atonement thus becomes the only defense that is not a two-edged sword. It can only heal. (T-2.II.4:1-9) Be assured that undoing error can never harm you or anyone.

Nothing and everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. What you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation has occurred, and to deny it is merely to use denial inappropriately. However, to concentrate on error is only a further error. The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed. (T-2.VII.5:1-8) It is truly not necessary to focus on the error in order to correct it. Focus on the Holy Spirit for correction instead. He is your Redeemer from all error.

Innocence is incapable of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind has everything and strives only to protect its wholeness. It cannot project. It can only honor other minds, because honor is the natural greeting of the truly loved to others who are like them. The lamb “taketh away the sins of the world” in the sense that the state of innocence, or grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. The Atonement is entirely unambiguous. It is perfectly clear because it exists in light. Only the attempts to shroud it in darkness have made it inaccessible to those who do not choose to see. (T-3.I.6:1-7)

Jesus has stated that the basic concepts referred to in this course are not matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot be understood in terms of opposites. It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything and nothing as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is essential that you realize that your thinking will be erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made. A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness, however, is impossible. No one has ever lived who has not experienced some light. No one, therefore, is able to deny truth totally even if he thinks he can. (T-3.II.1:1-8)

The Bible says that you should go with a brother twice as far as he asks. It certainly does not suggest that you set him back on his journey. Devotion to a brother cannot set you back either. It can lead only to mutual progress. The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which when properly understood is the opposite of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be dis-spirited, but to be inspired is to be in the spirit. To be egocentric is to be dis-spirited, but to be Self-centered in the right sense is to be inspired or in spirit. The truly inspired are enlightened and cannot abide in darkness. (T-4.in.1:1-8) You can speak from spirit or from ego, as you choose. If you speak from spirit you will “Be still and know that I am God.” (T-4.2:1-2)

The journey to the cross should be the last “useless journey.” Do not dwell upon it but dismiss it as accomplished. If you can accept it as your own last useless journey, you are also free to join my resurrection. Until you do so your life is indeed wasted. It merely re-enacts the separation, the loss of power, the futile attempts of the ego at reparation, and finally the crucifixion of the body, or death. Such repetitions are endless until they are voluntarily given up. Do not make the pathetic error of “clinging to the old rugged cross.” The only message of the crucifixion is that you can overcome the cross. Until then you are free to crucify yourself as often as you choose. This is not the Gospel Jesus intended to offer you. You and he have another journey to undertake. If you will read these lessons carefully, they will help prepare you to undertake it. (T-4.in.3:1-11)

You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you cannot change this because it is immutable. It is immutable by God’s Will and yours, for otherwise His Will would not be extended. You are afraid to know God’s Will, because you believe it is not yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here, because this is the belief that makes you not want to know God’s Will. Believing this you hide in darkness, denying that the light is in you. (T-11.I.10:1-6)

Vision depends on light. You cannot see in darkness. Yet in darkness, in the private world of sleep, you see in dreams although your eyes are closed. What you see in dreams is what you made. Let the darkness go and all you made will no longer be seen, for sight of it depends upon denying vision. By denying vision you accept insanity, believing you can make a private world of dreams and rule your own perception. Yet for this, light must be excluded. Dreams disappear when light has come, and you can see. YOU CAN SEE! (T-13.V.8:1-9)

Do not seek vision through your eyes, for you made your way of seeing that you might see in darkness. Beyond this darkness, and yet still within you, is the vision of Christ Who looks on all in light. Your “vision” comes from fear, as His comes from love. And He sees for you, as your witness to the real world. He is the Holy Spirit’s manifestation, looking always on the real world, and calling forth its witnesses and drawing them to you. He loves what He sees within you, and He would extend it. And He will not return unto the Father until He has extended your perception even unto Him. And there perception is no more, for He has returned you to the Father with Him. (T-13.V.11:1-9) You and the Christ will go together.

You have but two emotions. One you made and one was given you. Each is a way of seeing, and different worlds arise from their different sights. See through the vision that is given you, for through Christ’s vision He beholds Himself. And seeing what He is, He knows His Father. Beyond your darkest dreams He sees God’s guiltless Son within you, shining in perfect radiance that is undimmed by your dreams and illusions. And this you will see as you look with Him, for His vision (Christ's vision) is God's gift of love to you. It is given Him of the Father for you, His Son. (T-13.V.10:1-6)

The Holy Spirit is the Light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have asked for light. Nor will they see Him alone, for He is no more alone than they are. Because they saw the Son, the Christ, they have risen in Him to the Father. And all this will they understand, because they looked within and saw the Christ in them beyond the darkness and recognized Him. In the sanity of Christ’s vision look upon yourself with love, seeing yourself as the Holy Spirit sees you. And with this vision of the truth in you will come all the beauty of the world to shine upon you, because GOD IS. (T-13.V.11:1-7)