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Miracle Principle 48

Principle 48: The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all. (T-1.I.48:1-2)


COURSE REFERENCES


Read Miracle Principles #13, #15, #25, #47.


The miracle abolishes the need for lower-order concerns. Since it is an out-of-pattern time interval, the ordinary considerations of time and space do not apply. When you perform a miracle, I (Jesus) will arrange both time and space to adjust to it. (T-2.V.A.11:1-3)


Evolution is a process in which you seem to proceed from one degree to the next. You correct your previous missteps by stepping forward. This process is actually incomprehensible to you in temporal terms, because you return as you go forward. (T-2.II.6:1-3) You return to where you never left – Heaven.


The Atonement is the device by which you can free yourself from the past as you go ahead. It undoes your past errors, thus making it unnecessary for you to keep retracing your steps without advancing to your return home (like on a treadmill). In this sense the Atonement saves time, but like the miracle it serves, does not abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement, there is need for time. (T-2.II.6:4-7)


But the Atonement as a completed plan has a unique relationship to time. Until the Atonement is complete, its various phases will proceed in time, but the whole Atonement stands at time’s end. At that point the bridge of return has been built. (T-2.II.6:8-10)


The Atonement is a total commitment. You may still think this is associated with loss, a mistake all the separated Sons of God make in one way or another. It is hard to believe a defense that cannot attack is the best defense. This is what is meant by “the meek (gentle, non-interfering, deferential to spirit) shall inherit the earth.” The meek will literally take it over because of their strength of spirit. (T-2.II.7:1-5)


A two-way defense is inherently weak precisely because it has two edges, and can be turned against you very unexpectedly. This possibility cannot be controlled except by miracles. The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to your real protection, and as you become more and more secure, you assume your natural talent of protecting others, knowing yourself as a brother and a Son. (T-2.II.7:6-8)


Nothing and everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. Remember, what you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation has occurred, and to deny it is merely to use denial inappropriately. (T-2.VII.5:1-6) Use it to deny illusion and to affirm the truth, at every opportunity.


To concentrate on error is only a further error. The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, as an indication that immediate correction is needed. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay. (T-2.VII.5:7-9)


It should be emphasized, however, that ultimately no compromise is possible between everything and nothing. Time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be given up. It only seems to be abolished by degrees, because time itself involves intervals that do not exist. Miscreation made this necessary as a corrective device. The statement “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” needs only one slight correction to be meaningful in this context: “He gave the world TO His only begotten Son.” (Italics mine.) (T-2.VII.5:10-14)


It should especially be noted that God has only one Son. If all His creations are His Sons, every one must be an integral part of the whole Sonship. The Sonship in its oneness transcends the sum of its parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts is missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all the parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then can the meaning of wholeness in the true sense be understood. (T-2.VII.6:1-6)


Any part of the Sonship can believe in error or incompleteness if he so chooses. However, if he does so, he is believing in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is one purpose of the Atonement. (T-2.VII.6:7-9) Remember that in the world each is dependent upon the other to return to truth, for as long as even one stays separate, all are affected adversely. So it is very important that YOU do YOUR part by accepting the Atonement for yourself – and be truly helpful to others to do the same by demonstrating the truth in your walk and talk. All of us joining together, more and more, to do this, WILL succeed. This is HOW we will succeed.


Some additional points might be helpful here about “readiness.” Readiness is only the prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is usually some degree of desire to accomplish, but it is by no means necessarily undivided. The state of readiness does not imply more than a potential for a change of mind. Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished. (T-2.VII.7:1-6) As I said earlier, one art class does not make you a master artist. Great perseverance and dedication and willingness are involved here.


An attempt has already been made to correct the fundamental error that fear can be mastered, and been emphasized that the only real mastery is through love. Readiness is only the beginning of confidence and mastery. You may think this implies that an enormous amount of time is necessary between readiness and mastery, but be you reminded that time and space are under Jesus’ control. (T-2.VII.7:7-9)


It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation, unless for an instant you are willing to see no past or future. You cannot prepare for it without placing it in the future. Release is given you the instant you desire it. Many have spent a lifetime in preparation, and have indeed achieved their instants of success. This course does not attempt to teach more than they learned in time, but it does aim at saving time. (T-18.VII.4:1-5)


You may be attempting to follow a very long road to the goal you have accepted. It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin, for example. Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and despised. Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary either. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. Yet the means are tedious, very time consuming, and look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy. (T-18.VII.4:6-11)


Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you. You are prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. (Then you are free to follow spirit.) It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization: “I need do nothing.” (T-18.VII.5:1-7) Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together. This is the special means this course is using to save you time. (T-18.VII.6:1-4)


You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for you. Save time for Jesus by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. “I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation. (T-18.VII.6:5-8)


To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who needs do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides. He will remain when you forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind. (T-18.VII.7:1-9)


Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you will be more aware of this quiet corner of the storm than all its raging activity. This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it. (T-18.VII.8:1-5)


If special relationships of any kind would hinder God’s completion, can they have any value to you? What would interfere with God must interfere with you. Only in time does interference in God’s completion seem to be possible. The bridge that He would carry you across lifts you from time into eternity. Waken from time, and answer fearlessly the call of Him Who gave eternity to you in your creation. On this side of the bridge to timelessness you understand nothing. But as you step lightly across it, upheld by timelessness, you are directed straight to the Heart of God. At its center, and only there, you are safe forever because you are complete forever. There is no veil the Love of God in us together cannot lift. The way to truth is open. (T-16.IV.13:1-10) Brother, follow it with Jesus – to where GOD IS.

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