I am entitled to miracles.
Many years ago I read a brief article about a woman practicing Lesson 77 of A Course in Miracles in conjunction with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, a tapping-based healing modality). She would work through the ritual of tapping, while repeating “I am entitled to miracles.” Within days, she had a new job and a few other blessings as well. The point of her story was that EFT works. But it reflected a fundamental confusion about ACIM: that miracles are real to the degree we can measure their external effects.
A friend who studied off and on with Tara Singh once told me a story. He was complaining to Singh about certain material circumstances – his apartment was too small to add dark room and he couldn’t afford anything larger. It was hard to practice the course and be happy in such challenging conditions. Singh told him that peace was not connected to external circumstances. Real peace was being just as happy winning a million dollars as losing it.
Miracles are not about achieving some ideal outcome in terms of personal circumstances.
In A Course in Miracles, a “miracle” heals perception by teaching us how to only perceive truly in order to go beyond perception. In order to do this, the miracle “perceives everything as it is” (T-3.II.3:4).
To receive a miracle and to give a miracle are the same movement: both are effects of right seeing, which is to say, seeing everything exactly as it is in reality. When we remember our self, we remember our Creator and we remember that we are bound to create accordingly.
Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are (W-pI.77.2:1-4).
To be created – to have being – is to be capable of right seeing. The miracle merely recognizes what we are and restores our natural abilities to their natural use. And what is true of us, is true of our brothers and sisters.
. . . miracles are never taken from one and given to another . . . in asking for your rights, you are upholding the rights of everyone. Miracles do not obey the laws of this world. They merely follow from the laws of God (W-pI.77.4:3-5).
Miracles do not actually do anything. We don’t get anything. They are more in the nature of flipping a light switch; we simply see in a clearer and more helpful light than before. The clarity means that we have fewer doubts and fewer questions.
There is no room for doubt and uncertainty today. We are asking a real question at last. The answer is a simple statement of a simple fact (W-pI.77.6:5-7).
We are entitled to miracles. This is a declaration of freedom and also a statement of gratitude and trust. Miracles free us from the tyranny of perception and ego’s inconsistent judgment. We are grateful for our liberation and we trust the One who is in charge of it.
Thus, today, we create a space in which we might taste anew the joy and peace of Heaven, which are in us because we are “one with God” (W-pI.77.1:3). Salvation is a gift that we give the world as it was given to us, and doing so is the simplest thing imaginable. It consists simply in being what we are in truth.
I just want to thank you Sean for your blog. I’ve been doing the Course for over a year (stopping, starting and restarting) and your daily summation of the lessons has been a godsend.
I’m glad it’s helpful Ainsley – thank you so much for reading 🙂
~ Sean
Sean can you help me wrap my head around the Courses discussion on the body and it’s unimportance?
Does this mean we were ‘conceived’ prior to our human conception in the womb? Was our choice to be with the ego instead of God and hence our need for the body?
Did Jesus represent what we could be in the body as we our on our journey towards salvation?
I am so excited about this course and learning to see differently. So grateful 🙏
Hi Lisa,
The basic assertion of the course with respect to bodies is that we are NOT bodies (W-pI.199.8:7) and that the best use to which any body can be put is communication (T-8.VII.h). Communication always emphasizes relationship which in turn always involves giving attention to others.
It’s natural to be confused by this, and our confusion tends to represent the degree to which we still believe we ARE bodies. But it’s helpful to remember that the course is not denying bodies nor suggesting they’re not real – it’s just inviting us to realize that what we are in truth cannot be contained by a body, though it CAN use that body for communication purposes.
One way to think of this is to ask: where is love? Is it in your body? For a lot of us, the answer might appear to be yes. But on the other hand, when we die, love will not die. My dog died and my father died and a close friend died and I love them still. I still feel their love. Nor does the love – if I look at it closely – feel like “mine” or “theirs.” It doesn’t seem capable of being possessed or even contained.
That exercise can help frame a way of thinking about what we are as it relates to bodies. Love can certainly be communicated through bodies but it is not in any way dependent on them for its existence. You could say same about life. Life is a real thing but it’s more in the nature of a process than an object. The death of a body – or a whole species even – does not end Life. How could it?
So, again, the suggestions is that what we are in truth is closer to love or even life itself.
The course does not talk about our conception because that would imply that time is real, and that what we are is subject to time – i.e., can be born and thus can die. We are closer to eternal and infinite than not, though I think talking that way can be a little grandiose. Most of us – me included certainly – are spiritual beginners. Our work is to be taught by the Holy Spirit rather than ego, and then let the chips fall where they may.
Our sense of ourselves AS bodies is very much a reflection of our decision to identify with ego instead of with the Holy Spirit (and, by extension, with God). The body IS the ego’s home – because the body’s frailty and vulnerability are the ego’s best argument for ITS existence. So long as we believe that WE are frail and vulnerable then we will listen to the ego’s plans for our safety – which always involve attack and defense, of ourselves and others, and always bring about suffering in all its many forms.
So yes, in that sense, body identification is very much an ego-based thing.
I DO think ACIM suggests that Jesus is a model for us – not in the sense of being a leader who ends up crucified and having a whole religion spring up in his wake. Rather, for his complete identification not with his body but with the Holy Spirit, which was in his mind which meant that he was naturally and totally aligned with God’s Will. In ACIM terms, he learned that he was not separate from God, and thus became a committed teacher of his brothers and sisters, aiming to teach all of us that we are not separate from God either. It is not a mystery that the course teaches us that the mind that was in Jesus is also in us (T-5.I.3:3).
Really, that is what the course is teaching us to do – to listen to the Holy Spirit, and to recognizes that our will is not separate from God’s Will.
“The body is merely part of your experience in the physical world” (T-2.IV.3:9). It’s not a crisis. We don’t have to do anything about it. Our work is to go deeper and deeper into our belief system – which is in our mind – ever learning how to tune out the ego and hear the Holy Spirit with increasingly clarity. It will teach us what to do with the body, and how to gently let it go when we no longer need it.
Love,
Sean
Thank you so much. Your explanation truly helps me stop the battle within and look at what is important-the spirit.
Perhaps now I can take another step forward.
Blessings,
Lisa
You’re welcome, Lisa. Tiny steps foward are the way – and always easier when we share them with each other. Thank you for being here and walking with me 🙏🙏
Love,
Sean
Sean, I began my ACIM journey this year (2022), and recently discovered your blog. Your workbook lesson summaries and accompanying videos are an insightful supplement to the course material. You have an articulate – almost poetic – way of speaking that really resonates with me. Thank you for the work you do.
You are welcome, Rob – thank you for the kind words. The course has been deeply helpful and provocative in my life; I’m glad that I can share that experience with others. Keep me posted on your journey – we are here to learn with and for each other 🙏🙏
Love,
Sean