August 21, 2012

We are continuing to discuss the principles of miracles. The group asked to go back and discuss the first 25 principles individually as we have discussed the last 25. The principles give us great insight. As the principles have told us, principles are natural. It is unnatural for us not to be experiencing miracles. So if we aren’t, something is amiss about the way we are thinking. The egoic mind, the separated mind, does not think in communication with the Mind of God. Thinking with the Mind of God is not in harmony with the egoic purpose of separation. If we are not miracle minded, we are then ego minded. When we find ourselves thinking like this, let Spirit guide your thoughts. Miracle mindedness will surface.

In the July/August issue of Miracles Magazine Jon Mundy quotes a passage for the Course in his lead article Perfect Happiness Now.

The Holy Spirit is the perfect Teacher. 2 The Holy Spirit uses only what your mind already understands to teach you that you do not understand it. 3 The Holy Spirit can deal with a reluctant learner without going counter to their mind, because part of their mind is still for God.

ACIM T – 5.III.10.1-3

Miracles operate in much the same way as Spirit, happening in just the right form, at the right time, and in the perfect way for where we are at the present moment. A miracle lifts or shifts our thinking to a level of higher consciousness which we can handle at that moment. Spirit never gives us more than we can handle at any given moment. Sometimes it may seem too immense for us, but in our decision to decide with God and ask Spirit for guidance, we have all we need to face the challenge. The miracle is the shift in our thinking that brings us to that higher level if we will allow our thinking to shift. And it will always be the perfect amount of shift for us at that moment. It is important to remember that our mind has never really left the Mind of God. We just need to be willing to recognize it.

Another principle tells us that miracles are not to be thought of as spectacles to induce belief. Rather miracles are a natural result of our willingness to believe the truth about who we really are. Miracles are not spectacles in any sense of the word. Miracles are those quiet shifts to a higher level of consciousness and thinking that lifts our awareness to the next level we are ready for or that we can handle. Miracles in themselves do not matter, it is their Source and the resulting shift that matter. Miracles are indications that we are progressing on our journey back to the awareness of who we really are.

Let go of your desire to control everything. Miracles can’t be controlled. The only control one can exert on a miracle is to deny it. That doesn’t bring about miracle mindedness. So let the miracles come. Welcome them with open arms and an open mind. The blessing will be ours. We will experience the highest good possible at that moment. Let is be so.

August 14, 2012

Last week I quoted the following beautiful passage from the Course. Unfortunately the reference had errors. The reference is corrected and the passage is still beautiful.

When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.

A Course in Miracles T-14.IV.6:1-2

Can you imagine the kind of day you would have if you started each day with this thought? Give it a try. Place a copy on your mirror, the refrigerator, your front door, or your computer monitor. A life loved in God consciousness is a life that flows as naturally as breathing. Making it a habit to make decisions with God is the practice that will result in the higher consciousness we seek. How many times do you have to do something to make it a habit? Decide that many times with God. If it’s still not a habit, decide that many more times with God, and keep doing so until it becomes habit. All you need to make it a habit is a little willingness or desire to have it be so.

As we continue reading and discussing the Principles of Miracles, we find both challenge and comfort in them. The challenge is to allow ourselves to let each miracle change our thinking and affect the way we think. We are so used to doing our thinking in our own way, the way we have always done and the way we have evolved our thinking on our own. And the joy is that the changed thought is not something outside ourselves or foreign to us. The changed thought is already within us. The changed thought is brought up in our awareness by the miracle process. Our Mind is the Mind of God. To think with and decide with God does not involve anything outside of us. We already have everything we need to be who we really are. We are already that One and are willing to let that Oneness come into our awareness.

Are we willing to let miracle thinking surface? As Principle 47 tells us, miracles are learning devices. They help us learn to decide with God. They help us make a habit of deciding with God. Once we really make it a habit, we will communicate with God or Spirit naturally and without the effort of remembering to do so. The Holy Spirit and miracles work together to correct all our misperception. As we allow the miracle to direct our thoughts and our thinking, what is based in Truth remains and all incorrect thoughts fade away. They are merely mistaken and are replaced by correct thoughts that rise from within to our awareness.

Miracles are temporary shifts in our thinking that result in substantial awareness over time. They create collapses of time that bring the awareness of our Divinity into our focus for us. At first we drift away fairly quickly from that awareness. But as each miracle created that holy instant for us, we rest in the clarity of that awareness for a little while longer. What a blessing it is to experience these shifts in awareness. Welcome them with open arms and open minds. Drop all resistance to the shift they bring. The full awareness of who you really are and your connection to all creation will manifest n the boundless peace, love, and joy within you. Let it be so.

August 7, 2012

We continue discussing the Principles of Miracles again this week. It is wonderful to go back and review these wonderful nuggets of wisdom again. Perhaps we all should review the Principles on a regular basis. Principle 41 tells us that wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. What more could we ever want than wholeness? If we really allowed ourselves to shift into a state of conscious wholeness where we actually believe and know we are whole and lack nothing we really need, we would perceive, see, and know a different world. The world we think we see would transform before our very minds. The result is that we understand everything we see and experience differently. We would see through the Mind of God and understand through the Mind of God. That is a miracle!

Last week Jon Mundy started his newsletter with a beautiful passage from the Course. It is:

When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.

A Course in Miracles T-14.IV.6:1-2

Miracles shift our minds into this natural state of being. Deciding with God is allowing miracles to be in our awareness constantly. This is the habit we all desire to learn, or better yet, return to. The habit of deciding with God is as easy as breathing once we become reacquainted with it. Every Principle points toward this state of mind, this state of being. Miracles help us return to what comes naturally.

Yet in the world we see this doesn’t seem to be so. It seems to be impossible. But it’s not. Just release your attachment to all those thoughts of what everything means. Release especially the thoughts that seem to cause us angst as we dwell on them. Accepting the possibility that what we think we see might not be complete and that Spirit will show us a new perception as the turning point allows the awareness of miracles into our mind and life. What a changed world this can bring to our awareness.

Take a moment. Let an inner awareness of wholeness spring up within you. Principle 44 tells us that miracles are expressions of an inner awareness of the Christ within us and the acceptance of the wholeness that is our natural state of being. Once we stop trying so hard to make all this happen ourselves we will find that being whole and living through the Mind of God is as easy as breathing. It will be as easy as being led down a quiet garden path. We settle in the comfort of knowing who we really are. From this state of mind and being, all things are possible. Let it be so.

July 31, 2012

This week we continue to discuss the Principles of Miracles. As we discussed last week, miracles are always about correcting our perception and correcting the way we think. We have spent a lifetime learning to think the way we think. We have also spent that lifetime becoming attached to what we think about everything we believe about everything we have experienced, observed, and learned. All those thoughts and deductions have formed the self identity we hold about ourselves. But we forgot one very important thing about ourselves.

We have forgotten, put aside, or denied our Divinity, our Oneness with God and all creation. We got so busy “doing it all ourselves” that we forgot to look within to who we really are and ask ourselves if our learned identity has any resemblance to our Divinity, our natural state of being. We are created Divine, unchangeable, and incorruptible. We may have forgotten who we really are, but God hasn’t. And so God has sent us Spirit to connect the thoughts between who we think we are and who we really are. Principle 36 says miracles are examples of right thinking realigning our perception with Truth. Principle 37 says miracles are correction introduced into false thinking. Principle 34 tells us miracles restore the mind to its fullness. Principle 32 tells us miracles intercede for our holiness and make our perceptions holy. Miracles place us beyond the physical world and place us into the celestial sphere of order, our natural order, the order in which we see our perfection and the illusions we were so engrained in fade and drop away. This is the world we are meant to see.

Miracles, as stated in the first principle, have no order of difficulty. One is no greater or lesser than another. All miracles are maximal, for they each correct our perception. Every shift in our perception, our thinking, is an expression of love. And since love is an expression of who we really are we immediately, without effort, extend that love to another, sharing our miracle with them, and opening up the opportunity for that another to experience their own miracle. Since we are all connected at the level of Oneness, miracles are all around us and run through us all the time. Let your attachment to your learned ideas, beliefs and perception loosen and look to Spirit to guide in forming your perceptions. Deep inside we know who we really are. That Truth never leaves us. Decide to remember this Truth and expect a miracle! Come join us tonight and continue on this journey.

July 24, 2012

Last week we discussed the section in the Preface that tells us what the Course says. Our discussion involved the idea that the Course transforms our inner life or our inner experience of life in this world. For our life is not so much about what happens to us, but how we experience and think about all we see and experience. Are we experiencing and thinking about our lives through the lens of our egoic or split mind? Or, are we experiencing and thinking about our lives through the lens of our Divine Mind, our Divine wholeness? The answer can be seen fairly clearly by our sense of happiness or our sense of peace within.

In reality we are in a constant state of miracles. The Principles tell us miracles are expressions of love, they are love, they are natural, they take no effort, and they occur naturally. The first few principles of miracles tell us there is no order of difficultly in miracles and they are all maximal. Most of us see miracles very differently and believe they are very special and infrequent occurrences that originate from outside ourselves. Just the opposite is true. If we are not experiencing miracles all the time, something is amiss. And what is amiss is that we don’t recognize the miracles in our lives because we don’t understand what they are and what their purpose is.

The Principles also tell us that miracles are habits and involuntary. They just occur in Divine consciousness. And, miracles involve no effort. If a miracle does seem to involve effort, it is suspect and must be false. A miracle is not physical in nature. A miracle always occurs in Thought, for reality and truth are within the One Mind, the Mind of God, not in illusion. Miracles are the shifts in our thought, shifts in the way we think about ourselves, each other and all we experience in this life.   These shifts are guided by the One who God has given us to guide us, the Holy Spirit. If we will allow Spirit to guide us in our decisions we will experience and recognize the miracles occurring in and around us. We will begin to feel the sense of inner peace that rises from deep within us, having always been there but unrecognized.

Take a moment and look at the 50 principles of miracles contained in the first section of Chapter 1 in the Course. Let Spirit guide you in your new understanding of miracles so that you recognize the work of Spirit and the Divinity within you. And so you will recognize that Divinity as it extends outward form you. Though the world may be an illusion, it has a purpose in God’s Divine plan for each of us. Each experience, each encounter, each relationship is a naturally occurring miracle that is waiting to be recognized. Each miracle may or may not have an outward result in this world of form. But each miracle will be transformational within each of us as we allow Spirit to show its meaning to us. All the Course asks is that we be just a little willing. And so it is.

July 10, 2012

Last week we finished reading the Text of the Course. What a beautiful passage it is. Every moment, every encounter, every experience, every relationship, and even every thought is an opportunity to reconnect with the awareness of who we really are, our Divine Self. We remain who we have always been, we just remember who we have always been and always will be. What a comfort and joy this is. We need never be out of awareness unless we forget to remember who we really are. And the appearance of the world is transformed by our awareness. It is amazing how the same happening, occurrence, or event can be perceived so many different ways depending on our state of being, our awareness.

As we go back to the beginning of the text, the Course tells us it is all about love, recognizing love, experiencing love, sharing and extending love, and realizing there is nothing except love. Our lessons in this life are about removing our own blocks to the awareness of Love in our lives. We all have love. Love is at the core of our being, it is our natural state of mind. And since love is all-encompassing, it can have no opposite, cannot be taken away, and cannot be destroyed. Love is real and all that is not love is not real.

The Course puts it this way:

“Nothing real (Love) can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”

We will begin reflecting on the principles of miracles as put forward in the Course. All miracles are founded in Love, for they each lead to the awareness of Love within us. Peace of mind is the result of the awareness of Love within. All miracles, whatever form they may take, lead to the awareness of love. We need only let go of our blocks and barriers of thought and allow Sprit to show us the miracles around us every moment of every day. Come join us on Tuesday evenings to join in this discovery. Bring a friend and embark on this journey without distance. You will experience the Love that you really are and encounter the peace of God within you.

September 6, 2005

Miracles are happening all the time. We may or may not be aware of them. It is important to realize that we don’t need to know about every miracle that takes place. Miracles are a shift in thinking, a shift to more correct perception. Any one miracle may be manifested in the world of form in as many ways as there are people on the earth. A miracle may not need to be manifested in our own life of form at all. Miracles are learning devices that help all of us to shift our perception. The result of miracles is to help us be aware of who we really are and be at peace, full of love, happiness and joy. This is God’s will for us, and since we are really one with God and each other, it is our own true will, too. Can anyone deny they want to be at peace, be happy and joyful and experience love in their life? Being in the Will of God and ourselves is not dependent on anything in the world of form. It comes from within us, that place that knows that we are whole, perfect and one with God. That has never left us, no matter how much we believe otherwise. When we begin to let go of our attachment to the world of form, we begin toexperience the miracles that help us to shift our perception and know who we really are. Even in the wake of the catastrophic effects of hurricane Katrina, we are beginning to hear about the miracles that are happening in peoples’ lives. We see the stories of great strength that comes when a shift in perception occurs in someones life. We are the manifestation of God in this world of form when we let go and just be who we really are and act from that place.

August 30, 2005

The next group of miracle principles we will be discussing are about wholeness, strength, release and abundance. All of these are characteristic of miracles. They are also characteristic of who we really are. Miracles are the vehicles that help shift our awareness of who we are to that which we really are. We often feel we are just the opposite: broken, powerless, victimized and lacking. The miracles that touch our lives are the shifts in our thinking that allow us to leave our negative or separated thoughts and ideas behind and move into the knowledge of who we really are. Miracles go on and on. They never stop with us. They go on to touch many we don’t even know and in ways we never dreamed of. Our limited thinking is what keeps us separate and unaware. All we need do is change our mind to experience the fullness of who we are as the One Child of God. Peace, Love and Joy are ours right now in this moment, waiting for us to be aware of it.

August 23, 2005

We have been having discussions about what miracles really are. Miracles are happening in and around us all the time. We may not even be aware that they are happening. Principle #35 says that miracles are extensions of love and they may not have observable effects. A miracle is when our thinking shifts to right thinking, thinking that is aligned with Truth as God created it. We are constantly barraged with many “truths” in any number of forms in this world of form. Most of the time they seem to contradict each other. God’s truth is the common thread that runs through all of the “truths” we come across. Real truth cannot be put into words because words are form. Real truth comes to us through the experience of the present moment. We know that we have experienced the miracle when we find ourselves at peace, when we experience a feeling of deep joy or happiness that goes beyond the life situation we are in. There is no fear, no hate, no anger, no judgment, no jealousy, no lack, when we are in a miracle. The world may be in chaos around us, but we feel and see peace in the midst of the chaos when we allow ourselves to be aware of miracles. They always remind us and help us be aware that we all are the One Child of God, One with God.

August 16, 2005

We have been having discussions about what miracles really are. The principles we have been reading help so much to put it all into perspective. The miracle always has spirit at the center, and it is shown to us in the perfect way that will help us perceive or see more correctly. It is a direct communication between Spirit and our Self. Their purpose is to remind us who we really are, the One Child of God. We might need to see ourselves as Children of God for awhile, but every miracle points us to the root of who we really are. Our appropriate reaction to miracles is gratitude, not awe. Gratitude is an embracing attitude that brings us together as One. The miracle honors our holiness which we can never lose. We may try very hard to hide our holiness, but we can never lose it. And God always sees our holiness and nothing else, no matter what state of mind we are in. Every miracle helps us to find the state of mind that is peace, love and joy.