Principle 31: Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. You should thank God for what you really are. The children of God are holy and the miracle honors their holiness, which can be hidden but never lost. (T-1.I:31)

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Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is not appropriate for miracles because a state of awe is worshipful, implying that one of a lesser order stands before his Creator. You are a perfect creation and should experience awe only in the presence of the Creator of perfection. The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to Jesus. (T-1.II.3:1-6) Jesus is your brother. There is nothing about him that is not also possible for you. Yet since he first knew truth from illusion, he shows us A Better Way.

An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted. It is only Jesus’ devotion that entitles him to yours. There is nothing about him that you cannot attain. He has nothing that does not come from God. The difference between you and Jesus now is that he has nothing else! This leaves him in a state which is only potential in you. (T-1.II.3:7-13)

Jesus’ trust in you is greater than yours in him at the moment, but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You are asked to live so as to demonstrate that you are not an ego, and Jesus does not choose God’s channels wrongly. The Holy One shares his trust and accepts Jesus’s Atonement decisions because his will is never out of accord with the Holy One. (T-4.VI.6:1-4)

Jesus will go with you to the Holy One, and through his perception He can bridge the little gap. Your gratitude to your brother is the only gift he (Jesus) wants. He will bring it to God for you, knowing that to know your brother is to know God. If you are grateful to your brother, you are grateful to God for what He created. Through your gratitude you come to know your brother; one moment of real recognition makes everyone your brother because each of them is of your Father. (T-4.VI.7:1-4,7-9) To know one brother truly is to know them all, yourself and Jesus, because God has only one Son. You may appear to have different bodies on this earth, but you all share one mind – God’s. Bodies are not real, though they serve the purpose of communication for the Holy Spirit. Each of you, in truth, is mind in the Mind of God.

God knows His children with perfect certainty. He created them by knowing them. He recognizes them perfectly. When they do not recognize each other, they do not recognize Him. (T-3.III.7:9-12)

As you come closer to a brother you approach Jesus, and as you withdraw from your brother, Jesus becomes distant to you. Salvation is a collaborative venture. It cannot be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from Jesus. God will come to you only as you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of them and you will be ready to hear God. That is because the function of Love is one. (T-4.VI.8:1-6)

Jesus does not need gratitude, but you need to develop your weakened ability to be grateful, or you cannot appreciate God. Yet even He does not need your appreciation, but you do. You cannot love what you do not appreciate, for fear makes appreciation impossible. And when you are afraid of what you are, you will not, therefore, appreciate yourself and will therefore reject yourself. (T-6.I.17:1-4) It goes like this: Understanding, brings appreciation, brings love. Without understanding and appreciation, you will not reach God Who is Love.

You cannot forget the Father because Jesus is with you, and he cannot forget Him. To forget Jesus is to forget yourself and Him Who created you. Your brothers are forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of Jesus and of Him Who created you and Jesus. Through this remembrance, you can change their minds about themselves, as Jesus can change yours. Your mind is so powerful a light that you can look into the mind of your brothers and enlighten them, as Jesus can enlighten your mind. (T-7.V.10:1-6) Once they change their minds about themselves, they will no longer be afraid of who they are, and will no longer be afraid of love. What a service you can render to your brothers, then!

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 (denial, justification, rationalization, distraction, pretention). The miracle sets reality where it belongs. Reality belongs only to spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only truth. It thus dispels illusions about yourself and puts you in communion with yourself and with God. (T-1.IV.2:1-5)

What fear has hidden still is part of you. Joining the Atonement is the way out of fear. The Holy Spirit will help you reinterpret everything that you perceive as fearful and teach you that only what is loving is true. Truth is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your ability to accept. Nothing that is good can be lost because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the Voice for creation. (T-5.IV.1:1-4,7)

Jesus does not share his body in communion because it is to share nothing. Would he try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father? Yet he does want to share his mind with you because you are all of one Mind, and that Mind is in all. See only this Mind everywhere, because only this is everywhere and in everything. It is everything because it encompasses all things within itself. You who perceive this are blessed, because you perceive only what is true. (T-7.V.10:7-12)

Come therefore unto Jesus and learn of the truth in you. The mind you share is shared by all your brothers, and as you see them truly they will be healed. This is what you can do for your brothers! Let your mind shine with the mind of Jesus upon their minds, and by your gratitude to them they will be aware of the light in them. This light will shine back upon you and on the whole Sonship, because this is your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship, because it is acceptable to Him and therefore to His Sons. This is true communion with the Holy Spirit Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to your appreciation, He calls upon you to love God and His creation. You can appreciate the Sonship only as one. This is part of the law of creation, and therefore governs all thought. (T-7.V.11:1-8) Truly love one brother and you must love them all, as God’s Love is inclusive.

You are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude. You need not know them individually, or they you. The light is so strong that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns thanks to the Father for radiating His joy upon it. (T-5.in.3:1-4) Thus, to pray for one brother is to pray for them all, the entire Sonship.

Only God’s holy children are worthy channels of His beautiful joy, because only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it. It is impossible for a child of God to love his neighbor except as he loves himself. That is why the healer’s prayer is:

Let me know this brother as I know myself.

(T-5.in.3:8)

Miracles honor you because you are lovable. They dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. (T-1.33:1-2)

Read: Chapter 21, Introduction, Paragraphs 1 and 2.

Jesus heard one Voice because he understood that he could not atone for himself alone. Listening to one Voice implies the decision to share It in order to hear It yourself. The Mind that was in him is still irresistibly drawn to every mind created by God, because God’s Wholeness is the wholeness of His Son. You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. Show him that he cannot hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of “turning the other cheek.” (T-5.IV.4:1-6)

If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions, and the many other forms that blasphemy may take, are refusals to accept creation as it is. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, that is how you must see yourself to learn of yours. (T-10.V.12:1-6)

Definition: Blasphemy – profane or contemptuous speech, writing, or action concerning God

or anything held as divine; any remark or action held to be irreverent or disrespectful

The children of Heaven live in the light of the blessing of their Father, because they know that they are sinless. The Atonement was established as the means of restoring guiltlessness to minds that have denied it, and thus denied Heaven to themselves. Atonement teaches you the true condition of the Son of God. It does not teach you what you are, or what your Father is. The Holy Spirit Who remembers this for you, merely teaches you how to remove the blocks that stand between you and what you know. His memory is yours. If you remember what you have made, you are remembering nothing. Remembrance of reality is in Him, and therefore in you. (T-14.IV.9:1-8)

God can communicate only to the Holy Spirit in your mind, because only He shares the knowledge of what you are with God. And only the Holy Spirit can answer God for you, for only He knows what God is. Everything else that you have placed within your mind cannot exist, for what is not in communication with the Mind of God has never been. Communication with God is life. Nothing without it is at all, as only GOD IS. (T-14.IV.10:3-7)