The World Beyond Correction
A miracle is a correction.…It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time's limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings (W-pII. 13.1:1,4-6).
The miracle, therefore, is the kind means A Course in Miracles employs to lead us from the right-minded perception of our wrong-minded thinking to the One- mindedness of Christ. It is the journey that takes us from our perceptions of the world, retracing them to their source in the mind, recognizing that all these misperceptions -- of the outer world of special relationships and the inner world of guilt -- are defenses against the decision-making mind's choosing to remember its Identity as the One-minded Self.
With Jesus as our guide, we have successfully seen through the ego's attempts at camouflaging its source in the mind by diverting our attention to the mindless world of bodies, problems, and ineffective solutions. The mind's decision for sin, perceived to be very real, has been buried beneath a world in which sin is perceived, not only as a reality, but as a trait and event in everyone except ourselves. Thus is sin kept impervious to change, and the guilt and fear it engenders beyond all meaningful remedy. Confusion reigns supreme, but its true source in the mind is kept hidden by our concerns, leading to the demand that God give us answers to our made-up problems.
Into this hopeless situation, Jesus' voice calling us to look at the world differently -- the role of forgiveness -- is heard at last. It returns our attention to the mind's guilt, allowing it to be undone as its dark illusion softly disappears in the light of truth. As belief is withdrawn from the ego, it evanesces, and our minds are free to choose the gentle remedy of Atonement. For an instant the thoughts of separation and Atonement remain, and then both are gone, leaving only God and His one Son:
This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete (C-4.6).
We close this hymn to salvation by letting Jesus urge us one more time to hear his voice and make it our own, extending it to embrace the world we had condemned. Now are we free, and now we reclaim the love we once threw away when we believed our sin to be real. Nothing remains in our holy minds but the love and light we have, extend, and will forever be:
O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love (C-4.8).
FOOTNOTES:
1. For a complete discussion of Helen's relationship with Jesus, along with the personal messages she received, see my Absence from Felicity, pp. 379-84,405-68.
2. Again, see Absence from Felicity, p. 427, for a discussion of an example of this shift.