Corresponding Text Section

Chapter 15: Dissolving Dissociation

10. The Ego’s Chaos and the Miracle’s Response

Those who believe they dwell on Earth have no conception of Limitlessness, for the world they seem to live in is a world of limits. In this world, it seems to be impossible that anything can transcend the laws of time and space and occur without levels or orders of magnitude of difficulty. The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the Laws of another world to this one. The miracle is the one thing you can do here that transcends levels, being based on Equality rather than on differences. Miracles are not in competition, and the number you can do is limitless. Because they transcend time and space they can be simultaneous and countless. This is not difficult to understand once you conceive of them as possible at all. What may be more difficult to grasp is the lack of levels or orders of magnitude in miracles, which stamps the miracle as something that must come from elsewhere. From the world’s viewpoint this is quite impossible.

You have experienced the lack of competition among your thoughts, which determines that even though your thoughts may conflict, they can occur to you together, and in great numbers. You are so used to this that it causes you little surprise. Yet you are also used to classifying some of your thoughts as more important, larger, better, wiser, or more productive and valuable than others. And this is true about the thoughts that simultaneously cross the minds of those who think their minds are separate. Some of these thoughts are Reflections of Heaven, while others are motivated by the ego, which only seems to think.

The result of this lack of competition among your thoughts is a weaving, changing pattern of thinking that never rests and is never still. It shifts unceasingly across the mirror of your mind, and as a result the Reflections of Heaven last only a moment, and then grow dim as darkness blots them out. In this condition, Light in your mind is removed by darkness in an instant, and alternating patterns of Light and darkness, darkness and Light, sweep constantly across your mind. The little sanity that still remains is held together by a sense of order that you establish. The very fact that you can do this, and bring any order into chaos, shows you that you are not an ego, and that more than an ego must be in you. For the ego is chaos, and if it were all of you then no order at all would be possible.

Though the order that you impose upon your mind limits the ego, it also limits you. To put into order is to judge, and to arrange by judgment. Therefore, it is not your Function but the Holy Spirit’s, Who evaluates truly. It will likely seem very difficult for you to learn that you have no basis at all for putting your thoughts into order. This lesson the Holy Spirit teaches you by giving you shining examples to show you that your way of bringing order to your thoughts is counter to your best interests, and also that a better way is offered you.

The miracle offers exactly the same response to every call for help. It never judges the form that a call for help has. It merely recognizes what it is, and answers accordingly. It in no way judges the worthiness of the one who calls for help. It doesn’t consider which call is louder, or greater, or more important, or less insane. You may wonder how you, who are still bound to judgment, can be asked to do that which requires no judgment of your own. The answer is very simple. The Power of the Divine, and not of you, engenders miracles. The miracle itself is just the witness that you have the Power of the Divine in you. That is the reason the miracle gives equal blessing to all who share in it, and also why everyone shares in it.

The Power of the Divine is limitless. Being always maximal, It offers Everything to every call from anyone, no matter the form of the call or the state of the caller. There are no levels or orders of magnitude here. A call for help is simply given help. The only ordering involved at all is in the Holy Spirit’s Evaluation of all expressions of the Children of the Divine into two categories, one of expressions of Love, and the other of the calls for Love, or help. You cannot safely make this ordering, for your mind is still much too confused either to recognize expressions of Love, or to believe that everything else is nothing but a need and call for Love. You are still too bound to form, and not free in content. What you consider content is not content at all. It is merely form, and nothing else. For you do not yet respond to what a brother or sister really offers you, but only to the particular perception of their offering by which your ego judges it.

The ego is incapable of understanding true content, and is totally unconcerned with it. To the ego, if the form is acceptable, the content must also be. Otherwise, it will attack the form, passively or openly.

You who believe you understand something of the dynamics of the mind, let me assure you that, as long as your mind remains split, you know nothing of it at all. For of yourself alone you could not know of it, and you have split your mind to believe that it is yours alone. The study of the ego is not the study of the mind. In fact, the ego enjoys the study of itself, and thoroughly approves the undertakings of students who would analyze it, confirming its importance to them and to itself. Yet they merely study form with meaningless content. For their teacher is senseless, though careful to conceal this fact behind many words, some of which may sound impressive, but that lack any consistent sense of content when they are considered in their totality.

This is the characteristic of the ego’s judgments. Separately they seem to make sense, but put them together and the system of thought that arises from joining them is incoherent and utterly chaotic, requiring ever new theories and frameworks in an attempt to tie together the hodgepodge of ideas. For form is not enough to create Meaning, and the underlying lack of Content in form makes a cohesive system impossible. Separation therefore remains the ego’s chosen condition. For no one alone can assess the ego truly. But when two or more join together in searching for Truth, the ego’s lack of Content and Meaning can no longer be defended. The fact of their union in their search for Truth tells them that the separation of the ego cannot be true.

It is impossible to remember the Divine in secret and alone. For remembering It means that you are not alone, and that you are willing to remember this. The lonely journey fails because it has excluded what it would find. Take no thought for yourself, for no Thought you hold is for yourself alone. If you would remember your Creator, let the Holy Spirit order your thoughts, and give the only response to all expressions with which It answers you. Everyone seeks for Love, as you do, and yet knows It not unless they join with their sisters and brothers in seeking It. If you undertake the search together, you bring with you a Light so powerful that what you perceive is given Meaning.

As the Divine communicates to the Holy Spirit in you, so does the Holy Spirit translate Its Communications through you, so you can understand Them. The Divine has no secret Communications, for Everything of It is perfectly open and freely accessible to all, being for all. Nothing lives in secret, and what you would hide from the Holy Spirit is nothing. Every interpretation you would lay upon a brother or sister is senseless because it comes from a separate mind. Let the Holy Spirit show your sisters and brothers to you, and teach you both their Love and their calls for Love. Neither their mind nor yours holds anything except these two orders of thought. The miracle is the Recognition that this is true.

Where there is Love, your sisters and brothers must share It with you because of what Love is. But where there is a need for Love, you must offer It because of what you are. This Course has stated that it will teach you what you are, restoring to you your Identity. And we have learned that this Identity is shared. The miracle becomes the Means of sharing It. By sharing with you your Identity wherever It is not recognized, you will recognize It.

And the Divine Itself, Who wills to be with Its beloved Children forever, will bless each Recognition of Its Children with all the limitless Love It holds for them. And the Power of all Its Love will be present in any miracle you offer to Its Children. Because of this there cannot be any levels or orders of magnitude of difficulty among miracles.