Sean Reagan

Miracles honor you because you are lovable. They dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. They thus atone for your errors by freeing you from your nightmares. By releasing your mind from the imprisonment of your illusions, they restore your sanity (T-1.I.33:1-4).

When A Course in Miracles refers to “illusions,” it is pointing to our perceptions – and the beliefs that arise with and sustain those perceptions – which are based on a dualistic view of reality, and thus reinforce the ego’s argument that we are separate from the world and from each other.

That division – self from Creation – begets a literal cosmic daisy chain of additional fragmentation. Judgment enters in an attempt to enforce some order on the ever-expanding illusion. Things are categorized as good and evil, right and wrong, our group and that group. Suddenly “vs.” is showing up everywhere. The appearance of these dichotomies is not the problem; the problem is that we believe they accurately reflect reality. Then the “vs.” stops being a silly game and becomes a cage match to the death.

That single mistaken belief keeps us separated from our true self which does not know division at all, especially not from our Creator or Creation, and is thus free of all conflict.

In this principle, the Course is pointing directly at its intersection with nonduality. Nonduality suggests that everything is a single, interconnected whole. There is no separation anywhere, notwithstanding any appearances to the contrary.

God’s Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness encompasses ours . . . Glory be to the union of God and His holy Sons! All glory lies in Them because They are united (T-8.V.3:1, 5-6).

Thus, when A Course in Miracles refers to miracles dispelling illusions and thereby restoring us to sanity, it is talking about shifting our perception from a dualistic understanding of the world (where we see ourselves as separate from God, others and the cosmos) to a nondualistic understanding in which we both recognize and accept our interconnectedness with all things, living and nonliving alike. We don’t value the appearance of distinctions as anything other than a reminder that all appearances arise from a single error of perception.

This is the radical shift in perception that miracles accomplish, bringing about in us a deep and abiding peace and understanding. We become happy in ways that cannot be easily described but which can be shared. Indeed, they must be shared. How else could they relate to happiness? How else could they bring about happiness?

This happiness is not otherworldly. It’s not supernatural. From a traditional mental health standpoint, the effects of the miracle allow us to release a lot of pent-up fear and guilt, and their cousins such as anger, jealousy, greed and anxiety. As fear and guilt are relieved, and as their symptoms lessen, a renewed sense of inner peace and joy emerges. We do not feel trapped by our feelings nor confused by our thoughts. We are liberated from the tyranny of false thinking. Our living softens and becomes more inclusive and creative. Of course we are happier.

The miracle allows us to redefine our lives in ways that make us more functional and productive. It’s true that underneath these shifts in living, deeper currents are being addressed – such as our separation from God, or our recognition of the equality of all life, both of which instantiate a true commitment to living nonviolently. However, the two levels are not separate. Our psychological wellness at the level of the body and the world is a natural reflection of the underlying coherence that is our true self, when it remembers itself as God’s Creation.

We are fundamentally lovable beings. We are not sinners, we are not trouble-makers, and we are not alien unto the Kingdom of Heaven. The miracle simply reminds us of what we are in truth, which naturally aligns our will with God’s Will, undoing illusions and promoting a calm and quiet mind that knows it is one with Love.

This is a shift from dualism to nondualism, which is transformative at all levels.

I inspire all miracles, which are intercessions. They intercede for your holiness and make your perceptions holy. By placing you beyond the physical laws they raise you into the sphere of celestial order. In this order you are perfect (T-1.1.32:1-4).

The implication here, of course, is that there are orders in which we are not perfect – or, at least, do not believe we are perfect. And what the Holy Spirit does is transform our perception so that we realize we are perfect – perfect, that is, when we remember what we are in truth.

In this way, the miracle effectively transforms the world brought forth by our limited perception (which includes our ideas about that world) by demonstrating the natural truth of God’s creation. By showing our real self to our self – by bringing us into direct contact with truth – the miracle teaches us our own holiness. It teaches us our own perfection.

More than that, the miracle advocates for our holiness. It advocates for our perfection. When we recognize our holiness, we simultaneously recognize our truth. We recognize that truth is true and remains as God created it. This allows perception to be healed because nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:2-3). Healed perception always aligns us with the truth as God created it.

You were redeemed the instant you thought you had deserted Him. Everything you made has never been, and is invisible because the Holy Spirit does not see it. Yet what He does see is yours to behold, and through His vision your perception is healed (T-12.VIII.6:4-6).

When the Course says that miracles place us “beyond the physical laws” and raise us “into the sphere of celestial order” (T-1.I.32:3), it is saying that the miracle allows us to transcend the limitations of the body’s perception and the world’s conditioning and instead remember that we are minds, God-lit and pure, which together are the nondual light of Love.

And Love holds everything.

Our perceptions of the physical world, along with our ego-based thoughts and beliefs about that world, make an illusory experience of separation – we forget ourselves. We lose ourselves. We lose our confidence and trust – in ourselves, in one another, and in God. We believe we are in adversarial relationships with our neighbors, and that the world is neither fair nor loving. We believe in loss and sacrifice. In that grim world order, of course we are not perfect. Everything we do and everything that exists attests to imperfection.

Yet in the celestial order – the order revealed by the shift in perception from unholiness to holiness, which is the miracle – we remember that we are whole and perfect, united in oneness with all of life. There are no exceptions because love is the absence of exceptions (e.g., W-pI.195.6:2).

When we remember what we are, then we remember that we are perfect. We do not make mistakes, and we do not commit sins. We are not guilty, and need neither to be punished nor to punish. We do not die and we cannot suffer. This is salvation! This is what it means to be born again! This is the remembrance of what we are, never to be forgotten or set aside again.

The miracle dissolves error because the Holy Spirit identifies error as false or unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light, darkness automatically disappears (T-1.I.39:1-2).

In A Course in Miracles, an error is a perception or belief that does not align with reality as God created it. We perceive fear instead of love, fragmentation instead of unity, and falsity instead of truth. These errors arise from a belief system grounded in separation and guilt. They distort our understanding of our true self and our real relationships with one another and with God. They make conflict; they do not create peace.

The correction of this error allows us to perceive love predicated on unity, and to feel the happy effects of that perception. This correction occurs in the context of separation.

Critically, this shift is under the direction of the Holy Spirit, who remembers Creation even as He also perceives the misguided world made by the ego’s lies and misdirection. What the Holy Spirit does is teach us the difference between the two ways of seeing – the one premised on love and union, and the other on fear and separation. He teaches us that the latter is an error, and can be gently laid aside. When we realize that our fear-based beliefs are not grounded in reality as God created it, they lose their power over us. We become open to a new way of seeing and living.

The Holy Spirit teaches us by showing us what we want – inner peace and happiness – and how to get it.

This principle relies on the metaphor of darkness and light, which is common across many religions, including Christianity. Darkness is error; truth is the light. When the light appears – a candle lit, a switch thrown, the sun rising over the eastern hills – then the darkness is undone. This natural feature of the external landscape is mirrored in our minds. As the light of truth dawns in our thinking, our mistaken beliefs are dissolved. We remember who we are and in the remembrance is a cause for joy. The Holy Spirit is our teacher and guide in this process; our role is to be devoted students.

Your only calling here is to devote yourself, with active willingness, to the denial of guilt in all its forms. To accuse is not to understand. The happy learners of the Atonment become the teachers of the innocence that is the right of all that God created (T-14.V.3:5-7).

The way that this principle is brought into application is through questioning every belief that we hold and refusing to decide in advance what the right or best answer will be. We let it all go. We hold onto nothing, which paradoxically is the way to acccept nothing less than happiness and inner peace. We cannot do this alone. We need Jesus and the Holy Spirit in very literal ways, and we need our brothers and sisters to share the learning experience with us. We need them to bolster our courage, let us lean on them as we go, and remind us that we are strong by asking us to help them. This is the way that fear and conflict – which are effects of our confusion about what we are – are corrected by giving everything to the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness as A Course in Miracles reframes it is an ongoing process of releasing our grievances and judgments and being willing to perceive the world and all its inhabitants as God created them. This means that we don’t decide in advance what Creation looks like or feels like. We surrender all our preconceptions. We are “born again” as blank slates. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit does the heavy lifting. Our part is simply the “little willingness” upon which all salvation rests.

Thus, when we notice that we are experiencing fear (in any of its forms) – and doubling down on it through fear-based behavior (in any of its forms) – we can remember that miracles are natural and always accessible. We can ask the Holy Spirit to show us a different way of seeing, one that restores to our awareness the fundamental unity that governs Creation, including us.

The more “light” that we allow into our mind, the more the errors of perception – and their apparent effects – can be gently undone.

The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles. He recognizes both God’s creations and your illusions. He separates the true from the false by His ability to perceive totally rather than selectively (T-1.I.38:1-3).

A Course in Miracles characterizes the Holy Spirit as that part of our mind which knows both the world of illusion constructed by ego and the real world created by God in love. Because the Holy Spirit knows both, He can helpfully bridge the one to the other.

Miracles move us from fear to love, according to the Holy Spirit’s understanding of the gap between our illusions and the truth as God created it. All fear is the former, all love in the latter. In a sense, what the Holy Spirit does is open our mind to the light of truth, allowing it to shine away the shadows of fear perpetuated by ego. We experience this as discernment.

When we accept love in place of fear, our understanding of ourselves as limited and limiting is undone. We realize we are not alone in a world where our survival is uncertain, but rather one with God in a Creation where nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:2-3). And, critically, we share this reality with all our brothers and sisters.

On our own, we are not capable of actually effectively discerning between fear and love, between guilt and innocence. We might be able to do so one day but not another. Or do it a little but not a lot. The Holy Spirit always remembers the reality of love, unity, and perfection. He never falls for our illusions; He never buys into the mistaken perceptions that drive separation and its negative effects.

Because He can discern between the two, the Holy Spirit can teach us how to discern this way as well. Teaching us discernment in this way is his function.

The Holy Spirit “separates the true from the false by His ability to perceive totally rather than selectively” (T-1.I.38:3). When we listen to ego, our perceptions are selective and fragmented because we are operating from a separation, or scarcity, mindset. The body’s eyes see a part of the world, we evaluate it based on our appetites, and then either accept or reject it. And we think this is the law by which reality operates.

This is an obvious error that only yields misunderstanding and conflict which in turn reinforce the error.

On the other hand, the Holy Spirit does not accept the body – either its potential or its limitations – as our self. Because He perceives only lovingly, He naturally perceives only love, and thus knows the whole of God’s creation as God created it. In the perception of the Holy Spirit (which is naturally shared with us) that which appears separate to the body’s senses becomes a symbol of interconnectedness, attesting to the unity which underlies the cosmos, .

Because He can perceive in this way, the Holy Spirit can help us discern the true (the reality of unity and love) from the false (the unreality of separation and fear). He sees us the way God knows us.

It is God’s Will you share His Love for you, and look upon yourself as lovingly as He conceived of you before the world began, and as He knows you still. God changes not His Mind about His Son with passing circumstance which has no meaning in eternity where He abides, and you with Him (T-24.VI.3:4-5).

It takes time to learn how to learn from the Holy Spirit. And it takes time to learn that all we really want is to learn from the Holy Spirit. Before we know it as salvation, wholeness is frightening. Alignment with love is natural but we are accustomed to an upside-down view of the world, ourselves and everyone else. Miracles are gentle and reliable corrections, taking us precisely as far as we are able to go in a given moment and context.

Miracles induce gratitude, not discomfort. This is such an important idea! Miracles aren’t about pushing limits but rather forgiving limits, which usually means shrugging and saying, “there I go confusing myself for a body again.” Miracles affirm the Teacher whose only need is our own need to remember our Creator’s Love, which is limitless.

A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, breaking up erroneous perception and reorganizing it properly. This places you under the Atonement principle, where perception is healed. Until this has occurred, knowledge of the Divine Order is impossible (T-1.I.37:1-4).

This principle illustrates the Course understanding that miracles reflect transformative changes in perception, initiated by Jesus. They correct false, or ego-based, thinking by realigning it with truth. In this way, miracles allow for a healed perception of reality, which A Course in Miracles refers to as the Atonement.

“False thinking” refers to thoughts which arise from the ego’s thought system, which is premised on separation, and the feelings of guilt and fear which are its emotional hallmarks. According to the ego’s view, the self is alone in the world, separated from every person, place and thing, and locked with them in a grim battle for survival. God is nowhere to be found. Hope is nowhere to be found.

It is a painful way to live.

The course describes this view of reality as false, or erroneous, because it misrepresents the true nature of our existence. In truth, we are aspects of the interconnected wholeness of Creation, in which it is not possible to be separate from God or anything God created. Creation is seamless; there are no parts.

Thus, we can think of the miracle as a formal spiritual intervention, which enables us to recognize our dysfunctional reliance on perception (i.e., ego’s insistence that perception is reality), and open to a new way of thinking (conforming to the Holy Spirit’s emphasis on honesty and willingness as the means of true forgiveness). Miracles are catalysts, causing the mind to shift from fear to love, and from conflict to peace. They respond creatively to our thoughts by teaching us to recognize the underlying belief system from which they arise. We no longer take seriously what God does not take seriously.

We learn how to disregard the ego’s emphasis on separation, and rely instead on the Holy Spirit’s gentle insistence that unity and oneness are God’s gifts to us, and can be recognized and accepted now.

To the extent we accept and participate in this realignment of perception, then we rest with one another under the Atonement principle. We acknowledge our true selves and refuse to deny our Creator. We recognize that fear and guilt arise in misperception, and are sustained by our unwillingness to correct that misperception. We see clearly that we are doing this to ourselves (T-27.VIII.10:1), and we are willing to do something different.

The Atonement principle is the recognition that separation is an illusion and that we are, in fact, eternally united with God and with each other, where “other” includes black bears, bumble bees and atoms. This is our reality and we can remember it – and live the effects of remembering it – now.

Healed perception allows us to attain “knowledge of the Divine Order.” This means we understand and experience reality as it is – an expression of God’s Will endlessly extending love. We perceive the world as a reflection of this endlessly extending love, and all our brothers and sisters share in that innocence with us.

Only the false thinking of the ego stands in the way of this understanding!

This principle of A Course in Miracles reinforces our understanding that miracles are shifts in perception from fear to love – from separation to unity – in accordance with what is divine. This shift heals our perception, aligns us with the reality of our shared oneness with God, and allows us to experience and understand the world as an expression of this divine unity.

Finally, Jesus clearly identifies himself as an intercessor in this principle. Ego is no joke; the work we undertake to undo it cannot be done alone. We need help. By reminding us of his presence, Jesus also reminds us that none of us take this course solo. The Atonement principle is not exclusive – it includes and gives welcome to all of us. Anything less would be just another instrument of the ego.

Miracles are examples of right thinking, aligning your perceptions with truth as God created it (T-1.I.36:1).

Thinking can be given to the Holy Spirit or to the ego. Ego uses it to make and extend conflict, ever reinforcing the grounds for division and competition. The Holy Spirit uses it to emphasize unity and peace.

“Right” thinking is thinking that is guided by the Holy Spirit. It takes the world we perceive – the world brought forth by the body, its senses and appetites – and uses it to demonstrate that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:2-3). This insight takes time to develop and integrate.

Ego-based thinking is rooted in fear, judgement and separation. We learn it early in our lives, before we have any say over it. It’s not designed to be questioned; it’s designed to disappear into the background. It’s designed to take us over – get us invested in taking sides, defending our side and attacking others. Egoic thinking hijacks the body, putting it instantly to the service of survival. This leads to sacrifice, famine and war.

There is – thank Christ there is – another way.

In contrast, Holy Spirit-based thinking is founded on love, forgiveness and oneness. It is easy to dismiss these as mere abstractions or spiritual ideals, but they have psychological and behavioral correlates. They take form in the world and yield effects, the same as egoic thinking.

Therefore, the guide for thought that we choose shapes our behavior and relationships, and – through the principle of recursion – also shapes our ongoing experience of both self and other.

As we have noted so many times, the miracle is the shift in our thinking away from fear and towards love. It arises from the decision to listen to the Holy Spirit rather than the ego. In concrete and context-specific ways, when we are aligned with love, we perceive our brothers and sisters as both loving and worthy of love. Regardless of their actions, individually or collectively, we know we are one with them. Their worthiness and our worthiness are not separate.

As every gift my brothers give is mine, so every gift I give belongs to me. Each one allows a past mistake to go, and leave no shadow on the holy mind my Father loves. His grace is given me in every gift a brother has received throughout all time, and past all time as well (W-pII.316.1:1-3).

The miracle always emphasizes interconnectedness and innocence. And that emphasis always yields nontrivial transformations of behavior – not because behavior is the site of healing, or the goal of our learning, but because of the underlying belief system upon which we are relying to guide our perception. We notice behavior. It is a symbol of our thinking, and we can “read” it to better align ourselves with love.

We can either perceive a world that is fragmented and violent – one in which only survival matters, and survival is always our responsibility – or we can perceive a world which God created, in which Love awaits our shared remembrance, and all things become symbols not of separation but the end of separation, the undoing of separation. The ego does not want us to remember our Creator, much less our place in Creation.

Aligning our perceptions with “truth as God created it” means embracing – and extending – our inherent nature as expressions of God’s Love.

The world itself is beyond change, being merely a momentary perception. In the final sense, this is the true cause for peace. But in the interim, miracles transform our experience of the world, allowing us to perceive a home in which there is no cause for fear, guilt and separation. We can live this way now.

Remembering what we are in truth means having our function to heal restored to our awareness. We reclaim our inheritance in Creation – not through fear but through Love.