Lesson 91. Miracles are seen in light.
(1) 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.
(2) 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.
(3) 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.
(4) 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.
(5) Three times today, set aside about ten 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.
(6) 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.
(7) 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 more sure; more worthy of
your faith, and really there.
(8) If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then devote
several minutes to allowing 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.
(9) In the second phase of the exercise period, 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.
(10) Relax for the rest of the practice period, 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.
(11) 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume series of
books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can
be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 91. "Miracles are seen in light."
*The twenty lessons comprising this next series share the same theme, though
expressed in different ways, reflecting the musical form of <theme and
variations>. The theme is the contrast between the ego self and true Self, and
Lesson 91 focuses on the power of our minds to choose between the ego's
interpretation of our identity -- a sinful, guilty, and fearful self -- and the
Holy Spirit's reminder of Who we are as Christ. Another aspect of this theme is
that since our ego is directly manifest in the body, we ultimately shift this
identification to the spirit that is our Self.
The title of the first lesson in this series expresses its theme of the miracle,
the choosing of which is the <cause> that leads to vision, the <effect>. We are
reminded that vision has nothing to do with the body's eyes, but with a state of
mind that is achieved by choosing Jesus as our teacher. Thus we perceive the
world through the lens of forgiveness, rather than the ego's judgment.*
(1:1) "It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go
together."
*I pointed out earlier that miracle in A Course in Miracles can best be defined
as a correction of false perception, having nothing to do with anything
external. It shifts our way of seeing the world -- separation, differences,
attack, and bodies -- to Jesus' vision of the world as a classroom offering us
opportunities to learn forgiveness. Therefore, the immediate effect of choosing
the miracle is this new way of seeing -- the meaning of vision.*
(2:1) "To you, then, light is crucial."
*To repeat this important thought, light has nothing to do with the physical,
including auras or any other psychic expression. In A Course in Miracles light
is equated with the Holy Spirit's correction -- the Atonement, forgiveness, the
miracle. That is why it is so crucial to us. It is the way out of the ego's
darkened hell of guilt.*
(3:1-2) "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."
*Over and over we see Jesus using this classic definition of psychosis. Among
the tell-tale clinical signs of mental illness are visual and auditory
hallucinations. This is yet another instance of Jesus gently telling us we are
insane. Once again we see the purposive nature of the world and body, and its
strategic importance in the ego's plan to keep us in the seeming reality of
"what is not there," while "what is there" cannot be seen. This is the meaning
of the following passage from the text:
"When you made visible what is not true, what is true became invisible to you.
Yet it cannot be invisible in itself, for the Holy Spirit sees it with perfect
clarity. It is invisible to you because you are looking at something else."
(T-12.III.3:1-3).
It is the body that enables us to look at the "something else" and believe it is
there.*
(4:1) "Your efforts, however little they may be, have strong support."
*This is an echo of the familiar theme of a <little willingness> that is so
important in the text:
"The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy.... You prepare
your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all
else. It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you
realize that you cannot do more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He
does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two. He asks but
little. It is He Who adds the greatness and the might.... The holy instant ...
is always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited power
of God's Will." (T-18.IV.1:1,4-8;4:1-2).
We are not asked to do a great deal, like teach the Holy Spirit's lessons, but
only to choose Him as our Teacher as an expression of our little willingness. We
are not even asked to learn His lessons, for that will come later. Jesus asks us
but to recognize we have been wrong in our choice of teacher, and to understand
there is another One in our minds to Whom we can go.
As our fear diminishes and we choose the correct Teacher, we learn His lessons.
At first the little willingness expresses the happy thought we are wrong. We are
even more grateful there is Someone within us Who is right. This is the first
step and perhaps the most important step, because it moves us to the right
ladder. How long it takes to climb to the top is of no real concern, for what
alone is important is that Jesus helps us find our way home. Finding it, again,
means happily realizing we are wrong about where we thought it was.*
(5:1) "Three times today, set aside about ten minutes for a quiet time in which
you try to leave your weakness behind."
*As the lessons progress, we see how Jesus increases the time we spend with him
each day. At the beginning of the workbook he asked for only a couple of
minutes, if we could manage even that. Now he is up to ten minutes, three times
a day, and the time will continue to increase. *
(6:1-5) "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?"
*That question is the problem. Remember, we made the world and body in the first
place -- as one collective Son -- to escape from the vengeful wrath of God told
us is the mind's reality. The ego told us our independence from God was bought
at the cost of sin. We destroyed God, and now He is going to rise up and return
the favor. That is the terror the ego placed in everyone's mind, and which drove
us out of our minds -- figuratively and literally -- making up the physical
world: the Course's version of the Big Bang.
The question Jesus raises is: If you are not a body, what are you? Reading
carefully should strike terror in your heart, because you would suddenly have to
address his question. Who are you if not your problems, list of grievances,
personality, skin color, sex, height, weight, age, nationality, etc.? We are
thus returned to the bottom line of A Course in Miracles: our ability to
understand that everything we made is false. Our goal is to say that we are glad
-- truly glad -- that we are wrong. The miracle is the means whereby we come to
recognize our mistaken choice, made not in the body but the mind, and so
corrected there.*
(6:6) "The question with which this statement ends is needed for our exercises
today."
*As we go through the workbook, we notice that the stakes are getting higher.
The previous ninety lessons have gently led us to this point. We have been
presented with several key ideas, among which are that our thoughts give meaning
to everything, they make the world, and ultimately there is no world outside us.
These ideas have been presented in such a way that most of the time we do not
seriously think about their implication: If there is no world outside our minds,
there can be no body outside our minds either. This means confronting the
question: Who am I? Jesus has taken us to the point in our training where he
asks us to do just that.*
(6:7) "What you think you are is a belief to be undone."
*We think we are bodies, underlying which is the belief we are "the home of
evil, darkness and sin" (W-pI.93.1:1). This is what needs to be undone. Note the
word <belief>. Our bodies are not facts, but beliefs. You cannot change a fact,
which of course is the point of the ego's thought system. Our separation,
embodied in our bodies, is taken as fact, part of the so-called natural order.
Its immutability seems to have a cast us permanently out of Heaven, never to
return. That is why Jesus has placed so much emphasis on our understanding the
power of thought -- in the mind, not the brain. The separation, and the body
that resulted from it, is a belief, and thus can be changed by exercising the
mind's power to choose a different thought, learning to place its faith in the
Holy Spirit's Atonement and withdrawing it from the ego's separation.*
(6:8) "But what you really are must be revealed to you."
*What we really are is one Self, revealed to us not by Jesus telling us, but by
our lifting the veil that kept the memory of this Self away. The culmination of
the ego's strategy to keep truth hidden is the body, with which we identify.
Forgiveness -- the process of withdrawing our projected guilt -- removes the
veils that had kept us unaware of love's presence (T-in.1:7): what we really
are:
(6:9-10) "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."
*Here we see enunciated the mistake that conceals the truth. In this lesson
Jesus focuses on the mistake of identifying with the body. As I have said, Jesus
does not mean for us to give up the body. Rather, we are asked only to think
about its nature. This is only Lesson 91, and when we reach the end of the
workbook Jesus tells us we are only at the beginning (W-ep.1:1). Again, he is
not expecting his students to let the body go, but to step back and seriously
think about its role in the ego's thought system of specialness. Such an
exercise reflects the gentle steps that help us shift identification from the
ego's thought system of weakness to the decision-making part of our minds that
would now be free to choose the strength of Christ as is reality.*
(7:1) "If you are not a body, what are you?"
*Now comes the real terror, reflecting the thought that comes at the conclusion
of "Self-Concept Versus Self":
"There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I
am, or how to look upon the world or on myself." (T-31.V.17:6-7).
This is the statement the ego has sought mightily to keep us from uttering. It
marks the end of its carefully contrived thought system of concealment. Our
raising this concern to awareness allows us to look at the seeming certainty of
our identity as a guilty, bodily self, thus opening the possibility, at last, of
questioning the fundamental premise of the ego itself: the belief that the
separation from God actually occurred. Questioning that premise allows us to
question the premise that we -- physical and psychological selves -- have
actually occurred as well.*
(7:2-4) "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 more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there."
*This gives us an incisive glimpse into Jesus' methodology. Throughout A Course
in Miracles he presents us with both sides of the split mind. He is explicit
about the need -- if not the urgency -- that we look at the ego and understand
its thought system. At the same time he helps us realize how it attempts to
cloak the truth. While our terror is that we will give up the ego and have
nothing, we have these words and lessons to help us learn that giving up the ego
is the means of discovering the glorious truth about ourselves -- the Everything
of God.
Therefore Jesus is not just saying we are not bodies. He is also saying there is
something palpably real inside us that will take the place of our bodily
identification. That is why this is a long-term process: Part of us understands
that to begin to release our ego identity, with its specialness and judgments,
means our individuality is not far behind. That is what frightens us. Nowhere is
this strange is this strange situation -- our fear of the truth -- more directly
expressed than in "The Fear of Redemption." The following paragraph is a
representative excerpt from this important section, which describes the fear of
awakening to the truth of our Identity as children of Love:
"You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be
helpless in God's Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love because
you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you
away from yourself and make you little, because you believe that magnitude lies
in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made a world God
would destroy; and by loving Him, which you do, you would throw this world away,
which you would. Therefore, you have used the world to cover your love, and the
deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the closer you come to
the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.
(T-13.III.4).
(8:1-2) "If you are not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then
devote several minutes to allowing your mistaken thoughts about your attributes
to be corrected, and their opposites to take their place."
*This is an example of what we have been discussing. Jesus is letting us know
that <he> knows we are not going to let go of the body all that quickly, and
that we still have a great many mistaken thoughts. He is therefore not going to
exchange our illusions for the truth, but will exchange our hateful, malevolent
illusions for kinder, more gentle ones. That is the meaning of the following
statements. They are not to be taken as affirmations, as I have said before, but
as reminders of where Jesus is leading us. He thus has us say:*
(8:4-9) "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."
*Jesus is telling us to bring the illusions of our mistaken thoughts to the
truth of our Identity.Thus we begin to substitute happy images of ourselves for
the unhappy ones. In the end, all images will disappear. However, he is not
asking us to have that be our experience now. His teaching is always gentle and
patient.
As we practice a lesson like this, we need to be aware of our thoughts about
ourselves, so we can learn they are mistakes. Indeed, there is a correction for
each mistaken thought in our minds, and we need to learn to bring Jesus along
with us so we can look together at these thoughts of inadequacy, failure, and
self-hatred. Such non-judgmental looking enacts the correction, enabling us to
see through the illusions to the light of the truth.*
(9:1-3) "In the second phase of the exercise period, 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."
*All experiences of weakness comes from identifying with the body. As always,
the references are not just to the physical, but to the psychological self as
well. Again, our sense of pain, suffering, and failure comes from putting faith
in our bodies. Yet the body is not the issue. As Jesus told us earlier in the
workbook, it is the embodiment of the ego's thought system (W-p1.72.2:1-3), and
so the real problem is merely our identification with the ego's use of the body.
Once more, we are not asked to deny our bodies, but simply to correct the
purpose we had given them.*
(11) "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."
*In the past review, Jesus continually used the word "this," referring to
whatever tempts us throughout the day to be upset. The purpose of the workbook
is to provide us with ideas we would then apply to our everyday situations.
These ideas make no sense, however, if we simply think about them without
practicing, for we need especially to practice when we are tempted to see
ourselves as inadequate, or to project our weakness and see someone else that
way. In other words, whenever we are tempted to make judgments about ourselves
or others is when we need to think about the day's lesson. The decision to
practice is the decision to see: vision instead of judgment. As the text reminds
us:
"Vision or judgment is your choice, but never both of these." (T.20.V.4.7).*
