The Miracle: A Shift in Consciousness to What Already Is

Based on the teachings of
A Course in Miracles – Original Edition
published by COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY
Graphic by ©Deposit Photos

You may have heard of the tale of two travelers. One traveler had decided to move from a village in the mountains to one in the valley. On his journey, he met a monk, a wise and perceptive man, and asked him if he knew of the village in the valley and what it was like.  The monk, with a knowing smile, asked him about the village he had just come from. The man said that it was horrible. There were so many thieves, the people were selfish and mean, and there was no work. The monk told him he would likely find the village in the valley much like the one he had just left in the mountains. The second traveler came by the monk a little later and asked him if he knew of the village in the valley and what it was like. The monk, with a twinkle in his eye, asked the traveler about the village he had just come from in the mountains. The traveler told him how wonderful it was. He felt so safe that he never had to worry about hiding his belongings. The people were kind and giving, and he always found a way to make a living. The monk told the traveler that he would likely find the village in the valley much like the one he had just left in the mountains.

This is a simple yet profound illustration of how the perception of our reality is not fixed but shaped by our projections. The transformative power of changed perception, a key teaching in A Course in Miracles—Original Edition, scribed by Helen Schucman, holds the potential for a shift in consciousness, for that is the Miracle.

ACIMOE Tx:21, paragraph 1   “Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but will to change your mind about the world.”

A Course in Miracles continues to say that “everything looked on with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything.”

Even before each traveler shares his judgment of the village and his experience in opposition to a fellow traveler, the wise monk already knows that the constant in each equation is how each perceives what is happening seemingly outside of himself. In doing so, they inadvertently construct their own individual reality. “As a man thinketh, so does he perceive,” and the Universe responds.

Projection determines our perception, which influences our thoughts, which then determines our experience. This is true not only for what we experience as seemingly “outside” of ourselves but also for what we experience in our bodies. The teaching in ACIM is that the MIND determines our experience.

This principle is displayed in persons with multiple personalities: one personality is diabetic, allergic to citrus, and needs glasses, while the other personality, in the same person, has none of these traits or has a variation.

”Some multiples carry several different eyeglasses, because their vision changes with each personality… Another woman, admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffled her physicians by showing no symptoms of the disorder at times when one personality, who was not diabetic, was dominant. A young man was allergic to citrus fruit in some personalities, but not in others.” [NYT “New Focus on Multiple Personalities”]

There is also the experience of persons who were blind before a health crisis stopped their hearts briefly. They came back from what is called a Near Death Experience [NDE] and reported that when their body was no longer functioning, they could “see.”

Vision in near-death experiencers that are blind, including totally blind from birth, has been described in many case reports. [National Library of Medicine]

Our thoughts determine our experience. When one personality was “on stage,” the thinking of the mind didn’t include diabetes, allergies, or the need to wear glasses. That alternate personality refused to manifest these infirmities out of choice.

And when, for a brief time, our identification with the body is gone, we are free to “see,” with clarity, the Love that we are. There is no longer sight with the eyes but Vision by the Soul. This is what happens in a “Near Death Experience” [NDE], where consciousness remains although it is no longer connected to the physical body, and Identity is greatly expanded. The following is a quote from ACIM OE that beautifully mirrors what many thousands of people who have had NDEs have experienced:

Workbook Lesson 84, Review of Lesson 67      “Love created me like Itself.”  I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself.

When we choose to let our perception filter through fear brought on by a limited view of ourselves [the ego] and the world, we see through a glass darkly and will inevitably misperceive Reality. We are replacing Truth with illusion. When we choose Vision through the filter of Love emanating from the Knowledge of Who we truly are, there is right-minded perception in which illusion gives way to Truth — a Truth that is always there.

This Truth, described in the Original Edition of A Course in Miracles, is changeless and timeless and is shown to us by our comforter, the Holy Spirit – Who is our Right Mind.

ACIM OE Tx:14, paragraph 39    Bringing the ego to God is but to bring error to truth, where it stands corrected because it is the opposite of what it meets and is undone, because the contradiction can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is not attacked. It merely vanishes because it is not true. Different realities are meaningless, for reality must be one. It cannot change with time or mood or chance. Its changelessness is what makes it real.

When the Truth is shown to us about ourselves and our Brothers, we experience the essence of what A Course in Miracles calls Forgiveness. Forgiveness is the release of illusion and seeing with vision what is true, eternal, changeless, and already there. It is this Forgiveness that is the Vision that heals. It is a seeing and a Knowing of that which has always been.

ACIM Workbook Lesson 99, paragraph 15      Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completeness, unity, and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. You do not want to be another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one you think you made. Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made, and you are saved.

What we project, we perceive, and thus, what the mind accepts becomes its reality. There will be illusion if the projection is from a limited thought system based on fear. When we choose to forgive, which means that we choose right perception, there is a shift in perception, which brings an experience of changeless Love. The feeling is ineffable. There is a Knowing that has no words.

ACIM OE Tx:16, paragraph 33      Love is not an illusion. It is a fact. Where disillusionment is possible, there was not love but hate. For hate is an illusion, and what can change was never love.

There is a segment in A Course in Miracles that also gives us an example of this in our relationship with one another:

ACIM OE Tx:10, paragraph 58      Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of what you want to perceive and of the reality of the kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. Every brother has the power to release you if you will to be free. You cannot accept false witness of him unless you have evoked false witnesses against him. If he speaks not of Christ to you, you spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your own voice…

It has been said that the Truth will set you free, but first, it will be upsetting. The truth that sets you free is that everything is up to you and no one else, and initially, this idea can be fraught with responsibility. Yet, at the same time, it is liberating.

In our prison ministry, my husband and I would explain to the inmates that, in truth, they were there due to a culmination of all their choices. Yet it is also true that only through their choices will they find their “freedom.” It is all up to them and no one else. They could see it as a burden, or they could see it as a “get out of jail free card.” The freedom is from the prison of their limiting thoughts. They may even know a freedom not chosen by someone who is on the outside. As Lesson 31 teaches us, “I am not a victim of the world I see. Lesson 32 expands on this theme.

ACIM Workbook Lesson 32, paragraph 1     “I have invented the world I see.” You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up. You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it, you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see.

A popular saying these days is: “We are what you’ve been waiting for.” The Miracle is when we shift from what our ego has been dictating as true, based on separation and limitation, and choose instead to remember the Love that has always been the truth of who we are. We then align our will with the Will of our Source and find the Peace beyond understanding.

ACIM OE Tx:25, paragraph 34       You makers of a world that is not so, take rest and comfort in another world where peace abides. This world you bring with you to all the weary eyes and tired hearts that look on sin and beat its sad refrain. From you can come their rest. From you can rise a world they will rejoice to look upon and where their hearts are glad. In you there is a vision which extends to all of them and covers them in gentleness and light. And in this widening world of light, the darkness they thought was there is pushed away until it is but distant shadows, far away, not long to be remembered as the sun shines them to nothingness.

If we have chosen to make up a village where we need to hide our belongings, the people are selfish and mean, and there are no jobs, we now see that we can choose again. It is not the world that dictates our experience but how we perceive it. It is our choice. And that is one of our Source’s greatest gifts – the ability and power to choose again.

We have always been free to shift our consciousness away from illusions born in the shadows of fear and toward the light of Truth that is always there, just waiting for our remembrance. That “shift” is a Miracle.

What an amazing opportunity we all have to initiate within our Being the Miracles that shift our consciousness away from our projections, illusions, and misperceptions toward the changelessness of Love. This Miracle – this shift in consciousness to what already IS — becomes our gift to one another and most likely the reason for our journey here.

And so it is.

*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS] publishers of A Course in Miracles – Original Edition; An ordained minister, Rev Reja Joy was a presenter at one of the Annual ACIM International Conferences sponsored by Community Miracles Center. Rev Reja is the CIMS webmaster and produces the Daily Lesson & Text mailing. She also initiated a Daily Lesson Conference Call Study Group and currently co-facilitates a Thursday evening Course in Miracles ZOOM study group with her husband, Chris, for those wishing to share this journey.

Course in Miracles Society (CIMS) is an international group of Course students and teachers organized to discover, authenticate, and propagate the divine teachings of A Course in Miracles. As students, we seek to increase our knowledge of Jesus’ words and deepen our experience of his teaching. As teachers, we work to circulate the message of A Course in Miracles throughout the world by our words, by our deeds, and by the example of our lives. Jcim.net