Part of miracle principle 31: "You should thank God for what you really are."
Try this....
Just say to God (optionally out loud) over and over again many times...
"thank you God"
"thank you God"
"thank you God"
"thank you God"
"thank you God"
etc...
As many times as you like... Notice how you feel. You should almost immediately begin to feel a change, a relief, a lightening up, and you may burst into a smile, and you might receive a healing miracle. Your 'vibration' should raise, you should feel brighter and happier and better able to see clearly as well. It's a mood lifter.
We are meant to be IN this gratitude to God ALL THE TIME, not just occasionally, and especially not never. Thanking God acknowledges YOU HAVE RECEIVED ALREADY, and thus anything blocking awareness of having received will be swept away.
My holiness is far beyond my own ability to understand or know. Yet God my Father, Who created it, acknowledges my holiness as His. Our Will, together, understands it. And our Will, together, knows that it is so.
"Father, my holiness is not of me. It is not mine to be destroyed by sin. It is not mine to suffer from attack. Illusions can obscure it, but can not put out its radiance nor dim its light. It stands forever perfect and untouched. In it are all things healed, for they remain as You created them. And I can know my holiness. For Holiness Itself created me and I can know my Source because it is Your Will that You be known."
"Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give. The world forgiven signifies Your Son acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams be brought to truth, and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time, which ends forever as Your memory returns to him. And now his will is one with Yours. His function now is but Your own, and every thought except Your own is gone."
The quiet of today will bless our hearts, and through them peace will come to everyone. Christ is our eyes today. And through His sight we offer healing to the world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God created one.
"denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence."
To deny something, implies that you actually believe it EXISTS, but that you do not WANT to acknowledge its existence. This isn't the same as the thing not being there at all. It doesn't take any denial to establish that something is really NOT there. Denial REQUIRES the belief that it IS THERE, and is unwanted.
Therefore, when you are in denial, you actually are AFFIRMING that the thing you are denying, is true. You are saying, I believe that it does exist, but I don't want to openly admit it. This means that denial in fact DEPENDS ON the very thing it is denying. And you cannot be in denial of something that doesn't actually exist.
Fear, ego, death, illusions, it's all the same thing as denial of reality. When you are in fear, it seems like you're saying you are afraid of reality or truth. But, in order to make this claim, you have to be asserting that reality IS real and true, and true reality cannot be feared. Reality is loving and kind. The fear of love and kindness ACKNOWLEDGES its presence, just as denial acknowledges what it hides from.
So when you are afraid, a part of you CANNOT BE afraid. Part of you HAS to believe in love, in order to fear it. Part of you HAS to believe in safety, in order to suggest that your safety is BEING DENIED to you. It's not that safety is GONE, only that you are rejecting it's presence. You could not possibly be afraid of something that actually does not exist at all. You can only be afraid of something you believe IS THERE. And so the "fear of love" is in fact an AFFIRMATION that love exists, which in turn undermines the fear. This is because fear and denial are self-contradictory states.
Jesus says that if you can look at fear/denial and recognize that the fear actually AFFIRMS its own absence, when this is recognized it actually undermines the belief in the fear. The fear is not regarded as "only fear", but is now recognized as fear + a belief in its opposite. Within the fear there is love mixed in. And therefore the truth that it HIDES is acknowledged as STILL PRESENT. If you can focus on this and realize that fear PROVES love's presence, and can hone in on that fact, then you have to realize that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be purely afraid, or to obliterate the very love that you are afraid of. And all fear is the fear of love, being love's supposed absence.
To acknowledge that fear implies love's existence, means you cannot fully believe in the fear, and so the fear cannot be wholly true. EVEN the fear tells you that love is real. EVEN denial tells you that what you are denying exists. And so it not possible EVEN in fear to truly obliterate love from your mind. You can mix in some fear with the love but you cannot replace the love."The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable."
This also means the ego does not ever see ONLY BAD. There is no such thing as ABSOLUTE evil. There is only relative evil/ego. And all forms of ego are LIMITED in their egotism. You can't be fully egoic, because egotism is the idea of not-wholeness. By recognizing that even the egos lies imply the truth is still true, you have a way out. You can use this to realize that the fear cannot be wholly true, and therefore must be false, because even fear tells you that God is real. To fear God is to affirm his existence. So even in fear you are to some degree expressing your love for God.
By recognizing that fear/denial isn't ACTUALLY able to remove or hide or completely eradicate what you are in fear/denial OF, you can see that it DOES NOT WORK. And it therefore is useless. Denial affirms the very reality is tries to block. Fear affirms the very love it asserts against. If fear CANNOT seem to exist WITHOUT affirming the very thing you're supposed to be afraid of, then fear cannot accomplish what you set out for it to do. And so you might as well discard it and embrace the love instead.
This constant affirmation of God even in states of denial, is the inherent and un-removable attraction to God. The attraction to God is present at ALL levels and orders of reality, even in dreaming, to at least some degree. Even the ego-believing part of mind is dependent upon God and drawn to him.
"By interpreting fear correctly, as a POSITIVE AFFIRMATION OF THE UNDERLYING BELIEF IT MASKS, you are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work AT ALL are AUTOMATICALLY discarded. If you raise what fear conceals to CLEAR-CUT, UNEQUIVOCAL PRE-DOMINANCE, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. The mask which YOU have drawn across the face of Love has disappeared."
"The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time."
"If you would look upon Love, which IS the world's reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense AGAINST it, the underlying appeal FOR it?"
The ego uses affirmation to try to implement, establish, build, attain, increase, add, supply or otherwise bring about something which it believes does not exist yet.
The problem with that is that everything it tries to invent is not necessary, because you have no real needs, being already perfect.
Acceptance of what is already perfect about you is a far better strategy. God is the one who has created perfection. You don't need to create yourself, redefine yourself, rebuild yourself, or fill a void. You only need recognize and accept what is already true.
God has already done, what the ego is trying to do. God already created. Now the ego is trying to make stuff. Making stuff, affirming trying, trying to be convinced of stuff, and using affirmation as a defensive weapon to counteract other ego stuff, is pointless.
What I like to do now, is to move towards acceptance "through" a kind of affirmation. Not an affirmation which "makes firm", but more of an acknowledgement. For example, "I am as God created me". It is not an affirmation because it does not "make you be" as God created you. You already are that. But it acknowledges that this is already true and accepts it, rather than it being something you are doing for the first time.
God already gave. God already created. God already shared perfection. God already provided wholeness and health. We were the ones who tried to reject it and deny it and throw it away. We are simply reclaiming our inheritance. Accepting atonement is simply accepting that everything is STILL as God created it and nothing else has happened.
Everything in the Course makes so much more sense to me now that I see there are MANY INDIVIDUALS in God's creation.
1) Recognizing that you and your BROTHER each have your own mind and your own free will
2) Recognizing that bodies were made to ISOLATE you from your brother
3) Recognizing that healing and miracles take place when you JOIN with your brother
4) Recognizing that what you thought applied only to yourself applies to BOTH of you (golden rule)
5) Recognizing that atonement is chosen be EACH brother individually and you therefore become PART OF the atonement plan to help OTHER brothers
6) Recognizing that miracles are a maximal service you can render A BROTHER, because there are others
7) Recognizing that there is not just one dreamer of the dream and therefore you can wake up while others sleep.
8) Recognizing that you have a self - a soul, which DOES exist, and you DO have a self, and your self IS NOT the ego.
9) Recognizing Holy Relationships - you have to HAVE a brother to have a relationship WITH.
10) Recognizing that YOU have a choice for which you are 100% responsible and to whom nothing happens without your choosing.
So many of the course's teachings RELY on the recognition or multiple brothers. It's got NOTHING to do with the illusion of multiplicity of egos or the separation of bodies. Every teaching becomes FAR clearer and makes much more sense when it very naturally acknowledges that OTHER PEOPLE have their own soul, mind, will, freedom, choice, path, awakening, atonement, lessons, etc.
How we ever could have taken on board the idea of us all being just one big blob with multiple personality disorder is quite bizarre really, and we did it in the name of thinking this was more spiritual.
Here are some of the miracle principles with particularly speak to the idea that a miracle is something that you receive from God, and GIVE TO another person. Remember giving and receiving are ONE.
3 - Miracles occur naturally as EXPRESSIONS of love.
8 - Miracles are healing because they SUPPLY a lack. (remember he who temporarily has more gives to he who temporarily has less)
16 - Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to GIVE as to receive.
18 - A miracle is a SERVICE. It is the maximal service you can render to ANOTHER.
19 - Miracles make MINDS (plural) one in God.
21 - Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by EXTENDING IT TO OTHERS.
24 - Miracles enable you to HEAL THE SICK and RAISE THE DEAD because you made sickness and death. (the dead aren't going to be raising themselves, they need YOU, the un-dead, to perform the miracle!)
27 - A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me TO ALL MY BROTHERS.
35 - Miracles are EXPRESSIONS of love, but they may not always have observable effects.
40 - The miracle acknowledges EVERYONE AS YOUR BROTHER and mine.
45 - A miracle is never lost. It may TOUCH MANY PEOPLE you have not even met.
AS you can see, if you study the miracle principles it is CLEAR that a miracle is NOT just a shift in your own perception, OR just a healing in your own mind. It is something SHARED and EXPRESSED to others to help them. It's not all about your spiritual ego.
Now, you could loosely interpret most of these in a mindset of, well, this is only speaking of my 'perception' and 'seeking not to change the world' and all that... you could read into that if you want. You could say that your forgiveness just blesses people in a kind of passive way. But miracles are much more than this. This is what we have to wake up to. It's much more than just dealing with your own separate identity. It is about sharing God with others!
What is the title of the book?
"A Course in MIRACLES".
You'd think anyone who knows of Jesus would want to know how he performs miracles, right? He already demonstrated them and now he has given us a manual to learn how to do the same. Hello!
The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own imagining. His REALITY is forever sinless. He need not be forgiven but AWAKENED. In his dreams he HAS betrayed himself, his brothers and his God. Yet what is done in dreams has not been REALLY done. It is impossible to convince the DREAMER that this is so, for dreams are what they are BECAUSE of their illusion of reality. Only in waking is the full release from them, for only then does it become PERFECTLY apparent that they had no effect on reality at all, AND DID NOT CHANGE IT.
FANTASIES CHANGE REALITY. That is their purpose. They CANNOT do so IN reality, but they CAN do so in the mind that would HAVE REALITY DIFFERENT. It is, then, only your WISH to change reality that is fearful, because, by your wish you think you have ACCOMPLISHED what you wish. This strange position, in a sense, ACKNOWLEDGES your power, yet by DISTORTING it, and devoting it to 'evil,' it also MAKES IT UNREAL. You cannot be faithful to two masters, who ask of you conflicting things. What you use in fantasy, you DENY to truth. But what you GIVE to truth, to use FOR you, is SAFE from fantasy.
The difficult thing about prayer/faith, in terms of working miracles, is being able to 'believe' with as much certainty as God, that healing miracles are possible. This isn't just a belief in the idea of it, it means a 'faith' or a 'knowing', a sense of certainty and confidence, that God CAN heal and that he WILL heal, given the chance.
So if my own ability to accept and align with that truth is still weak, and I am not confident in this way, and I am still afraid to take the risk of immediate miracles, and if I'm still believing my own ego that I need to do something, or if I'm not convinced that Holy Spirit knows what he's doing (lol).... then these become blocks to love, and therefore blocks to miracles.
It's our task to learn to ditch listening to the ego and listen to God. To become convinced of and open minded about what he is capable of. Our task is also to remember love, to be willing to love, and to be open to extending love. There aren't any miracles without love. And so that means there's going to have to be personal growth, personal healing, and personal development in letting go of everything that opposes the miracle.
Here are some of the more pertinent Miracle Principles, which speak to the need to be coming from a rather 'high' place, aligned with God, open to love, following a period of "purification", dependent on our progress in forgiveness, free of fear, aligned with Holy Spirit, in a "miraculous state of mind". ...
3 - Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love.
7 - Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first.
11: Prayer is the medium of miracles.
14 - Miracles bear witness to truth.
19 - Miracles make minds one in God.
20 - Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth.
21 - Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by extending it to others.
25 - Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement.
26 - Miracles represent freedom from fear. Atoning means undoing - undoing fear is an essential part of the miracle.
27 - A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers.
28 - Miracles are a way of earning release from fear.
36 - Miracles are examples of right thinking.
38 - The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles.
40 - The miracle acknowledges everyone as your brother and mine.
43 - Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind, or a state of miracle-readiness.
44 - The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His Atonement.