Principle 37: A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by me (Jesus). 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. (T-1.I.37:1-4) 

COURSE REFERENCES

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. (T-1.49.1-3) Remember, the form of the error is not relevant; it is the mind’s misperception that needs the correction. Correct each cause (error in the mind) and the effects will be gone, no matter the form or the size of the error. Correct the idea of separation entirely to see ALL errors disappear, and the mind’s complete return to the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Corrective learning always begins with the awakening of spirit, and the turning away from the belief in physical sight. This often entails fear, because you are afraid of what your spiritual sight will show you. (T-2.V.7:1-2) Yet spirit is in the state of grace forever, so it can only show you what is happy. 😊

Fear is always a sign of strain, arising when what you want conflicts with what you do. This situation arises in two ways: First, you can choose to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or successively. This produces conflicted behavior, which is intolerable to you because the part of the mind that wants to do something else is outraged. Second, you can behave as you think you should but without entirely wanting to. This produces consistent behavior yet usually entails great strain. In both cases, the mind and the behavior are out of accord, resulting in a situation in which you are doing what you do not wholly want to do. This arouses a sense of coercion that usually produces rage, and thus projection is likely to follow. Whenever there is fear, it is because you have not made up your mind. Your mind is therefore split, and your behavior inevitably becomes erratic. Correcting at the behavioral level can shift the error, but it will not obliterate the fear. (T-2.VI.5:1-10) The mind must be shown how to see the situation differently, in the light, to correct the conflict of mind and behavior.

Jesus has said that the Holy Spirit cannot see error and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. Thus, when the Holy Spirit is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, He then also looks immediately toward the Atonement. Nothing the Holy Spirit sees can induce fear. Everything resulting from spiritual awareness is merely channeled toward correction. Sometimes discomfort is aroused, yet only to bring the need for correction into awareness. (T-2.V.7:3-8)

The fear of healing arises from an unwillingness to accept unequivocally (without doubt) that healing is necessary. What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can error be corrected by any device that can be seen physically. As long as you believe in what your physical sight tells you, your attempts at correction will be misdirected. (T-2.V.8:1-3) Though they may temporarily reduce symptoms, they will neither lead to correction nor to truth.

Do not ask to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Do not say “Father, forgive me for I have sinned.” Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your unforgiving mind. Atonement (correction of error and undoing of fear through miracles of forgiveness and seeing differently) becomes easy and real and visible to those who use it. On earth, accepting the Atonement and its principle of love is your only function, and you must learn that it is all you want to learn. You will feel guilty until you do learn this. For in the end, whatever form it takes, your guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in God’s Mind with ALL of yours. (T-14.IV.3:4-9)

Miracles are a way of earning release from fear. “Atoning” means “undoing.” The undoing of fear is an essential part of the Atonement value of miracles. Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when complete, is the Atonement. (T-1.I.26:1-3,T-1.I.25)

Knowledge is not open to interpretation. You may try to “interpret” meaning, but this is always open to error because it refers to the perception of meaning. Such incongruities are the result of attempts to regard yourself as both separated and un-separated at the same time. It is impossible to make so fundamental a confusion without increasing your overall confusion still further. Your mind may have become very ingenious, but . . . ingenuity is totally divorced from knowledge because knowledge does not require ingenuity. Ingenious thinking is not the truth that shall set you free, but you are free of the need to engage in ingenuity when you are willing to let it go. (T-3.V.5:1-7)

It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do not believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you do see. That is what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe,” for those who believe in the resurrection will see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack but by transcendence. For Christ does rise above the ego and all its works and ascends to the Father and His Kingdom. (T-11.VI.1:1-7) So to see only the truth, follow only the Holy Spirit. He will always lead you to experiences of truth; then truth will stabilize instead of perception.

The statement “God created man in his own image and likeness” needs reinterpretation. “Image” can mean “thought,” and “likeness” can mean “of a like quality.” God created spirit in His Own Thought and of a quality like to His Own. There is nothing else. Perception, on the other hand, is impossible without a belief in “more” and “less.” At every level it involves selectivity. Perception is a continual process of accepting and rejecting, organizing and reorganizing, shifting and changing. Evaluation is also an essential part of perception, because judgments are necessary in order to select. (T-3.V.7:1-8) Neither perception nor evaluation are of God – knowing is of God.

What happens to perceptions if there are no judgments and nothing but perfect equality? How can you choose? How can you decide? Perception becomes impossible then. Truth can only be known. All of it is equally true and knowing any part of it is to know all of it. Only perception involves partial awareness. Knowledge transcends all the laws governing perception, because partial knowledge is impossible. Knowledge is all one and has no separate parts. You who are really one with it need but know yourself and your knowledge is complete. Thus, to know God’s miracle (yourself) is to know Him. (T-3.V.8:1-9) Does this mean that you are the same as God? You are the same in all respects except one: God created you; you did not create Him. God is First Cause. The first in time means nothing, but the First in eternity is God the Father, Who is both First and One. Beyond the First there is no other, for there is no order, no second or third, and nothing but the First. (T-14.IV.1:7-8)

You who belong to the First Cause, created by Him like unto Himself and part of Him, are more than merely guiltless. The state of guiltlessness is only the condition in which what is not there has been removed from the disordered mind that thought it was. This state (guiltlessness), and only this, must you attain (with the help of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, miracles and the plan of Atonement), with God beside you. For until you do, you will still think that you are separate from God. You can perhaps feel His Presence next to you, but still you cannot know that you are one with Him until the idea of guilt has been removed. This cannot be taught . . . it happens of itself. (T-14.IV.2:1-7)

Judgment and condemnation are behind you, and unless you bring them with you, you will see that you are free of them. Only the past can separate, and it is nowhere. (T-13.VI.6:1,8)

The miracle enables you to see your brother without his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors are all past, and by perceiving him without them you are releasing him. And since his past is yours, you share in this release. Let no dark cloud out of your past obscure the truth of your brother from you, for truth lies only in the present, and you will find it once you seek it there. You have looked for truth where it is not, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to seek it where it is (in the present), and it will dawn on you. Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to attack the present, you will not see the freedom of love and peace that the present holds. (T-13.VI.5:1-7)

When you accept a brother’s guiltlessness you will see the Atonement in him. For by proclaiming it in him you make it yours, and you will see what you sought. You will not see the symbol of your brother’s guiltlessness shining within him while you still believe it is not there. Therefore, his guiltlessness is your Atonement. Grant it to him and you will see the truth of what you have acknowledged. (T-14.IV.1:1-8) To free a brother of your false perceptions of him is to free oneself as well, as it was only projection anyway. Thus, see your brothers only in the light, and know that the same light is in you.

The Holy Spirit must work through you to teach you He is in you. This is an intermediary step toward the knowledge that you are in God because you are part of Him. The miracles the Holy Spirit inspires can have no order of difficulty, because every part of creation is of one order, nothing but the First. The laws of God establish this, and the Holy Spirit reminds you of it. When you heal, you are remembering the laws of God and forgetting the laws of the ego.

God and His creations remain in surety, and therefore know that no miscreation exists. Yet truth cannot deal with errors that you want to keep. Jesus was a man who remembered spirit and its knowledge. As a man he did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from the bottom up. He demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of the mind. By uniting his will with that of his Creator, he naturally remembered spirit and its real purpose. He cannot unite your will with God’s for you, but he can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under his guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your way. Without them your choice is certain. Sane perception induces sane choosing. He cannot choose for you, but he can help you make your own right choice. (T-3.IV.7:1-11)

“Many are called but few are chosen” should be, “All are called but few choose to listen.” Therefore, they do not choose right. The “chosen ones” are merely those who choose right sooner. Right minds can do this now, and in so doing they will find rest in God. God knows you only in peace, and this is your reality as this is the reality that GOD IS. (T-3.IV.7:12-16)

Prayer:

Father, we praise you with our open minds ready to be truly helpful. We choose to listen to the truth and to the Call to Truth. We thank Jesus for erasing all misperceptions from our mind as we bring our minds under his guidance. We will to be sane, Father, to have our mind straightened and our thoughts consistent with our actions. We will for our thoughts to be unconflicted and to be sure of Who and Whose we are. We will to learn how to forgive, so that we may see only purity and light in our brothers, and thus in ourselves. We will to follow Jesus as miracle workers and to follow the Holy Spirit as He leads us to the light, to our home in the Christ Mind, to Heaven where YOU ARE. Amen.