I’ve come to realize the Course refers to miracles on three distinct levels.

1. Everything in Heaven is miraculous. All expressions of love, in reality, are miraculous. The soul is miraculous. Creation is miraculous. Everything real has a miraculous nature. You are miraculous. You are a miracle. Miraculousness is permanent, natural, and the way God’s thought system always functions. Miracles give LIFE. At this level miracles defy every ego limitation and law. Life itself is a miracle.

2. After the separation, God blessed the Sonship with a miracle. The miracle was the answer to the separation, a healing thought, designed to fully heal the separation. This produced the Holy Spirit. References to "the miracle" are referring to the Holy Spirit. He is the "mechanism of miracles" because He is the way by which miracles (on level 3) are produced. This "one miracle" contains all individual (level 3) miracles. Accepting "the miracle" is accepting the atonement.

3. Within the realm of perception, there are many seemingly individual miracles. Course references to "miracles" in plural refer to this. E.g. "Miracles make minds one in God." "Miracles unite you with your brother" etc. These miracles are holographic, in that each of them contains wholeness and maximal love. They are all reflections of the one miracle, all support each other, are all equal, and all transcend orders of difficulty. These are the "miracles" that you perform IN the world as a miracle worker. These miracles can heal the sick, raise the dead, change perception, and repair the separations between brothers. As a subset, these may also include "shifts in perception" which are not "what a miracle is", but are one of their results. "A miracle is a correction introduced into wrong-minded thinking etc". Here the aim of miracles is to heal the separation between the sonship and induce revelation.

These are all tied together by statements such as "Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers." Similarly, miracles extend through Christ as their source, as in "miracles express from an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His atonement."

Miracles do NOT originate at the ego level. They do not originate in your attempts to correct perception. YOU do not do them without God/Christ. Miracles require the absence of fear (ie maximal love), and express FROM a state of miracle mindedness, which is equivalent to true perception. Blocks to awareness must be removed, extensively, before FULL love is allowed to express with enough wholeness to perform a miracle. "The perceptual content of miracles is WHOLENESS." They require vertical perception which is a recognition of mind over matter cause-effect, in which the world is recognized as an EFFECT only, containing no causes, and transcends all ego laws and breaks every law of this world. Miracles are supernatural.

Miracles can correct perception. They can even correct the mind of your brother. However, "the world IS perception" and so additionally, miracles can correct the world. They have power over all forms. Earth is a world of tremendous limitation. Miracles demonstrate that this world is an illusion by changing its forms to show that they are not real. Mind is stronger than the body, and every miracle demonstrates this. Miracles can literally move mountains.

You as a miracle worker become MORE miraculous as you remove blocks to love. When you are done shifting perception, miracles do not come to a stop. Instead, you perform miracles ALL THE TIME. Miraculousness is your God-given NATURE. It is completely natural to your spirit, which is omnipresent and beyond ego laws. Your soul is permanently miraculous. To extend God’s love as LIFE is miraculous. Miracles are life-giving creative acts. They supply a lack. Death is lack of life, so miracles can raise the dead.

There is no sin and nothing impossible that miracles cannot reverse and undo. Believing otherwise is believing the hierarchy of illusions, which is a belief in orders of difficulty. Miracles are all the same. They ignore difficulty. "There is nothing your holiness cannot do." You cannot be loving without being miraculous. Atonement, which includes miracle working, is the natural profession of the Children of God.

"You may wonder how you, who are still bound to judgment, can be asked to do that which requires no judgement of your own. The answer is very simple. The power of God, and NOT of you, engenders miracles. The miracle ITSELF is but the witness that you HAVE the power of God in you. That is the reason that the miracle gives EQUAL blessing to ALL who share in it, and that is also why EVERYONE shares in it. The power of God IS limitless. And, being always maximal, it offers EVERYTHING to EVERY call from ANYONE. There is no order here. A call for help is GIVEN help. The only judgment involved at all is in the Holy Spirit's one division into two categories; one of love, and the other, the call for love."

- ACIM

Here (urtext) Jesus is talking about how God is the origin of miracles and how God's POWER is unlimited, how the power of God produces miracles through you and how they extend to everyone not just yourself. "A call for help is GIVEN help".

Again this has nothing to do with a so-called "shift in perception", because the power of God acts above and beyond our own limitations, and beyond perception entirely. Miracles, sourced in and BY God, transcend perception entirely and cannot have anything to do with perceptual changes or small corrections of thought.

In a previous section Jesus also speaks of how a miracle is evidence that an entirely other 'world' is being brought to this one, as evidenced by the complete lack of respect for the order of difficulty or ego hierarchies.

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.

First we must acknowledge, there is miraculous stuff going on in Heaven, which has nothing to do with perception or the realm of illusions. e.g.

"Miracles are a universal blessing from God"

"God's miracles are as total as His Thought, because they ARE His thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light."

"You are a miracle" (in heaven)

"The miraculous power of the soul"

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world." - "The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world."

There is clearly something automatically miraculous about all things divine. We're also told that "miracles are natural", and what is natural SHOULD be something inherent to reality and the Kingdom, not something that is later considered unnatural or that ends.

So miraculousness, is actually a quality of reality, a quality of God, not necessarily something to do with perception at all. The soul also has a miraculous power which has absolutely nothing to do with the realm of perception. The Holy Spirit also, who really lives in Heaven, is miraculous.

We also must consider a simple idea, that Jesus is just as if not more miraculous and unlimited in his supernatural power NOW, as he ever was on Earth. It would be kind of silly to suggest that he "shifted perception using miracles" and then STOPPED being miraculous.

This is one of the key reasons why miracles cannot BE shifts in perception. There is only so much perception to shift. Once perception shifts to true perception, this would suggest there is no longer any use for miracles. Yet the course describes true perception also as "miracle mindedness". Why would we attain miracle mindedness, which is supposed to be a close reflection of reality, and then switch off all miraculous ability as we go to heaven? That does not really add up.

Rather, the picture forming here is that miraculousness is actually a miraculous nature, founded in God, the true nature of all things in the Kingdom, the nature of the soul and creation (creating life out of your own being is miraculous - "miracles are a spark of life").

And let's not forget the course tells us YOU are one of God's miracles, meaning God is a miracle worker. And God does not have perception. So we really can't continue with this idea that a miracle is a shift in perception, or even in fact ANYTHING to do with perception as such. As least, we must not EQUATE miracles with perceptual shifts or think of them as synonyms.

There is also the fact that "miracles cannot be performed in a spirit of doubt and fear". And that "miracles are expressions of love", and "all expressions of love are maximal". What does this suggest? Simply that even if you are working on your forgiveness and healing, shifting perception, changing beliefs, you likely still have way too much fear and doubt to be MAXIMALLY loving. To have NO fear. Which is a requirement for performing a miracle.

So "beginners" to the course, even intermediate and advanced students, may still not be loving ENOUGH to perform miracles. This is why the course says

"Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

We have to actually do quite a LOT of work to remove blocks and ego from the mind BEFORE we can even get close to the state of miracle mindedness, or maximal love, to be able to BE a miracle worker. While the ego would love to label just about anyone a miracle worker, as a kind of spiritualized ego, the fact is you are not a miracle worker until MUCH LATER in the course's progress. Which means again, any shifts in perception you have, ARE NOT miracles.

As we remove blocks to love, we remove blocks to the NATURAL NATURE of our being - our miraculousness. We re-access and become able again to wield without fear, the ABILITY of our mind to perform miracles. It requires love, as a main ingredient.

Miracles also express FROM a loving state of mind. If you do not have a loving state of mind ALREADY, you will not be able to perform a miracle. If your mind gets INTO a loving state, THAT itself is not a miracle. The shift from where you are, to where you are trying to be, is not miraculous. The place you END UP AT is miraculous.

Now, let's also be clear that miracles CAN CAUSE a shift in perception. For example:

"Miracles unite you with your brother"

"Miracles raise the level of communication"

"Miracles make minds one in God"

So they are ways to heal your psychological interconnectedness with others. But the change that occurs, the effects, the shifts, they are not causal. They are the results of the miracles happening. If perception shifts, that's an effect, not a cause. Let's also throw in this point.

If you are advanced and have done a lot of purification and are now close to miracle mindedness, you do not NEED shifts in perception for yourself. You don't have stuff left TO shift. Does this mean you are now done performing miracles? Absolutely not. You are supposed to be returning TO being MIRACULOUS ALL THE TIME.

Remember, "miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong."

and "Miracles should be happening all the time"

So a person awakening, a person being more loving, a person close to true perception, SHOULD BE miraculous all the time. AND performing miracles frequently.

"Every day should be devoted to miracles."

Let's also make a distinction here.

1) Miraculousness is the true nature of divine mind. Everything in heaven is miraculous forever. Jesus is still miraculous. Holy Spirit is miraculous. Your soul is miraculous. Angels are miraculous. Being miraculous never switches off. But you can deny it with the ego.

2) "The Miracle", is a synonym for the STATE of atonement, true perception, salvation, miracle mindedness, right mindedness etc. It could also be considered a synonym for the Holy Spirit and Christ Vision. This is a STATE OF MIND, a "place" in awareness that you reach. This state of miraculous, but it is not the same thing as miracles. It's where miracles COME FROM.

3) Miracles, individual miracles, plural, are many in number. They are performed typically FROM the state of miracle mindedness. From the top down, not the bottom up. This is why "I can only give the miracles I HAVE RECEIVED" and also why "Miracles FALL like drops of healing rain". The come DOWN from a higher state of mind and resurrect. "All around the signs of life spring up"

All individual miracles are one, but they literally are numerous and individually performed. They operate to LIFT UP the mind from states of false perception, TOWARDS true perception. That is, being performed FROM a higher level, they have power OVER all that is below, including perception, form, bodies, and worlds. They can raise the dead, physically and psychologically. They can heal the sick on any level. And they can restore sanity and induce revelation.

When performed, they elevate your own mind to a higher level if necessary. But if you are already high, they are given to those who have less, merely reinforcing what you already have. This is why

"Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less."

"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another."

Note that being a service it does not mean that you are the main beneficiary. But you also are not excluded because you give as you receive. It's just that we need to realize, miracles are GIVEN TO OTHERS.

So here is a key fact. Miracles are NOT JUST ABOUT YOU. They are not something that just has an influence on your own perception or mind or body. They literally are capable of DOING SOMETHING TO OTHERS. This is why they are capable of raising the dead and healing the sick, OTHER than yourself.

So this naive idea that "miracles are what happens when I shift my own perception", has to be thrown out. It is woefully inaccurate and limited and not at all what the course actually says about miracles. It's something some people made up a long time ago when misinterpreting the course.

The time will come when miracles are not needed, but only when everyone has atoned. This does not MEAN the end of miraculousness. Miracles resurrect the dead in every way by GIVING life.

"Miracles are a spark of life"

"Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life"

When everyone is resurrected, God isn't going to stop giving life, nor are you going to stop being miraculous. Do you think Jesus today is incapable of performing a miracle? Quite the opposite. And he doesn't even HAVE perception!

So miracles can lift the mind up, "shifting perception", but that depends entirely on whether there is anything TO shift. The shift is an effect, while there is something to affect. If you confuse the shift with the miracle, you throw out miracles as soon as you are done with shifting.

It is also necessary as part of the atonement that you perform miracles FOR OTHERS, rather than just selfishly focusing on the shifting of your own perceptions. There is no point becoming miracle minded if you are not going to USE your miraculous nature to perform miracles. Miracles express through you, extending to others, as part of your nature loving of other people.

"Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind." (and they do NOT arise from a mind that is steeped in ego problems that's trying to shift some perception).

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

"Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do." You must be: READY to listen, WILLING to learn, and ABLE to do."

"Only the last is involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of miracles which must be Christ-controlled. But the other two, which are the voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you."

Note that just because miracle APPLICATION is christ controlled, and "involuntary", does NOT MEAN that miracles DO NOT get performed through you or that you do nothing. You work with Christ and the Holy Spirit and THEY make the miracles happen through you. You area team. You have the power of God in you.

So no, miracles are not shifts in perception. They are a form of healing and demonstration of God's power. Miracles CAUSE stuff to happen, and not just to YOU! Miracles have the power of God in them. They are able to give life and supply a lack. They can heal the bodies of others. They can heal minds. They can even cause inanimate objects to do things they "shouldn't" be able to do, by breaking the laws of the world. e.g. Jesus turning water into wine, turning a tree branch into a snake, walking on water etc.

Shifting perception is indeed part of purification, but it is not to be associated with a miracle. You can shift your perception quite a lot without miracles being involved. You might not even perform a single miracle after many years of course practice. It require a lot of mind healing to be able to DO them. To express FROM a healed state.

And let us also remember, miracles actually occur as a result of IMPULSES. The impulse is like a little spark of living energy which arises in the mind. "Miracles are energizers". They actually are like little expressed mini creations which transfer FROM you TO another and have effects on them. They go out and do something. It's like a pulse of life force. Inspired by Christ. Passing through you onto others.

So if you want to be a miracle DOER, a WORKER, you need to first approach miracle minded states, and THEN you can perform miracles. This is why actual miracles are quite rare among ACIM folks at present, we're simply not far enough along in our purification to perform them. Jesus has set a high standard for us to live up to but it's exciting to continue to move towards our natural birthright of being a miracle worker, in this world and beyond.

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!

Jesus says in the miracle principles, that miracles should be happening ALL THE TIME, and that when they are not happening, something has gone wrong.

What this MUST mean, is that miracles are not simply shifts in perception TOWARDS truth, but they are expressions OF truth. The expression OF truth may well shift perception if perception needs shifting, but the miraculousness of the miracle is an expression from a higher place of LOVE.

When there is love, there is miraculousness. When there is love, supernatural "abilities" are absolutely unlimited. When love is not blocked, there are NO LIMITS to what the mind can do. There is nothing that your miraculous holiness cannot do. Being miraculous is a PERMANENT CONDITION.

Being miraculous is not something that just happens in the dream while we are waking up and then STOPS. Bullshit. Miracles are supposed to be happening ALL THE TIME, and when they are not happening, something has gone wrong. Therefore, the only time where miracles are NOT happening is when something has gone wrong, meaning we are in the ego. When we are NOT in the ego, MIRACLES WILL BE CONSTANT.

YOU are also a miracle of God. God's CREATION is a miracle. Miraculousness is NATURAL. It is the natural way that an immortal spirit is able to create using the UNLIMITED power of the mind, at any time, in any way. It is an expression of LOVE. Love is always expressing "supernaturally", in comparison to this world's unnatural nature.

You will not put miracles aside when you wake up. When Jesus woke up to God he did not STOP being able to perform miracles! In fact he is now utterly UNLIMITED in what He can do. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. ALL EXPRESSION OF LOVE ARE A MIRACLE. When you return to being loving you will RETURN to being miraculous.

Permanently miraculous. You will become "miracle minded". A miracle worker.

Miracles shift perception towards God and atonement, IF that perception is unhealed and "needs a miracle". When perception is all the way SHIFTED, and is IN the atonement, the mind does not suddenly drop its ability to perform miracles or to heal. It becomes EVEN MORE ABLE. AND then its focus will be more on performing miracles for OTHERS, because miracles are the MAXIMAL SERVICE that you can render to others. Ie, loving others unconditionally and fully is healing and helpful to the absolute maximum degree possible. Meaning, unlimited.

Miracles are an EXPRESSION of the atonement. Miracles are love. Love is natural. Miraculous love should be happening all the time.

In order to perform a miracle, your mind has to be in a state of love, because miracles are expressions FROM love. Miracle mindedness is a state of love, and when you express from that state your expressions have power, capable of healing others. Love is strong and "there is nothing my holiness cannot do." Being miracle minded is the same thing as being right minded, which is equated with true perception. It's quite an "advanced state".

It's not enough to be slightly loving. It's also not enough to just be caring for someone or feeling enamored. Love has to be felt deeply and strongly. I have to admit that I spend almost all of my time not in this state. I can at times push myself to receive love and experience it, but typically there is too much fear and blocks to awareness. It's not possible to perform miracles in these states, and people who are working on purifying their minds are not miracle workers. "Miracles are everyone's right (in a state of love), but purification (to get to that state) is NECESSARY first."

I've had a few times where, for whatever reason, I've felt especially filled with love. In those moments I also feel strangely powerful and miraculous, as if the love itself is capable of doing anything. Without love, miracles are impossible. Love is literally an absolutely required ingredient for miracle working. It's through being intensely loving and EXPRESSING from that place of strength, that you can literally perform miracles. You can heal the sick and raise the dead.

I used to think miracle working entailed far more complexity, saying the right words, having the ego be more aggressive, being adamant, being commanding etc, but without love nothing happens. Holy Spirit became very excited one time when I was sending love to someone and He said "that's all you need!". It seems too simple but it's not. Real love has a POWER in it. It's a supernatural power. It can cause really extraordinary things to happen. A mind in a state of love is very strong.

The challenge then, is getting yourself into a state where you are loving enough. It's not merely an intellectual state. Strong love must be present and being felt. Often it is quite difficult to get into that state, to really really love, because of all the blocks and fears that we have. It might even be quite an alien state seemingly so far out of reach that we just can't seem to be loving enough. It requires a suspension of fear, which is love's absence, for long enough to be able to perform the miracle. Jesus even says that you might well go back to being afraid afterwards, but so long as you can get yourself into a loving state, you can work miracles.

Miracle DOING is an active expression, an act, FROM a state of love. Miracle mindedness is the readiness to express love, by being in a state of love. Love is wholeness. The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness. Perception has to be whole, purified, and true, in order to be loving enough to be miraculous. It's really so simple... all you need is love and you instantly are capable of performing incredible miracles, but getting yourself into such a holy state is all of the "work" of purification, learning to forgive, healing and letting go of past hurts and all the rest of it. All of the workbook lessons, which aimed toward developing Christ Vision, are trying to get your mind to be loving enough that it is miraculous.

Miracles EXPRESS only from love and love is powerful.

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another."

"The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used it will inevitably BE expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver, not the giver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, MUST be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. But it DOES mean that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable NOW."

"Miracles ... They occur naturally as an expression of love."

"ALL expressions of love are maximal."

"Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love"

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

"Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others. "

"The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose."

"Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of Him, increase its power and give it back to you."

"We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy."

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement. "

"Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace. Miracles are AN EXPRESSION OF THIS CONFIDENCE. They are reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your brothers, and of your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension. The miracle is A LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By including ANY part of totality in the lesson, you HAVE included the whole."

"The answer is NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF you should. This spares you from exhaustion, and because you act under direct communication the trance becomes unnecessary. Because miracles are expressions of love, it does NOT follow that they will always be effective. I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You have a ROLE in Atonement, which I will dictate TO you."

"Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them."

"We once said that there is no order in miracles because they are all maximal expressions of love."

"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it."

"I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love."

Here are some quote which speak to miracles or miraculousness being something that does not depend on perception, suggesting that miracles are not "shifts in perception", but rather that miracles are creative expressions of love which can *produce* shifts in perception.

This is because MIND and PERCEPTION are two different levels. Mind was mind before perception was introduced. Perception is a layer of interpretation on top of the mind. Miracles come through the mind from God's mind, as expressions of MAXIMAL LOVE, and CAUSE perception to change to line up with the mind. "Miracles are a corrective device introduced into the MIND by me." But the miracle is occurring and coming FROM the mind-level of love, producing secondary EFFECTS in the perceptual realm.

Decoupling miracle mindedness from perceptual shifts, and seeing the shifts as "effects" of miracles, allows us to see that you can be consistently miraculous when your perception has nothing left to shift. Simply because miracles originate BEYOND PERCEPTION, which is why they can CORRECT it.

This is also why we become MORE miracle minded and more miraculous and more able to constantly perform miracles, as we uncover love and our mind lines up with God's will and power. Being miraculous isn't temporary. We are a PERMANENT MIRACLE and miraculous creation is our nature. Which is why "Miracles are supposed to be happening all the time. When they aren't, something has gone wrong."

"12a. Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or higher-order realities. This is the basic distinction between intellectualization and thinking. One creates the physical, and the other the spiritual, and we believe in what we create."

"23 ... YOU are a miracle. God creates only "that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit". Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator. Anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real."

"Prayer is the medium of miracles, not because God created perceptions, but because God created YOU. At the beginning of this course, we said that YOU are a miracle. Therefore, the miracle worker is a miracle NOT of his own creation."

"Each *Soul* knows God completely. This IS the miraculousness of the *Soul*. The fact that every each *Soul* has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

"9. Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws."

"4. All miracles mean life and God is the giver of life."

"27. A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers."

"38 - The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"43 - Miracles arise FROM a miraculous state of mind, or a state of miracle-readiness."

"The world, in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper creation of man by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with FREE WILL because all loving creation is FREELY GIVEN."

God has unlimited presence and enjoys complete freedom.

God is creative.

God creates in his own likeness.

Therefore God creates things like himself, which are also free. If God has a son, His son MUST have permanent freedom. This "freedom to be free" is a "natural division". It is not separation.

In order for God to give his creative ability to His creation, which he shares with His creation fully, he HAS to give His creation freedom.

That freedom automatically means, his creation is FREE to will on its own.

That freedom also automatically means, the creation’s freedom is never REVOKED by God, nor is it possible for that freedom to be lost. God guarantees it because God’s creative expression which creates the son is CONTINUOUS and permanent.

Therefore the creation (son) has permanent freedom.

This makes it impossible for the son to "become God".

If the Son were to become God in the literal sense of "oneness" as it’s usually understood, it would ALSO mean the son can ACTUALLY develop the authority problem in reality. That he can replace God with HIMSELF.

This is never possible because God has permanence and permanent freedom, and so does the son.

The son’s permanent freedom, free will, will never be undone by God. It makes it impossible for the son to become "uncreated". For him to be literally "one" with God, as in, there is only God, would UNCREATE Him. This is impossible.

The son(s) of God we’re FREELY GIVEN. And freedom was given TO them. And they are free. In this sense only, they are "free of God", so to speak. But in their freedom and joy, they subsequently SHARE everything they are, lovingly, with God.

Oneness then does not mean one big mushy blob of a single identity and no parts. A Course in Miracles is not non-duality or pure non-duality. God DID CREATE many sons each with free will. His freedom is his Gift, from God, and to his own creations.

There is nothing unnatural about many "free" beings being free together, but sharing a love so deep and full that it seems almost as if they are "one". Sharing can be extremely maximal, to the point where only the "free will" itself seems to stand between them. The soul. And souls are permanent.

The son only figuratively disappears into the father because he cannot stop being free. Yet the unity between Father and Son is so great, essentially nothing can come between them other than the honoring of that freedom. Freedom does not mean separation. Especially given the Son lovingly wills to share his love and joy as fully as possible with the father and with all other creations.

The people who are touting "oneness" and non-duality as the core truth of ACIM, are not acknowledging that God - the infinite - has FREEDOM. And because it is infinite, there are no limits, meaning it is natural for infinity to "expand" permanently and unlimitedly, which is "Creation". And infinity must also mean sharing beacuse sharing means unlimited giving and unlimited receiving. And therefore God is both creative and free and creates freedom.

Your miracle WORKING, DOING, PERFORMING, is supposed to restore the right mindedness of SOMEONE ELSE WHO IS *NOT* IN THEIR RIGHT MIND!!!!!!!

"We said in a previous section that ***the miracle is an expression*** of miracle-Mindedness. Miracle-Mindedness merely means Right-Mindedness in the sense that we are now using it. Right-Mindedness neither exalts nor depreciates the mind of the miracle worker ***nor of the miracle receiver***. However, ***as a creative act***, the miracle need not await the Right-Mindedness of the receiver. *******In fact, its purpose is to restore him TO his Right Mind.******* But it is essential that the miracle worker be in his Right Mind, or he will be unable to reestablish Right-Mindedness ***in someone else.***"

"All forms of not-Right-Mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the Atonement FOR YOURSELF. If the miracle worker DOES accept it, he places himself in the position to recognize that those who need to be healed are simply those who have NOT done so. "

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal. By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the miracle worker releases the mind from overevaluating its own learning device (the body), and restores the mind to its true position as the learner. "

"Healing was an ability which was lent to man after the Separation, before which it was completely unnecessary. Like all aspects of the space-time belief, healing ability is temporary. However, as long as time persists, healing remains among the stronger human protections. This is because healing always rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the true perfection of another, even if he cannot perceive it himself."

"It must be understood, however, that whenever a man offers a miracle to another, he IS shortening the suffering of both."

"Miracles supply a lack."

"Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less."

"Miracles strengthen both the giver and the receiver."

In every way, being right minded does NOT entail a state in which OTHERS ARE FREE FROM SUFFERING. And because of this, MIRACLES have a PURPOSE to offer healing TO THOSE WHO ARE LACKING or who have not yet chosen to enter miracle mindedness themselves. This is why "Miracles are a SERVICE, they are the maximal service you can render to another." Miracle working is all about what you DO to HELP OTHERS who are NOT WHERE YOU ARE AT. And this easily proves the fact that just because you are healed it does NOT MEAN that you no longer see people in need, lacking, sick, suffering or dying. You simply do not believe it is true of them, but you STILL HEAL THEM THROUGH MIRACLES.

Miracles are a CREATIVE ACT. "Miracles are a spark of life".