Corresponding Text Section

Chapter 3: Oneness and Irreconcilability

1. Suggestions and Principles for Miracle Workers

All learning, even casual, involves attention and reflection at some level. More complex learning requires more involved attention and reflection, i.e., study. This Course is a training in integrating and directing your mind so you will be able to allow miracles to be performed through you. As such, it is not casual learning. Students with sound study skills assign reflection or study periods for themselves. You may discover that the solutions to many of the problems you find yourself being faced with may be obtained through regular reflection on what is presented in this Course.

You may believe that what is presented in this Course cannot really help you until you have completed the entire Course, even if you read over and reflect on some parts more than one time. I can assure you that this Course is not designed in that way. Every part may be fruitfully applied immediately to some aspect of your life. Remember the distinction between readiness and mastery. You are ready to learn, and as you study, learn, and apply your learning to your life, you will move toward mastery.

The next part of this Course rests so strongly on the earlier part that its study and at least working comprehension is required to understand what follows. Without a working comprehension, you may become much too fearful when the unexpected occurs to make constructive use of it. As you study the earlier part you will see some of the obvious implications. One reason a solid foundation is necessary at this point is because of the likely confusion between fear and awe that many people experience when their perception expands out of the narrow bands it has been held in for so long.

It was stated earlier that awe is inappropriate in connection with all Children of the Divine, because awe should not be experienced in the presence of one’s equals. But awe is a proper response of the mind in the Presence of its Creator. I emphasize that awe is not appropriate in connection with me because of our inherent Equality. I have been careful to clarify my own role in the Atonement, without either overstating or understating it. I have tried to do exactly the same in connection with yours.

The next step involves a direct approach to the Divine Itself. It would be unwise to start on this step at all without very careful preparation or awe will surely be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific. Healing is of Spirit in the end. The means are carefully being explained. Revelation will occasionally show you the End, but to reach It the means are needed.

Careful observance of your mind when habits of error threaten to interfere with your applying this Course to your life will prevent such interference from occurring, and will do so any time you permit it to. The specific events involved could be any events, and do not matter, nor does their particular influence on the personal tendency to err. It is the process that needs to be carefully observed as the habits of mind play out, and not its results, though reflecting on these may help to identify the misthought and beliefs that caused the process. The kind of beliefs and the fallacious premises involved in misthought are what’s important to become aware of in this kind of learning. Beliefs are thoughts and thus come under the Guidance, but not Control, of Divine Essence. As stated previously, in order to honor the most fundamental Law of Cause and Effect, only the individual must control and direct their own thoughts. You direct your mind, which you alone must direct.

It should be noted that while backward reflection may be helpful in showing you what not to do in the future, the more constructive emphasis will be on a positive, forward approach that prevents errors from occurring in the first place. To work toward achieving this, become aware, first, of when you have placed yourself in a condition to experience a fear reaction rather than a Love response to a situation. Situations inviting fear reactions will likely be those you begin to enter already feeling weak for whatever reason. Such conditions are prone to miscreation, and they will not allow a meaningful approach to whatever problems the situation is presenting. Situations presenting problems happen all the time, and often induce inner reactions that make you feel weak because of your misthought or beliefs about the problems themselves, the situations presenting them, or your inner tendencies of reaction. There is another way of considering all of these.

Often reactions that weaken you would probably not occur if you were not already “out of sync” in some way as you interact with people or circumstances. While it is helpful to be aware of what it feels like when you are out of balance, even subtly, it will be far more helpful when you learn to be balanced in every situation by learning the basic dynamics that play out over and over, and developing the necessary strength of will to instinctively meet these dynamics and balance them. That may seem like an impossible goal, but when perception begins to break out of its narrow bands, the “impossible” becoming possible becomes much more fluid.

It may help you to know that Spirit is very well aware, as am I, of the decreased frequency with which you now make certain errors that used to be common. You have already come a long way in this respect. A simple prayer for Guidance from or Attunement with Spirit, which I will certainly join you in, as you enter any new situation or begin any new activity during your day, will help you to avoid common errors, react better when you make them, and correct them quickly. I have promised to help guide you out of problems, and will certainly not create them for you. But this means for your part not to undertake solving them yourself.

A key aspect of problem prevention is simple, genuine courtesy. You know that all Children of the Divine are fully worthy of complete courtesy. There are ways of treating others in which only consistent courtesy, even in very little things, is offered. This is a very healing habit to acquire. Real courtesy never laughs at others, even when they are not physically present. This is a specific case of the broader habit of never joining with one at the expense of another. Whenever any invitation to join others in a gracious way is offered, it should always be met with respect, although it need not always be accepted. If it is accepted ungraciously rather than being declined graciously, the resulting feeling may well be one of coercion. This is always a split-will reaction, which is a source of fear and miscreation.

If rightly embraced and responded to, no situation need entail either mental or physical strain, or the feeling of a “need to escape.” Such feelings of entrapment represent regression of the unhelpful sort, and will continue to be experienced from time to time until you are willing to realize that there is nothing you need or want to escape from. Feelings of entrapment indicate that you have already entered a process of mis-projection and error, but if you can step aside and observe your mind at the instant these feelings arise, you will discover that the situation offers you the opportunity to extricate yourself from your conflicted will by immediately accepting Atonement for yourself. If this is not remembered, it is very hard to get out of the chain of miscreation that can arise out of even the simplest misthought or unforgiveness.

This kind of human tragedy – in the Shakespearean sense of people not connecting with one another, or “missing” each other – is far easier to avert than to undo, so learn not to let this kind of chain reaction start. Nothing is lovely to the unloving because they are miscreating unloveliness. Even if you can extricate yourself from conflict, once others are enmeshed in a sense of conflicted will you will not be able to control it, because they will be pulled into the mis-projection, and things will be misinterpreted accordingly. In the end this kind of experience often becomes a time sink. There’s a much better use for our time, so learning how to graciously say no inwardly and at times outwardly to invitations to become caught up in such drama are important skills to develop.

This leads us to special principles for miracle workers.

First, the miracle temporarily abolishes the need for physical concerns, or concern about transitory things. Since the miracle is an illogical, or out-of-pattern, time interval, by definition the ordinary, logical considerations of time and space do not apply to it. When you perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and space to adjust to it.

Second, clear distinction between what has already been Divinely created and what is being humanly created is essential. All forms of Correction (or healing) rest on this fundamental distinction. Another way of stating this is: never confuse right-mindedness with wrong-mindedness, i.e., with judgment and fear. (See the earlier section on healing as release from fear.) Responding to any form of miscreation with anything except a desire to offer and experience a miracle and thus to heal is an expression of this confusion. The miracle, and the Atonement of which it is a part, is always an appropriate denial of this error, and an affirmation of the Truth.

Third, only right-mindedness (being free from fear even if only temporarily) can apply creative Power in a way that has any real effect. Pragmatically, what has no real effect has no real existence. The effect of what has no real existence, then, is nothingness or emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to mis-projection. The Power of the miracle to adjust the levels of perception, awareness, and time-dimension, and thus dissolve level confusion (see earlier discussion of this), creates the right perspective and perception for healing. Until this has occurred, healing cannot be understood.

Fourth, forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails Correction. Without this, it is essentially judgmental rather than healing. Miraculous forgiveness is only corrective. It has no element of judgment at all. “Creator, forgive them for they know not what they do” in no way evaluates what they do. It is strictly limited to an appeal to Spirit to heal their minds. There is no reference to the apparent result or outcome of their misthought, which does not matter.

Fifth, the sacred scripture injunction, “Be of one mind,” is the statement for revelation readiness. My own request, “Do this in remembrance of me,” is the request for cooperation among miracle workers. It should be noted that the two statements are not in the same order of experience, because the latter involves an order of time-dimension, since memory implies recalling something in the present. Time is under my control, but Timelessness belongs to the Divine alone. In time we exist for and with each other. In Timelessness we coexist with the Divine.