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Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. The mind can elect what it chooses to serve. The only limit upon its choice is that it cannot serve two masters. The mind can become the medium by which spirit creates along the line of its own creation. If it does not, it retains its creative potential but places itself under tyrannous rather than Authoritative control. To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true Authority.
The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by God. All shallow roots must be uprooted, because they are not deep enough to sustain us. Nothing is stable in an upside-down orientation, nor can anything that holds it upside down be conducive to increased stability.
Needs arise only when we deprive ourselves and then act according to the particular order of needs we establish. This depends on our perception of what we are. Our sense of separation from God is the only lack we really need to correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if we had not distorted our perception of truth, thereby perceiving ourselves as somehow lacking.
Correcting our perception on its own level is necessary. We think we live in space, where concepts such as “up” and “down” are meaningful. Ultimately, space is as meaningless as time. Both are merely beliefs.
The real purpose of this world is to use it to correct our unbelief. We can never control the effects of fear ourselves, because we made fear and we believe in what we made. Belief produces the acceptance of existence. That is why we can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for us because it was made by us.
All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all. In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:
Perfect love casts out fear.
If fear exists, then there is not perfect love.
But:
Only perfect love exists.If there is fear, it produces a state that does not exist.
Believe this and you will be free. Only God can establish this solution, and this faith is His gift.
Our distorted perceptions produce a dense cover over miracle impulses, making it hard for them to reach our awareness. We must not forget that, as children of God, we were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. We can use our bodies to help us enlarge our perception so we can achieve real vision, which the physical eye is incapable of seeing. Learning to do this is our body’s only true usefulness.
If we twist reality in any way, we are perceiving destructively. We believe in what we make. If we offer miracles, we will be equally strong in our belief in them. The strength of our conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver. Fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent. Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only goal of the miracle-minded.
To extend is a fundamental aspect of God which He gave to us. In the creation, God extended Himself to His creations and imbued us with the same loving Will to create. Because of our likeness to our Creator, we are creative.
The inappropriate use of extension, or projection, occurs when we believe that some emptiness or lack exists in us. And that we can fill it with our own ideas instead of truth. This process involves the following steps:
First, we believe that what God created can be changed by our own minds. Second, we believe that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking. Third, we believe that we can distort the creations of God, including ourselves. Fourth, we believe that we can create ourselves and that the direction of our own creation is controlled by us. These steps represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation, or “detour into fear”.
Everything God created is like Him. All God’s children inherit inner radiance from Him. The real source is internal. This is as true of the Son as it is of the Father. This requires God’s endowment of the Son with free will.
The Garden of Eden was a state of mind in which nothing was needed. When Adam listened to the “lies of the serpent”, all he heard was untruth. We do not need to continue to believe what is not true unless we choose to do so. All those beliefs can literally disappear in the twinkling of an eye because they were merely misperceptions.
What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. The Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam. Nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world is still asleep and has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth.
All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that we have the ability to usurp the power of God. Of course we have never been able to do this. Here is the real basis for our escape from fear. The escape is brought about by our realizing that our errors never really occurred. Only after the deep sleep fell upon Adam could he experience nightmares.
If a light is suddenly turned on while we are dreaming a fearful dream, we may initially interpret the light itself as part of our dream and be afraid of it. However, when we awaken, the light is correctly perceived as the release from the dream, which we now see as no longer reality. The knowledge that illuminates not only sets us free, but also shows us clearly that we are free.
Whatever lies or untruths we may believe are of no concern to the miracle. The miracle’s sole concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand, and error on the other. In reality, we are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. Peace is an attribute in us. We cannot find it outside. Health is inner peace. It enables us to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through our acceptance of miracles and the correction of conditions proceeding from lack of love in others.
We can do anything and everything God asks of us. He has asked us to perform miracles and made it clear to us that miracles are natural, corrective, healing and universal. There is nothing they cannot do. But they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear.
Where our hearts are, there is our treasure also. We believe in what we value. If we are afraid, we are valuing wrongly. The Bible speaks of “the peace of God which passeth understanding”. This peace is totally unshakeable by errors of any kind and denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial, not to hide anything, but to correct error. Error brought to light is automatically corrected, since error and darkness are the same.
True denial is a powerful protective device. We can and should deny any belief that error can hurt us. This kind of denial is not concealment; it is correction. Our right minds depend on it. In the service of the right mind the denial of error frees the mind and reestablishes the freedom of the will.
We defend that which we treasure, and we do this automatically. The real questions are, what do we treasure, and how much do we treasure it?
Learning, like the classroom in which it occurs, is temporary. Only while there is a belief in differences is learning meaningful. The ability to learn has no value when change is no longer necessary. While we still have need of learning, we can learn to improve our perceptions and become better and better learners.
We return as we go forward. The Atonement, which is the device by which we can free ourselves from the past as we go ahead, undoes our past errors and makes it unnecessary for us to keep retracing our steps without advancing to our return. The Atonement saves time, but does not abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement, there is need for time. Until the Atonement is complete, its various phases will proceed in time, but the whole Atonement stands at time’s end, at the point where the bridge of return has been built.
It is hard to believe that a defense that can not attack is the best defense, but this is what is meant by “the meek shall inherit the earth”. They will literally take it over because of their strength. The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to our real protection. As we become more and more secure, we assume our natural talent of protecting others, knowing ourselves as both brothers (or sisters) and Sons (or Daughters).
