Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 91 Miracles Are Seen in Light
- It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating, and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system and the perception that it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the light; you will not see them in the dark.
- To you, then, light is crucial. While you remain in darkness, the miracle remains unseen. Thus you are convinced it is not there. This follows from the premises from which the darkness comes. Denial of light leads to failure to perceive it. Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness. The light is useless to you then, even though it is there. You cannot use it because its presence is unknown to you. And the seeming reality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless.
- To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body’s eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed? For you, it is impossible, but you are not alone in this.
- Your efforts, however little they may be, have strong support. Did you but realize how great this strength, your doubts would vanish. Today we will devote ourselves to the attempt to let you feel this strength. When you have felt the strength in you, which makes all miracles within your easy reach, you will not doubt. The miracles your sense of weakness hides will leap into awareness as you feel the strength in you.
- Three times today, set aside about 10 minutes for a quiet time in which you try to leave your weakness behind. This is accomplished very simply, as you instruct yourself that you are not a body. Faith goes to what you want, and you instruct your mind accordingly. Your will remains your teacher, and your will has all the strength to do what it desires. You can escape the body if you choose. You can experience the strength in you.
- Begin the longer practice periods with this statement of true cause and effect relationships: Miracles are seen in light. The body’s eyes do not perceive the light. But I am not a body. What am I? The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises today. What you think you are is a belief to be undone. But what you really are must be revealed to you. The belief you are a body calls for correction, being a mistake. The truth of what you are calls on the strength in you to bring to your awareness what the mistake conceals.
- If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something more solid and surer, more worthy of your faith, and really there.
- If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then devote several minutes to allow your mistaken thoughts about your attributes to be corrected, and their opposites to take their place. Say, for example: I am not weak, but strong. I am not helpless, but all-powerful. I am not limited, but unlimited. I am not doubtful, but certain. I am not an illusion, but a reality. I cannot see in darkness, but in light.
- In the second phase of the exercise, try to experience these truths about yourself. Concentrate particularly on the experience of strength. Remember that all sense of weakness is associated with the belief you are a body. A belief that is mistaken and deserves no faith. Try to remove your faith from it, if only for a moment. You will be accustomed to keeping faith with the more worthy in you as we go along.
- Relax for the rest of the practice, confident that your efforts, however meager, are fully supported by the strength of God and all His Thoughts. It is from Them that your strength will come. It is through their strong support that you will feel the strength in you. They are united with you in this practice period, in which you share a purpose like Their own. Theirs is the light in which you will see miracles, because Their strength is yours. Their strength becomes your eyes, that you may see.
- Five or six times an hour, at reasonably regular intervals, remind yourself that miracles are seen in light. Also, be sure to meet temptation with today’s idea. This form would be helpful for this special purpose: Miracles are seen in light. Let me not close my eyes because of this.[1]
Notes and Personal Application: Today, our lesson instructs us to take three 10-minute quiet times to leave our weak, vulnerable bodies behind. Jesus says that faith goes where we direct it, and so we instruct ourselves that we are not our bodies and learn that our wills are our teachers. Jesus reminds us that our wills have all the strength to do what it desires to do. Jesus says that we can escape the body if we choose, and we can experience the strength in us.
When we begin our 10-minute quiet time, we say: “Miracles are seen in light. The body’s eyes do not perceive the light. But I am not a body. What am I?”
Believing we are bodies is a mistake that needs to be corrected. This mistake covers up the truth, and it requires the strength of our will to remove the mistaken belief and see the truth about ourselves.
Say firmly, and with certainty, “Miracles are seen in light. The body’s eyes do not perceive the light. But I am not a body. What am I?” Jesus instructs us in today’s lesson to be keenly aware of what Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to experience the sense of who you are, what you are. It is a beautiful thing to have faith, but today Jesus wants us to get a deeper and more meaningful experience of what we are, something worthy of our trust. In other words, we want to know our reality rather than just having faith that it is there.
In this meditation, Jesus asks us to ask ourselves, “If I am not a body, what am I?” and devote the first five minutes to correct our mistaken identity with our bodies and let the opposite thoughts take their place. He gives us specific statements to help in training our minds to accept our reality outside of the flesh and beyond the ego. We can also create statements that attune us to our holy minds: “The flesh is vulnerable, but I am invulnerable. My body will die, but I live forever. The body has limits, but I am not limited. The body is an illusion that only exists in time, but I am a reality that lives in eternity. The body looks upon others with fear, but I see them with love.”
In the second five minutes of the exercise, Jesus asks us to give our best to experience these truths about ourselves. We are to concentrate mainly on the experience of strength. All weak perceptions that we have about ourselves, center on our belief that we are a body. We are worried about our safety; we are prone to disease; we are wounded by attacks from others, nature, invisible germs and bacteria. Jesus tells us that these ideas about ourselves deserve no faith at all. Today we are to do our best to remove our faith from such beliefs, even if it is only for a moment. He promises that as we go along, we will become more accustomed to keeping faith with the more worthy in ourselves. In other words, the power of our minds as Sons of God will increase as we begin to remove our faith in bodies and strengthen our faith and certainty in our spirits, our eternal minds.
After our practice, Jesus says to relax – knowing that our efforts, no matter how seemingly insignificant, are supported by the strength of God and His Thoughts. He loves us. He is calling to us. It is His Loving Thoughts toward us that will bring power to our practices and undo the mistaken perceptions that keep us trapped in bodies and in time. It is in our practice periods that we purposefully unite ourselves with the Thoughts of God, the Love of God, and it is in the light of God’s Loving Thoughts toward us that we see miracles instead of the darkness and fear all around. It is through His vision that we know what and who we really are and have been all along.
Last year, when I did this lesson, I remember being a bit put off by the instructions to schedule practices throughout the day. Interrupting the flow of daily life every 10 to 12 minutes to remind myself that miracles are seen in light seemed to be asking too much. However, attempting this practice and setting reminders to do this lesson, made it possible for me to be much more attentive to the fearful, grudging, judging, weak, and conniving thoughts that were otherwise taking the reins of my mind. I urge you to practice as directed. Pay attention to the thoughts that otherwise occupy your mind. You will likely be shocked to find that without dedicated training, our minds engage in a seemingly endless round of attack and defense.
Since Season 3 of Ozark is on Netflix now, I have been doing a bit of binge-watching. My friend Julie and I are quite fond of the show and enjoy clucking over the alluring characters, the salacious plot twists, and unrepentant evil. So expertly Mrs. Snell depicts the unbridled insanity of the ego that I have taken to referring to my ego as Darlene. This is a very helpful tool in cases where I am tempted to think of it as my identity.
This morning we ruefully confessed how much we enjoy our forays into darkness from the safety of our recliners and the comforts of pajamas and popcorn. “I could be reading my Joyce Meyers books or the Bible,” says Juli. “I could be studying the Course,” says me. We laugh. We may express regret, but there we are watching our Netflix and glorying in all that depravity anyway! We may as well use it for lesson material in what is not light, what is not a miracle. Think about that would you?
What if Marty and Wendy had moved their family to that beautiful landscape and used their power for miracles, for undoing error, for saving and sparing lives, for willing with God instead of attacking God’s plan of salvation? What would that look like? Last night while I was watching the dirty deeds played out upon the screen, the thought dawned upon my consciousness that the farther away we seem to get from God, the closer we actually become. For many of us, it is not until we bankrupt ourselves with the ego’s substitutes that we finally realize all we were searching for could not be purchased with money, fame, addictions, causes, or cheap surrogates. For others, whose egos have played nicer, it is often more challenging to see the need for forgiveness, the missed opportunities for miracles, the corruptions that keep them chained to their banal self-righteousness that wreaks havoc in much more subtle, but just as vicious ways. No matter the means of the ego, it all ends in the same way. Its only promise is death and decay, rot and ruin.
If we are not our bodies, what are we? How do we know that we are part of the Mind of God, that we are His Thought, that we are Spirit and not flesh? Jesus has provided these meditations and statements of faith as a means to experience something more worthy than our bodies in which to establish our identity.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 91 Miracles are seen in light. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). pp. 156-158.
the friar patch 