The Fifty Miracle Principles of A Course in Miracles
by Kenneth Wapnick
 
 

Principle 4

All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically. 
You will be told all you need to know.

This is another way of saying that miracles come from love. They reflect the love of Heaven, and they obviously also reflect the life of Heaven, which has nothing to do with what we call life, which is life of the body, or life of the personality, all of which is really a part of the body. True life comes from God, and that is the life of the spirit which is immortal and eternal. It is the miracle that leads us back to God.

"His Voice," which is one of the Course's definitions for the Holy Spirit, "will direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to know." One of the common questions that people ask is: "If the Course says you will be told very specifically, how come I do not hear specific answers?" I am sure everyone has that question and has that problem. One of the blocks to hearing the specific things that the Holy Spirit would tell us is that we demand that we hear them. Very often the questions that we ask of the Holy Spirit are really not questions; they are statements. We are really setting up a problem and then demanding that He answer it for us, which of course is just another expression of the arrogance of the ego believing that it knows what the problems are, and then it believes it knows what the answers are. But very often when we are asking God for help or praying for help, we are setting up the problem as we see it, and then asking Him to solve it for us and, of course, when He does not solve it, we believe we have an air-tight case against Him: "You say you are going to answer me very specifically, and here I am. I am so honest and earnest and devout and faithful, and I do not hear anything." What we have really done, without being aware of it, is closed the door. It is not that the Holy Spirit is not speaking to us; it is that we cannot hear Him.

Q: Is that because in our minds we want the prayer answered our way?

A: Sure. At one point, the text speaks of the ego throwing a temper tantrum and screaming, "I want it thus!" (text, pp. 350f-, T-18.11.4:1). We do that as children, but we also do it as adults. "This is how I want it." I remember that at times Helen used to make demands on Jesus and say, "This is non-negotiable!" It never worked out well for her. Do not try that.

Also, remember that when the Course says that the Holy Spirit will tell us all we need to know, that He knows what we need to know better than we.

Q: Is this not only true in the sense that we consciously or subconsciously are expecting a certain kind of answer, but that we also define the problem?

A: Yes, that is what I mean. We set up the problem ourselves, and then we demand an answer to a problem we set up. The problem is that we are saying, "Here is what my problem is," rather than just basically saying, "I am not at peace, please help me be at peace." The true cause of not being at peace is that there is someone we are holding something against. There is some basic lack of forgiveness in ourselves, so the solution would always come in the form of some aspect of forgiveness, of joining with someone. Whether it is on a behavioral level or a thought level does not matter. Remember again, the key thing is recognizing that every single problem we believe we have in the world is an expression of unforgiveness.

One of my favorite lines from the Course, because it seems to make absolutely no sense at all, is the line that says, "Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness" (workbook, p. 357; W-pI.193.4:1). Translated, it means that it is certain that all distress or problems do not appear to be what they really are. We believe distress comes from all the various kinds of problems we believe we have, but what really is happening is that the ego has dropped a smoke-screen so we do not realize that every distress that we experience comes from a lack of forgiveness or a belief that we are separate. This means that the solution to every distress and every problem in our world -- either our personal world or the world-at-large -- would be to join and heal through forgiveness.

Q: Could you say something about the Holy Spirit and trust: that you just sort of sit and be still?

A: Yes, and then be aware and monitor your thoughts that are not still. One of the crucial parts of this process is that all we have to do is get ourselves out of the way. We do not have to do anything. The Introduction to the text says, "The Course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence... " That is what the miracle does; it merely takes away the block that keeps from us the awareness that we are children of God. All that we are talking about with the miracle is that it undoes or corrects what the ego has done. It does not do anything; it undoes. The more that we can be still, which really means to let go of our ego, then to that extent we will hear more clearly whatever it is that we need to know.