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OrEd-T-1.1-Principles of Miracles.50-51
50. The miracle is a learning device which decreases the need for time. In the longitudinal or horizontal plane, the recognition of the true equality of all the members of the Sonship seems to require almost endless time. However, the sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception, which is the miracle, brings an interval where both doer and receiver come much farther along in time than they could without the miracle.
The foundation of the miracle is recognizing the perfect holiness and equality of doer and receiver. The miracle shortens time by making the space of time it occupies unnecessary. The time a miracle takes and the time it covers are not related. The miracle can substitute for learning that may have taken thousands of years.
Outside the usual laws of time, the miracle collapses and abolishes certain intervals within the larger time sequence, literally saving time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval that is timeless. Similar to daylight saving time, it rearranges the distribution of light.
51. The miracle is like the body in that both are learning aids. Neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose when the spirit's state of direct communication is reached. While man believes he is in a body, he cannot abolish his creativity. He only can choose between miraculous or loveless channels of expression. He can make an empty shell, delay, wait, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity to almost nothing, even producing a developmental arrest or regression. He can destroy his medium of communication, but he must express something. He cannot destroy his potential to create.
Man was created by the will of God and his own free will. Only what man creates is his to decide. Time can waste as well as be wasted. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is to wait on time no longer than is necessary. The miracle-worker accepts the time-control factor gladly. He recognizes that every collapse of time brings all men closer to the release from time in which the Son and the Father are one.
Equality does not mean sameness now. Individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary when everyone recognizes that he has everything. When the Atonement is completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sonship. All His Children have God's total love, and all His gifts are freely given to everyone alike. I cannot know the power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father, unless I fully recognize my complete dependence on God .
I want peace and I can find it only by giving complete forgiveness. I never wanted peace before, so there was no point in being told how to achieve it. No learning is acquired by anyone unless he wants to learn it and believes that he needs it. The idea of lack does not exist in God's creation, but lack is the basis of all that man makes. This is the essential difference. A need means a lack by definition. It is the recognition that I would be better off in a state that is different from the state I am in now.
Until the "separation" (a more accurate word than the "fall") nothing was lacking. Man had no needs at all. He deprived himself, and then experienced needs. After the separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human behavior. The body is the mechanism for behavior. All behavior is motivated by needs. Behavior is not a divine attribute. The belief that he could be better off is the reason why man has this body mechanism at his disposal.
Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs he establishes for himself. His hierarchy depends on his perception of what he lacks. His sense of separation from God is the only lack he needs to correct. This sense of separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted his perception of truth and perceived himself as lacking. The concept of need hierarchies is because he made a fundamental error by fragmenting himself into levels with different needs. As he integrates, he becomes one, and his needs become one.
Unified need produces unified action, because it is not split. The concept of a need hierarchy comes with the original error that man can be separated from God. It requires correction at its own level before the error of perceiving levels can be corrected. Man cannot behave effectively while he operates at split levels. However, while he does, correction must be from the bottom up. Man now operates in space, where concepts such as "up" and "down" are meaningful. Space is as meaningless as time. The concept is one of space-time belief.
Belief in a creation produces its existence. In attitude, though not in content, man resembles his own Creator, Who has perfect faith in His creations because He created them. Man can never control the effects of fear himself because he made fear and believes in what he made. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his unbelief, which originally placed him in it. That is why a man can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for him because he made it.
Every part of fear comes from upside-down perception. More truly creative men devote their efforts to correcting perceptual distortions. The neurotic ones devote their efforts to compromise. The psychotic tries to escape by 'proving' the truth of his own errors. It is most difficult to free him by ordinary means, because he is more consistent in his own denial of truth. The miracle, however, makes no such distinctions. It corrects errors because they are errors.
50. The miracle is a learning device which decreases the need for time. In the longitudinal or horizontal plane, the recognition of the true equality of all the members of the Sonship seems to require almost endless time. However, the sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception, which is the miracle, brings an interval where both doer and receiver come much farther along in time than they could without the miracle.
The foundation of the miracle is recognizing the perfect holiness and equality of doer and receiver. The miracle shortens time by making the space of time it occupies unnecessary. The time a miracle takes and the time it covers are not related. The miracle can substitute for learning that may have taken thousands of years.
Outside the usual laws of time, the miracle collapses and abolishes certain intervals within the larger time sequence, literally saving time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval that is timeless. Similar to daylight saving time, it rearranges the distribution of light.
51. The miracle is like the body in that both are learning aids. Neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose when the spirit's state of direct communication is reached. While man believes he is in a body, he cannot abolish his creativity. He only can choose between miraculous or loveless channels of expression. He can make an empty shell, delay, wait, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity to almost nothing, even producing a developmental arrest or regression. He can destroy his medium of communication, but he must express something. He cannot destroy his potential to create.
Man was created by the will of God and his own free will. Only what man creates is his to decide. Time can waste as well as be wasted. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is to wait on time no longer than is necessary. The miracle-worker accepts the time-control factor gladly. He recognizes that every collapse of time brings all men closer to the release from time in which the Son and the Father are one.
Equality does not mean sameness now. Individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary when everyone recognizes that he has everything. When the Atonement is completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sonship. All His Children have God's total love, and all His gifts are freely given to everyone alike. I cannot know the power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father, unless I fully recognize my complete dependence on God .
I want peace and I can find it only by giving complete forgiveness. I never wanted peace before, so there was no point in being told how to achieve it. No learning is acquired by anyone unless he wants to learn it and believes that he needs it. The idea of lack does not exist in God's creation, but lack is the basis of all that man makes. This is the essential difference. A need means a lack by definition. It is the recognition that I would be better off in a state that is different from the state I am in now.
Until the "separation" (a more accurate word than the "fall") nothing was lacking. Man had no needs at all. He deprived himself, and then experienced needs. After the separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human behavior. The body is the mechanism for behavior. All behavior is motivated by needs. Behavior is not a divine attribute. The belief that he could be better off is the reason why man has this body mechanism at his disposal.
Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs he establishes for himself. His hierarchy depends on his perception of what he lacks. His sense of separation from God is the only lack he needs to correct. This sense of separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted his perception of truth and perceived himself as lacking. The concept of need hierarchies is because he made a fundamental error by fragmenting himself into levels with different needs. As he integrates, he becomes one, and his needs become one.
Unified need produces unified action, because it is not split. The concept of a need hierarchy comes with the original error that man can be separated from God. It requires correction at its own level before the error of perceiving levels can be corrected. Man cannot behave effectively while he operates at split levels. However, while he does, correction must be from the bottom up. Man now operates in space, where concepts such as "up" and "down" are meaningful. Space is as meaningless as time. The concept is one of space-time belief.
Belief in a creation produces its existence. In attitude, though not in content, man resembles his own Creator, Who has perfect faith in His creations because He created them. Man can never control the effects of fear himself because he made fear and believes in what he made. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his unbelief, which originally placed him in it. That is why a man can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for him because he made it.
Every part of fear comes from upside-down perception. More truly creative men devote their efforts to correcting perceptual distortions. The neurotic ones devote their efforts to compromise. The psychotic tries to escape by 'proving' the truth of his own errors. It is most difficult to free him by ordinary means, because he is more consistent in his own denial of truth. The miracle, however, makes no such distinctions. It corrects errors because they are errors.