A_Course_in_Miracles.pdf

CHAPTER 1

I NTRODUCTION T O M IRACLES

This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only

the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean

that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you

may elect what you want to take at a given time.

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love,

for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however,

at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s Presence,

Which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is

fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.

This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this

way:

Nothing real can be threatened

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the Peace of God.

______________________

Principles of Miracles

1. There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is

not “ harder” or “ bigger” than another. They are all the

same. All expressions of love are maximal.

2. Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that

matters is their Source, Which is far beyond human evaluation.

3. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The

real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense,

everything that comes from love is a miracle.

4. All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life.

His Voice will direct you very specifically. You will be told

all you need to know.

5. Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They

should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected

miracles can be misguided.

6. Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something

has gone wrong.

7. Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is

necessary first.

8. Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that

they are performed by those who temporarily have more for

those who temporarily have less.

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. They bring MORE love both

to the giver AND the receiver.

10. The use of miracles as spectacles to INDUCE belief is

wrong; or, better, is a misunderstanding of their purpose.

They are really used FOR and BY believers.

11. 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.

12. Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-

order or higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction

between intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical

and the other creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we

make or create.

13. Miracles are both beginnings and endings. They thus

alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of

rebirth, which seem to go back, but really go forward. They

undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.

14. Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing

because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they

deteriorate into magic, which is mindless, and therefore

destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind.

15. Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of

time is to enable man to learn to use it constructively. Time

is thus a teaching device, and a means to an end. It will

cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

16. Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it

is more blessed to give than to receive. They simultaneously

increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the

receiver.

17. Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are

sudden shifts into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-

order reality. That is why they heal.

18. A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one

individual can render another. It is a way of loving your

neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his

neighbor’s inestimable worth simultaneously.

19. Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on

cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all the Souls

God created. Miracles therefore rest on the laws of eternity,

not of time.

20. Miracles reawaken the awareness that the Spirit, not

the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that

leads to the healing power of the miracle.

21. Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness.

Through miracles, man accepts God’s forgiveness by extending

it to others.

22. Miracles are associated with fear only because of the

fallacious belief that darkness can HIDE. Man believes that

what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes

cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and

has led to a denial of the Spiritual eye. * The escape from

darkness involves two stages:

A. The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This step

usually entails fear.

B. The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to

hide, even if you COULD.

This step brings ESCAPE from fear.

(*The term “ Spiritual eye” is later replaced by the Holy

Spirit and the physical eye becomes the ego. The emphasis on

the two ways of seeing, however, remains throughout.)

23. Miracles rearrange perception, and place the levels of

perception in true perspective. This heals at ALL levels,

because sickness comes from confusing the levels.

When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not

only be willing to enter into communion, but will also

understand peace and joy. Your commitment is not yet total,

and that is why you still have more to learn than to teach.

When your equilibrium stabilizes, you will be able to teach as

much as you learn, which will give you the proper balance.

Meanwhile, remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you

remember this, you cannot avail yourselves of MY efforts,

which ARE limitless. Only eternity is real. Why not use the

illusion of time constructively?

24. Miracles enable man to heal the sick and raise the dead

because he made sickness and death himself, and can abolish

both. YOU are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness

of your Creator. Everything else is only your own nightmare,

and does not exist. Only the Creations of Light are real.

25. Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of

forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. This

process works all the time, and in all the dimensions of time.

I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I

undertook to begin. When you offer a miracle unto any of my

brothers, you do it unto YOURSELF and me. The reason YOU come

before ME is that I do not need miracles for my own Atonement,

but I stand at the end in case you fail temporarily. The

purpose of my part in the Atonement is the cancelling out of

all lacks of love which men could not otherwise correct. The

word “ sin” should be changed to “ lack of love,” because

“ sin” is a man-made word with threat connotations which he

made up himself. No REAL threat is involved anywhere. Nothing

is gained by frightening yourselves, and it is very

destructive to do so.

26. Miracles represent FREEDOM from fear. “ Atoning”

really means “ undoing.” The undoing of fear is an essential

part of the Atonement value of miracles.

The purpose of the Atonement is to restore EVERYTHING to

you; or rather, to restore it to your AWARENESS. You were

GIVEN everything when you were created, just as everyone was.

When you have been restored to the recognition of your

original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement

yourself. As you share MY inability to tolerate lack of love

in yourself and others, you MUST join the Great Crusade to

correct it. The slogan for the Crusade is “ Listen, learn, and

DO;” – Listen to my voice, learn to undo error, and DO

something to correct it.

The power to work miracles BELONGS to you. I will provide

the opportunities to do them, but YOU must be ready and

willing, since you are already able. Doing them will bring

conviction in the ability, since conviction really comes

through accomplishment. The ability is the potential; the

achievement is its expression; and the Atonement is the

Purpose.

27. A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me

to ALL my brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to

forgive.

The disciples were specifically told to be physicians of

the Lord and to heal others. They were also told to HEAL

THEMSELVES, and were promised that I would never leave them or

forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the

Children of God, because they have professed me. “ Heaven and

earth shall pass away” simply means that they will not

continue to exist as separate states. My word, which is the

Resurrection and the Light, shall not pass away because Light

is eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His work is wholly

lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man MUST think of

himself in his heart, because this is what he IS.

28. Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of

consciousness.

Miracles come from the below or subconscious level.

Revelations come from the above or superconscious level. The

conscious level is in between, and reacts to either sub- or

superconscious impulses in varying ratios. Consciousness is

the level which engages in the world, and is capable of

responding to both. Having no impulses from itself, and being

primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very

wrong.

Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of

doubt and fear. It represents the original form of

communication between God and His Souls, involving an

extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man

tries to find in physical relationships. Physical closeness

CANNOT achieve this. The subconscious impulses properly induce

miracles, which are genuinely interpersonal, and result in

real closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a

PERSONALLY willful consciousness as impulses toward physical

gratification.

Revelation unites Souls directly with God. Miracles unite

minds directly with each other. Neither emanates from

consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is

essential, since consciousness is the state which induces

action, though it does NOT inspire it. Man is free to believe

what he chooses, and what he DOES attests to what he believes.

The deeper levels of the subconscious ALWAYS contain the

impulse to miracles, but man is free to fill its more

superficial levels, which are closer to consciousness, with

the impulses of this world, and to identify himself with them.

This results in DENYING himself access to the miracle level

underneath. In his actions, then, his relationships also

become superficial, and miracle-inspired relating becomes

impossible.

29. Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear.

Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY been

abolished. Miracles are thus a means, and revelation is an

end. Miracles do not depend on revelation; they INDUCE it.

Revelation is intensely personal, and cannot actually be

translated into conscious content at all. That is why any

attempt to describe it in words is usually incomprehensible.

Revelation induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the other

hand, induce ACTION. Miracles are more useful now, because of

their interpersonal nature. In this phase of learning, working

miracles is more important because freedom from fear cannot be

thrust upon you.

30. Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by

honoring His Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal

because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul-

identification. By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the

levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the

Spirit at the center, where Souls can communicate directly.

31. Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should

thank God for what he really is. The Children of God are very

holy, and the miracle honors their holiness.

God’s Creations never lose their holiness, although it can

be hidden. The miracle uncovers it, and brings it into the

light where it belongs. Holiness can never be really hidden in

darkness, but man can deceive himself about it. This illusion

makes him fearful, because he knows in his heart it IS an

illusion, and he exerts enormous efforts to establish its

reality. The miracle sets reality where it belongs. Eternal

reality belongs only to the Soul, and the miracle acknowledges

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