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

Principle 2

Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source,
Which is far beyond evaluation.

The fact that "Source" is capitalized, of course, tells us that this is God, and God is present in our mind, in our split mind, through the Holy Spirit. What is important here also is to realize that miracles do not matter, because miracles are part of the same illusory world that the ego is. If the miracle is a correction, then it is a correction for an illusory thought, which also makes a miracle an illusion. It is needed only in a world of illusion. As we said earlier, you do not need a miracle in Heaven. You do not need forgiveness in Heaven. You need forgiveness or a miracle only in a place where you believe in sin, suffering, sacrifice, separation, etc.

The only thing that truly matters is God, or the creation of God, which is spirit, which is the Christ in us. In this world, however, miracles do matter, because that is the correction that enables us to remember eventually who we really are. The Course also speaks of forgiveness as an illusion. At one point it says it is the final illusion (workbook, p. 369; W-pI.198.3). What makes it different from all the other illusions in the world is that forgiveness is the end of illusion. All the other illusions here really breed illusions, so that they strengthen the illusion that we are separate or that attack is real and justified. Forgiveness is an illusion that teaches us that there are no illusions.

Q: If you say that we cannot obtain complete love in this life, how do we relate to Jesus?

A: Well, let me qualify that. I think there are very, very few exceptions, such as Jesus, who is the greatest symbol of God's Love. Furthermore, there are some people who have totally transcended their egos, and who stay around a while to help other people do that. They are what in the East are called avatars or bodhisattvas: people who have thoroughly transcended their ego yet remain, holding on to just a sliver of it so they can stay here in the body. They are no longer here to learn lessons. But as the Course implies at one point, this is such a rare occurrence that it does not pay to talk about it (manual, p. 61; M-26.2,3).

Q: What are our creations?

A: "Creations" is one of those technical words that the Course uses but does not really explain. What they refer to is the process of creation that we share with God. One of the basic attributes of spirit is that it is always extending itself. This is not a process that occurs in time or space, which is why it is so hard for us to conceive of it. God's extension of Himself --as spirit, He is always extending Himself -- is what is called creation. We are the result of that, not we as we identify ourselves sitting here in this room, but the "we" that is the Christ that is all of us. Each of us is a part of that Christ which is an extension of God and, since Christ is part of God, He also shares in the basic attributes of God. One of those attributes is extension, so Christ also extends Himself. What Christ extends is what the Course calls "creations." Creations are really the extensions of us in our true state. Again, what makes it so difficult is that this process has no counterpart or referent to anything in this world. When the Course uses the word "create," as it will in one of these miracle principles, it does not refer to having a creative thought, to creating a work of art or anything like that -- not that the Course would be against anything like that, it simply uses the word differently. "Create" is a word that A Course in Miracles always uses just to denote what spirit does. If you want to think along the lines of the traditional idea of the Trinity, the Second Person of the Trinity would consist not only of Christ, of which each of us is a part, but also the extensions of Christ, which are our creations.

Q: The Course seems to promise that our creations are waiting for us. Is that so?

A: Like a cheering squad. You are rushing home, and there they are on the sidelines, cheering you home. That is a metaphor, of course, the idea being that our own wholeness is continually calling to us to remember who we are.

In the last part of the second principle -- that the Source is far beyond evaluation -- "evaluation" is a word that belongs to this world. We are always evaluating, and the fact that we are evaluating something is, obviously, a process of judgment; it is a process of perception. If you are talking about evaluation, you are talking about an evaluator who evaluates something or someone else. So you are talking about separation: subject and object. Obviously, the whole process of evaluation has relevance only to the world of perception, which is not the world of God. God is beyond all evaluation because He is beyond judgment; He is beyond form; He is beyond separation; He is beyond perception. The miracle only matters to the extent that it teaches us that nothing here matters. Once we learn that lesson, then the use for the miracle is over. It is what the Course teaches about time: its only purpose is to teach us that there is no time (see discussion of principle #16). You can say the same thing about the world or the body: The only purpose that the world or the body has is to teach us that there is no world or body, but we cannot learn that without being here in the body. That is why A Course in Miracles very clearly teaches us that we should not deny our physical experiences here, or deny our body (text, p. 20; T-2.IV.3:8-11). It only says we should look at them differently.