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The Meaning of Miracles

The power of Love is unlimited. It is capable of literally anything in the effort to transform fear and lovelessness into love. Such transformations can often seem miraculous. They are not really miracles; they are the natural order of the Universe, of Divine Love manifested. Miracles are the process whereby the invisible and eternal become visible and tangible.

Miracles are the intersection of our human perception and Spiritual Reality. Our five senses suggest to us that we seem to be nothing more than human beings with a mind, a bunch of emotions, and perhaps even, a soul, all contained in a physical body. In fact, we are in origin and source spiritual beings experiencing, for the moment, a state of duality. As we come to understand the nature of this duality, and see that our humanness is only a temporary state we have chosen to inhabit for our own enlightenment, we are able to manifest the limitlessness of Spirit.

Because of this, miracles are not really miracles as such; they are not miraculous in the accepted use of the word. Most people see miracles as events where the normal laws of physics are set aside to allow a result or consequence that is always unusual, unpredictable, unfathomable and inexplicable. It is generally thought that miracles are not possible in normal circumstances, and certainly not at our own behest.

The reality, however, is that miracles are available to us all, at all times, once we understand the spiritual laws that underpin them. We are all capable of manifesting miracles because all it involves is an understanding of who We Really Are.

Miracles, in this context, comprise the process whereby the time/space continuum is collapsed. But this is not so miraculous when one understands the unreality of linear time and space. Quantum physicists have proven that space and time are not objective, but are always and only the subjective extension of the observer, such that neither space nor linear time can exist without the observer. The observer and the observed – space and time – are inextricably linked. Further, how and what we experience of time and space is directly determined by our thoughts and beliefs about them.

In the same way that a knowledge and understanding of medical science is not necessary for the effective use of medicine, one does not need to understand how and why miracles occur in order for them to be made manifest in our lives. As with medicine, all we need is some level of knowledge, and perhaps faith, that they are real and possible, which then leads to a willingness to open our minds to the possibilities.

We are all capable of manifesting the miracles of health, abundance and peaceful relationships. In addition, it is possible for us to bypass the immediate need for the understanding of the spiritual and theoretical underpinnings of such miracles, although such understanding is ultimately possible.

The key is love, both for ourselves and for others. Love is the source of all miracles, and miracles will occur once we understand the true nature of Love. Divine Love is power and, because Love is our essence, we are very powerful beings. But this power cannot be harnessed and used to create miracles until we know and live this wisdom.

In the disintegration of the time/space continuum, events that our theories of physics would deem impossible become not only possible but natural and real, and time becomes irrelevant. We can see this, and demonstrate it once we change our perception of time and space. That is all a miracle really is: a shift in perception, as defined in A Course in Miracles, where it says: ‘the miracle entails a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception (2).’

It’s an interesting phenomenon that when we think of time, movement, and progress, we nearly always think of it on a horizontal axis: from ‘here’, to ‘there,’ along a line from the eye outward. We don’t think of time as taking us ‘upward,’ or vertically, even in image, let alone in reality.

The miracle, in collapsing time, reduces the need for time to determine how and when things can happen. Instead of our limited notions of time being the critical factor, we begin to see that it is our own thoughts that determine our experience and reality.

Every miracle rests on the notion of the Oneness of all Life. It is love and forgiveness (for self and others) that enables our Oneness to manifest. As Oneness is the ultimate Reality, everything in the Universe works in support of this, hence the possibility, and even the necessity, of miracles. Thus the key to all miracles is Love.

Miracles are happening all the time, whether we are aware of it or not, and whether we are prepared to acknowledge them as such. That is one reason why it is never worth engaging in complicated arguments or debates about their reality, origin or nature. Truth, and its concomitant miracles, exists whether It is acknowledged or not. Not only does Truth exist, It continues to transform our lives, moving us ever closer to the point where are willing and able to see It and stand witness to It.

We are guided gently, though inexorably, to enlightenment, and this is one of the miracles that we are talking about. This process is perfect, because the result is sure. We will all, sooner or later, achieve enlightenment. Miracles continuously occur to make this happen, even though most of us are largely oblivious to the fact.

Once we open our mind to the possibility, in small but undeniable ways, the miracles become more and more obvious. And as always with faith, once you take the first step of acceptance, then the doors of possibility are flung wide open, and experience becomes transformed.

One experience where I relied on the suspension of the normal rules of physics occurred about ten years ago. My husband, Ian, and I were holidaying in Myanmar (previously Burma). Ian was the sort of guy who wanted to see every historical site possible whenever he travelled. He approached travel in the same way he ran his daily life, which involved lists – lots of lists! And every item on the list had to be ticked off. There are actually over 2000 pagodas and temples in Bagan (previously Pagan) and every single one of them was on Ian’s list on the day we hired bicycles to tour the spectacular ruins of the old city.

Before setting out we had been told by the locals that once it starts to rain there it doesn’t stop. So looking at the overcast skies and the light misty rain that had been falling all morning, it never occurred to us that the skies would clear. But clear they did, and within only about an hour after we had left the hotel. We did not have any sunscreen with us to protect us from what became relentless sunshine.

Can you actually see 2000 temples in a day on a bicycle? The question was irrelevant for Ian. He would countenance nothing less than a complete and honest attempt to achieve such a feat, no matter how difficult. I learned early on that loud though my voice is – and I have school report cards to verify that it is unusually so – it is nothing to that which internally drove Ian. So in this improbable endeavour I followed compliantly, and cycled my little heart out.

As we ticked off temple after temple, the sun, and we, just got hotter. I was born with the pale, Anglo skin that has its origins in the northern hemisphere centuries ago, when cloudy skies that threatened rain two days out of three provided an effective screen between the pale people and the sun.

Now take that skin, put it on a boat to the Antipodes and let it bake for fifty years. That’s what my skin looks like now. The good news is that my skin is not so pale anymore, and therefore a little more resistant to the fierce Australian rays. In fact, it is well on the way to becoming permanently brown – I’m just waiting for those last few freckles to join up!

But my skin is still vulnerable to eight hours’ exposure to full sunshine. The laws of physics dictated that this would normally have resulted in serious sunburn, and I would usually have relied on sunscreen to prevent this. But what happens in this situation, when through nobody’s fault, I did not have any sunscreen?

I had been taught in my spiritual training and education that I did not have to succumb to the belief that I had to experience burnt skin. I had been taught that matter, as the modus operandi of this life of duality, is neutral. It has no power or reality, other than the thoughts one has about it.

So, for the entire day – when I wasn’t whingeing and whining to Ian, trying to convince him that the last five hundred temples looked so remarkably like the first five hundred that perhaps we could skip the remaining thousand – I watched my thought about sunburn. Every time it came to my mind, I mentally denied its reality or potential force. If Spirit is the Source of all power, the body must be value neutral, powerless to dictate the conditions of life. It has no ‘mind’ to decide whether it will be burned or not.

I remember that I felt no fear. I knew that the accepted effects of the laws of matter and physics were ultimately powerless, because they only exist in our minds in the first place. Thus the miracle of my protection was assured. All that was left to me was to eradicate all doubt in my mind, and leave the rest to the Divine.

Wayne Dyer makes the crucial point that, unlike the general belief in this world that we believe what we see, according to quantum physics we actually see what we believe. In this case, I intended to see matter manifest my belief that it had no power over me - either for good or bad. I never wavered from this conviction throughout the whole day - yes, a whole day on an unpadded bicycle seat!

When I got back to the hotel that night, though my skin was very red it was, remarkably, not sore. I went to bed knowing that this was evidence that the healing would be complete. Sure enough, when I woke up in the morning, my skin had returned to its normal pale colour and there was absolutely no evidence of sunburn.

In the world of physics, there is a hypothesis about matter called the ‘string theory.’ It is the mainstream scientific equivalent of the notion of parallel universes. I am no scientist, and I have no understanding of virtually any scientific theory, but this theory seems to be the physical corollary to the idea that life is not one experience for all, but rather a series of different options that we choose by our own thoughts, intentions and actions.

Whatever our thoughts and intentions, whatever emotions dominate our thoughts – whether they be fear and hatred, love and fearlessness, honesty or deceit, shame and blame or self-responsibility – this will determine the nature of our experience in the outer world. In other words, the outer world reflects our inner world, and not vice versa.

Human life is not a fixed notion. The life we experience is determined by our thoughts, expectations and intentions, and it can occur at either an unconscious or conscious level, depending on our level of awareness.

However, it is also important to understand that not everything that happens to us in this life is within our control. There are certain things that need to happen because of a larger picture that we are mostly unaware of in our conscious minds. But we are always able to control how we respond to the events of our lives, and the more adept we are at travelling in peace and love, the more power we have to minimise the difficulties that confront us.

One thing is sure: the more time, effort and intention directed at manifesting love in our lives, the greater the resilience and robustness we have to ride the waves of adversity. The more we are able to respond to events with confidence, and faith, in the power of Love, the more peace we will experience.

In this life it often seems that we continually face the same problems over and over, with each experience coming in a slightly different form, but always with the same effects. We can reduce the number of experiences sent to teach us peace simply by being peaceful. Whilst these experiences will still come, their only effect will be to lead us towards enlightenment.

I remember a story Ian told me about his family vacation in Italy when he was about 19. His younger sister, who was 12, was trying to climb the leaning Tower of Pisa. She thought the terraces that ringed the tower actually one terrace that spiralled up to the top. She started ‘climbing,’ with the intention of reaching the top of the tower. She went round and round and each time she saw Ian, who was on the ground watching her, she called out to him to for reassurance that she was nearing her goal. Ian, who realised her error, urged her on. All the while she thought she was progressing upward, she was in fact just circling around and around, getting nowhere.

This is a wonderful metaphor for spiritual progress. We will all continue to have challenging experiences, no matter where we are on the path to enlightenment. The point is whether we learn from our experiences so that we can move along the path, or whether we resist the lessons inherent in them and just go round and round, creating and recreating the same set of circumstances, and the lessons therein.

When we live in light, we are sure of the power of light to dispel darkness. If, however, we have only ever lived in darkness, then we have no understanding or experience of, or faith in, the ability of light to triumph over all threat of darkness. Darkness is the only reality we know. All endeavours to live in the light of love strengthen and uphold us so that when darkness threatens we are able to approach it fearlessly, bringing light to dispel the darkness.

The single most effective means of nurturing and fostering the seed of certainty in any challenge is forgiveness. Forgiveness arises naturally from an acknowledgement of our Oneness. It is the gift of Spirit, to enable us to travel the path of enlightenment, even when we cannot discern the route or the destination. At all times, and under all circumstances, the miracle of forgiveness, of both ourselves and others, plants our feet on sure ground and lifts our gaze to new vistas of possibility.

At first, there is much in this that seems not only abstract and difficult to understand, but also directly contradictory to established knowledge and thought. As I have said before, the main thing to remember is that it is not necessary to have full understanding of how miracles work, only a willingness to remain open to the possibilities.

It is helpful to understand the role of Spirit in this process, mainly because this aids in making the leap from the seemingly impossible to the possible. Spiritual guidance, or intuition, works to make Spiritual Reality more comprehensible and accessible to us. There are many things about the true nature of the Universe that we may never be able to understand whilst we are in a state of duality - the major one being the true nature of Love. However, there is much that we are potentially able to understand and know now.

The Three-In-One Principle of Creation

The Universe rests on a three-in-one principle. The Christian church’s nomenclature of this phenomenon – the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost – is probably the best known. However, it is not the only way to describe the triunity of Divinity. More importantly, it is problematic if for no other reason than it denies the feminine aspect.

It seems an obvious question in modern thought that if God is only masculine, then where does the feminine in the human realm come from? Further, in mainstream Christianity the Son usually refers exclusively to Christ Jesus. So then, what about the rest of us? Where do we fit into this model? Perhaps the world is ready for an alternative to the traditional configuration.

Lee Carroll, who channels a spirit called Kryon, provides such a model. In the Carroll/Kryon matrix, it is the masculine ‘Father’ aspect of the Divine that provides the basic structure for all of life. This is somewhat like the traditional human father who provides the money to buy the house and supplies which keep the family safe, warm and fed. The children may not know or understand what it is their father does all day at work; they merely rest secure in their father’s ability to look after them and provide them with everything they need.

The Son represents all mankind as the expression of the Divine. In this model we are the children in the family, where every child is equally cherished and loved, and each has a relationship with both father and mother. None are favoured or special.

The ‘Holy Spirit’ is interpreted as the Feminine/Mother which operates to inspire and guide us, especially whilst we are in the state of duality. While the father provides the structure of the house, the mother provides the love, care and warmth in furnishing the house with comfort and beauty, giving both physical and emotional sustenance for the family, and sharing loving counsel for the children. As is the case in human life, the children often turn to the mother first for encouragement and reassurance.

Another way of interpreting the Holy Spirit is to see it as the source of the continual flow of spiritual inspiration and intuition which enables the light of Truth to descend on our thought. Some might see this Divine assistance coming from Angels or Spirit Guides. What is important is not our human conceptions of the form our spiritual help comes in, but our knowing that spiritual help is ever available, forming the bridge between us and Source. The more we turn to the guidance of Spirit in our daily thoughts as well as our prayers and meditation, the more we open ourselves to the possibilities of revelation and its concomitant miracles.

In this model we are all equal beneficiaries of a common heritage. The only difference between us is that some do not claim this for themselves. Jesus understood this better than most. He was capable of miracles because he understood Who He Really Was and he understood the power this gave him over the material world. He was so in tune with the guidance of (the Holy) Spirit, or what Christians sometimes call the Christ Spirit, that he is the supreme example of what is really possible.

This is an important point that bears repeating. He came to show us the possibilities of infinite life. Physics, chemistry and biology are all quantum forces and as such, are subject to the thoughts we bring to them. Jesus came into this world knowing this and it was his life purpose not just to teach us this through his words, but to demonstrate and prove it through his healing mission. He intended for us to understand that we are all capable of doing what he did, hence his words ‘…the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do…(4)’ More than any time in the ages since Jesus’ era, humanity is ready to understand this.

Common usage has mistakenly used the two words, “Jesus” and “Christ”, interchangeably, but they are not the same. ‘Jesus’ is the name for the man who was one of humanity’s greatest embodiments of the Christ Spirit. He embodied It, but he was not It. In the same way as the wave is not synonymous with the ocean, Jesus the man was the manifestation and expression of the Christ Spirit, nothing more, and nothing less.

It is a fine distinction, but an important one in our understanding of Who We Are, and in our own inextricable relationship with the Christ. The Spirit that was ‘made flesh’ in Jesus exists in, and gives life to, us all. Jesus understood this supremely, and it was this wisdom that enabled him to turn the seeming facts of physics and matter on their heads in his healings and so-called miracles. Because we all comprise the ‘Sonship’ then all that Jesus was capable of is potentially achievable by us.

It is this understanding the enables those not of Christian faith or background to acknowledge the relevance of Jesus to all humanity. No one should be deterred by the use of the word ‘Christ’ as a substitute for ‘Holy Spirit.’ Other religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism, have the notion of a three-in-one Reality. Christ Jesus represents the Sonship for all mankind and for all faiths. The names and labels are changeable and unimportant. It is the principle that is crucial.

Our Oneness in the Holy Spirit means that we are all equal, in potential, with Jesus and all other avatars. The miracle of Jesus’ power over the physical world lies dormant as pure potential in all of us. But it is because Jesus lived his potential, and consciously manifested (the Holy or Christ) Spirit - the bridge to our Source- that he was able show the Way, diminishing the gap between us and our Source.

In our current state, in this dream world of illusion and limitation, we have no possibility of grasping Truth in its entirety. But we can move towards Truth, inspired moment by moment, with Spirit’s help, which is available, at all times and under all circumstances.

Further, whether we know it or not, and whether we call on it or not, (the Holy) Spirit works continuously on our behalf, ceaselessly communicating with us and sending us signs to help us understand true Life and Reality.

Oneness, or At-One-Ment

The process of opening one’s mind to the idea of Oneness could be described, using the traditional terminology, as the Atonement. A more helpful interpretation of the concept is At-one-ment. At-one-ment is a re-interpretation of the traditional religious doctrine that was originally based on the premise of our innate state of sinfulness and unworthiness, and is commonly associated with penance, punishment, and reparation.

At-one-ment rejects this premise completely. If we are made in the image of a perfect and Omnipotent Creative Source, then logically we must be both sinless and guiltless. Thus there can be nothing for which we should be punished or made to feel guilty.

The world where men and women are seen as sinful and attacking has only the substance of a dream. Each person creates his or her own ‘dream’ life with their thoughts. The vast majority of us are still on this plane of existence because we have the thoughts that make this life meaningful to us. We have these thoughts because we believe we are separated from our Source, and each other, and therefore we believe we are flawed, weak and inadequate, and that we need to struggle and fight for the things we believe we don’t have. But because, in Truth, we are the emanation and manifestation of All That Is, this perception of ourselves is completely false, and therefore has only the quality of a dream, or illusion.

Human life is like ‘lucid dreaming,’ which is the knowing, whilst in the dream state, that we are actually dreaming. In lucid dreams we have the power to direct the dream, to decide what happens and when to wake up. Life in the duality state is a form of lucid dreaming. We have control over what happens to us here, and we can decide when we will wake up.

There is a direct connection between the degree to which we drop the attacking and ‘sinful’ thoughts and the amount of peace and happiness in our lives. When we realize this we start to waken from that dream. Atonement, or at-one-ment, is no different from, and requires no more than that: waking from the dream.

At-one-ment is the process whereby we become so aware of our origin and connection with our Source that we feel at one with It. The Atonement in this sense is not a judgment or condemnation. Rather, it is the end goal of spiritual enlightenment, where all sense of separation dissolves and we transcend our duality, ultimately reverting to our true nature as the emanation of Source.

Love and forgiveness, the path to the realisation and practice of the Atonement, is our fundamental purpose in this life. Miracles demonstrate our spiritual potential, but they are not the end goal. They are merely the assistance we receive along the way to Oneness, and thus they will only ever be bestowed in circumstances that will further our enlightenment.

The True Meaning of Forgiveness

Forgiveness must be explained because the usual meaning attributed to the term is not intended here. Usually when we choose to forgive another, we deem the other person as having inflicted some injury – physical or emotional- which has caused us pain and suffering. Ultimately we must decide whether we will ‘forgive’ the other for his/her transgression, and once decided, we then endeavour to ‘overlook’ the injury and try to carry on as if it didn’t happen. It is common, however, that beneath the struggle to leave the past in the past, a sense of hurt persists, which we can only hope will fade with time.

This is not what I mean by forgiveness. We create our own experience by our own thoughts and actions. We can never be hurt by the actions of another, unless we choose to be hurt. That doesn’t mean we can’t perform actions that are aggressive or attacking, even violent. Of course we can. But the consequences of such actions are up to the person on the receiving end. It is their thoughts that are key to their experience.

Conversely, through an understanding that we are all One, in origin and nature, we realise we can never be hurt by others because in Reality there is only Love. When we are faced with the negative actions and intentions of others, it is always open to us to know that our experience is only determined by our own thoughts, and we can always, at any time, choose not to be hurt or suffer as a result of what others do.

We have compassion for ourselves and the other person, understanding that despite appearances in this state of duality – that we are an ego housed in a body separate from all other bodies – we can always rely on the power of Love to protect and guide us away from strife and towards peace. Whatever seems to be harmed, lost or damaged can always be restored and healed, no matter the seeming evidence to the contrary of our physical senses.

In the realm of Oneness, what we do to and for others, we do to ourselves. We understand that anything less than compassion for all parties involved will only lead to our own suffering. As Oprah Winfrey says about hatred, a lack of compassion or the unwillingness to forgive is like hoping that if we drink poison, it will be the other person who will die.

This is why Jesus’ fundamental guide for life is the Golden Rule. In contradiction to common Christian interpretations, this is not a call for us to be spineless doormats with no personal boundaries, or self-denying martyrs who always put others’ needs before our own. Rather, this rule is grounded in the most practical of philosophies. It is crucial to understand that whatever we put out there will, due to the principle of Oneness, return back to us and become our experience.

For this reason we need never be afraid to ‘turn the other cheek.’ In the face of attack, either mental or physical, we can stand steadfast in the knowledge that in the Universe of Divine and Perfect Love, we cannot be harmed, diminished, or suffer in any way. All suggestion otherwise comes from our belief that this is not so. It is only our own thoughts that count in this respect.

It is important to understand that Jesus exhorted us to turn the other cheek in the face of attack because any other response would be far more harmful to our peace and happiness. It is our thoughts that intend harm to others that place us mentally, and thus physically, in an experience where attack and harm are real and possible. We cannot claim the powerlessness of something to which we give power and reality in the first place.

We have all the knowledge within us to manifest everything we need in this world. But we can only consciously use this knowledge if we realise it exists within us in the first place. It is merely the synchronicity of events that makes it seem that much of what we need is provided by others. And it is only our sense of unworthiness and inadequacy, as well as our ignorance of Who We Truly Are, that leads to such a fundamental misunderstanding of our own power to manifest all our needs into material form.

Through our own thoughts of love and kindness, we extend to others the compassion we wish for ourselves, and contained within that compassion is the inspiration we need to keep ourselves safe and at peace. It is our intention and desire for peace that enables us to hear the quiet counsel of Love.

This is a sophisticated notion that requires significant insight and that is why forgiveness is a rare event in our world. But for those who are ready to hear it, it is an inspiring and wondrous truth that leads to miracles.

Darkness as the Absence of Light

Darkness is merely the absence of light. It has no substance of its own; its only seeming reality is as a lack, rather than the presence, of something. In the seeming absence of anything real, darkness becomes a vacuum where fear is free to reign.

By its nature, darkness is something that lurks in hidden corners. It settles in the places where the light has been blocked. Until we realise that nothing can ever be hidden, we either intentionally or unwittingly try to create niches to store, out of sight, the things that we would conceal from others, and ourselves. Then we shovel darkness over our little secrets, thinking this is sufficient for total concealment.

If, however, Truth is Omnipotent and always remains ever thus, then there can be no deceptions, secrets, or concealments. The dissolution of all darkness therefore lies in the acknowledgement of this. This is the first step. The next step is the loss of the desire to hide things.

When we have no need for darkness, and we stand in the light of Truth, then darkness is dispelled forever. Darkness only seems to exist while we use it for our own purposes. Once darkness has been eradicated, through the understanding that it is nothing, love and forgiveness triumph in the very place where darkness once lurked.

Fear, the mastermind of darkness, arises from a belief in lack and scarcity. The belief that we are not everything we want to be, or that we do not have everything we need and want is the driving force behind virtually every human activity and effort. But what if we are actually who we want to be and that we, in fact, have everything that we both need and want and that it is only our lack of awareness of this fact that keeps us wanting? Once we understand Oneness, we can begin to see and manifest the perfection and abundance of Truth.

However, those who are enmeshed in the fear of lack and scarcity cannot simply manifest through their own will the abundance of Truth. Because they start their argument from a position of lack, and look to fill the nothing with something, the very premise from which they start undoes their efforts. The demonstration of abundance can only be achieved through the realisation that we in fact have everything already and, through a willingness to forgive, we then leave it to the Universe to transform the physical evidence to reflect the Spiritual Reality.

This is the caveat I would add to the insights provided Rhonda Byrne in the world bestselling book The Secret. If, in our attempt to manifest our desires, we believe there are things we want that we do not have, then our efforts will not produce the effects we hope for. We can only manifest the things we want in life when we know that in Truth, we have everything we need and want. This knowing then leads to the miracle that causes a shift in our perception so that we come to see the physical conditions of our life adjust to reflect that Truth.

This is a significant step in the process of our enlightenment (or our at-one-ment) and one that we may not be ready to either understand or manifest. That doesn’t mean we cannot access the benefits of the light of Truth. We can feel and enjoy the warmth and light of the sun without a deep understanding either of what the sun is or how it functions. We need only the willingness to step out of the darkness and into the sunshine. Forgiveness puts us in that place in relation to our Source. All that the Universe requires of us, as a first and simple step towards greater understanding, is a willingness to forgive.

Forgiveness is like faith before it is transformed into knowing. We are not sure how or why it works; we are just prepared to take the leap. So, at this point, it is useful to know the importance of putting our attention and focus on forgiveness. By forgetting what we believe we do not have, we can just forgive and leave the rest to Spirit. We can rest assured we will be neither disappointed nor left in a state of deprivation.

None of us understands the full Truth of the Universe. But full knowledge is not required. All that we need to do is stand witness for what we do know. Forgiveness ushers in light and love, and ultimately fills the gaps in our understanding and eradicates the dark corners of fear, doubt, and lack.

Spirit as the Source of Wholeness

The belief in lack springs from our first mistaken belief that we can be, and are, separate from our Source. In other words, the belief arises from our duality. Just as the wave is no longer a wave if it is not part of the ocean, the ray cannot be such if it has no continuous connection with its source (the sun), and we can only exist as the emanation and expression of our Source, Divine Love.

This is a good opportunity to provide an explication of the nature of our Source and its ramifications for us as Its emanation and reflection. The Universe is governed by, and emanates from, a Divine Principle of all Life, the essence of which is Divine Love and Truth. In fact, these terms can be seen as synonymous; Love equals Truth, and together they are the Source of all power.

Rather than seeing God as an anthropomorphic being, with the propensity for anger, revenge, jealousy and the need for control, it is much more useful, and Real, to see God – Source - more as an Omnipotent, Omniscient Principle that governs and gives rise to all Life, that is, all phenomena of Reality. Mary Baker Eddy uniquely and profoundly describes Source as ‘Noumenon and Phenomenon.’ In other words God, or Source, is both the ocean and the wave.

When seen as Principle, rather than a flawed superhuman in the sky, it is easier to see how the rule of perfection of the Universe operates. Because the Principle of Divine Love and Divine Mind is perfect, the creation of that Principle can only come from, and be subject to, the rules of perfection.

Perfection, clearly, is not fully evidenced in the material world. That is because we are in a state of duality. Our five senses attest to and confirm the seeming reality of the material world around us, and our reality - shaped by our own thoughts - is restricted or enhanced by what we believe to be possible.

In the state of duality we have a split mind. One part, which we call our spirit, knows the truth about our spiritual heritage. The other part of our mind, our ego (or our human self which is the vehicle of our seeming separation both from Source and others) can only survive in separation, and is therefore the voice for separation.

It is the ego that makes us want to feel special, superior, to be right, to win, and chooses attack when threatened. Paradoxically, it is also our ego that makes us feel inadequate, unworthy, inferior, fearful, hopeless, and defeated. Where ego is concerned, it is always a matter of whatever it takes. The thoughts that suggest we are in this alone and that we only have ourselves to rely on in our struggle to achieve everything we want to be and to have in life, are the thoughts of ego.

The ego wants nothing of the idea that we are, in fact, part of a perfect and loving order that connects all of us to Source. The ego is, however, nothing more than our supreme test, the trick question on the exam paper of life. It is our lesson to be able to understand what we really are (spirit) in the face of the compelling and overwhelming evidence of what we are not: a body.

We are the manifestation and the expression of our Source. We are what our Source Is. Thus we all have a spark of the Divine in us, and all that our Source Is is ours for the asking. Again the image of the ocean and the wave is useful. The ocean is something far greater as the source of the wave, but the essence of the ocean is contained in each and every wave.

Although this material world is illusory, and thus imperfect, the perfection of Life and Love is nevertheless perceptible. Perfection is manifested in this world as a perfection of process. Because we can never truly be separated from our Source, then the process by which we come to understand our at-one-ment is perfect. It is perfect because the end is sure, and everything that occurs in this process perfectly enables the shifts in our perception towards the realisation of Oneness.

In our native spiritual state, which is the Reality, we need neither a body nor miracles. Whilst we are in this material world, however, we need both. They are the necessary, and compassionate, means of our enlightenment, where we will see and understand Truth in Its entirety. In that state there is, of course, no gap between us and our Source, and therefore no need for miracles to bridge the gap.

When we understand that our origin and ultimate is in Spirit, we will see our wholeness and our Oneness with All That Is. Two important points must be made about wholeness. Firstly, no one is ‘special’ as we understand it in human terms. No one is more worthy, more valuable, more able, or more desired than anyone else. How could they be when we are all the emanation of the same Source?

In Spirit we were made, and in Spirit we remain. Even if we cannot understand it, we can rely on the intellectual argument alone. To be the image and likeness of Spirit, it follows logically that we must be spirit. There are no levels in Spirit. Spirit just Is.

The idea that some are special, superior or of greater value is a mistake many people make, especially in raising their children. They believe that to establish and build a child’s self-esteem, they must continually tell their children how special they are. But setting up this sort of dichotomy only leads to competition and divisiveness.

Further, if we are special in one way, then there must be times when we are not special, for even in human terms none of us are special all the time, or in all things. So if we are One, we can exist in the harmony, peace and contentment that come from the knowledge that we do not have to struggle and strive for pre-eminence. All that Spirit Is is ours, all of ours.

In Spirit, we are all ‘special,’ in that everything that is possible is available to us all if we could but see it and manifest it. But, as A Course in Miracles states: ‘Equality does not imply equality now’ (5). We are all at different stages of our understanding and at varying points along the path to enlightenment. But even this imagery is limited, because sometimes we are at one point in some aspects of our understanding, and at other points – either more or less inspired – in others.

It might be helpful to think about our experiences when we first meet other people. Our first impressions almost always prove to be inaccurate. Once we take the time to look beneath the external and superficial, do we not start to see and appreciate their so-called ‘specialness?’

This ‘specialness’ is the specialness of us all. It is the light and love that is our common spiritual heritage that never fails to gratify and delight us when we see it evidenced in others. One of our greatest pleasures is the moment we discover that someone, whom we had at first judged negatively, turns out to be nothing like we first thought, and instead we find we really like and enjoy who they are.

After fifty years on this planet, I’m starting to believe that, given the chance to get to the very core of each person, I would love and like every other person who walks this earth. This came home to me forcefully recently. In my search for a new way of living after Ian’s death in 2005, I visited an ashram in India. Whilst there, I participated in an activity that involved sitting opposite an absolute stranger. We were instructed to hold hands and stare into each other’s eyes for five minutes.

I do not have the words to fully describe the transformative nature of those five minutes. All I can say is that at the end of that time, I felt I ‘knew’ this young man. I felt totally connected to him as a fellow traveller on the path of life. He clearly felt the same. We didn’t need to know anything else, the details of our humanness. We knew each other as fellow ‘souls.’

After a distressing experience during an exercise in the class, which led me to feel rejected and unworthy (but which actually made me more aware of how much I judge and reject others on the basis of physical appearance alone), this lovely guy came up to me to console and reassure me. He then stayed close by me for the rest of my stay at the ashram to ensure that I was okay. We had established a deep bond and connection that I will remember for the rest of my life. We felt an affinity based on nothing more than the willingness to look deeply into the other, past the superficial detail of our bodies, and beyond the distracting details of our personae.

We achieved in five minutes, what can take days, months, and even years to achieve in our interactions with all the people that come into our lives. We spend so much wasted time and effort making judgments, latching onto preconceived notions of who and what others are, only to find once we have the chance to really get to know them, that we are deeply connected and that we are One.

What is important is not that we all express and manifest our spiritual identity in equal or similar ways but that we understand that the process of enlightenment is perfect and that everyone is receiving their inspiration both in the form they need it and at the speed that is optimal for their spiritual growth. No one is ever in a position to judge the progress of another.

It is like the reflection of the sunset on the water. When we walk along the shore, the sun seems to be coming directly at us and no matter how far we walk, the sun dances on the water and the rays bounce right up at us. Everyone else seems to be experiencing just the flatness and dullness of water without the sparkle of sunlight, but in fact they are receiving the same amount and the same brightness and persistence of light, wherever they go. It is just not visible to us.

No matter the circumstances of other people’s lives, they are always receiving the light of inspiration, which gently guides and guards them on their own path to enlightenment. It is only our faulty perception that leads us to judge their lives as a series of mistakes, or believe that they suffer ‘sin,’ disease, unhappiness, grief or loss. But we judge amiss.

What Really Makes Us Happy

The exciting and activating cause of duality is the illusion that, firstly, we can be separate from our Source, and secondly, we possess a single, separate and individual self/ego that has its own power, capability and agenda. However, if we look carefully at our experience in our less-than-perfect body, in this less-than-perfect world, we begin to see that all sorrow, grief, and unhappiness is the result of the fear that we do not have something we need.

It is amusing, yet at the same time instructive, that babies learning to talk usually get everything they want for a significant period of time with only two or three words, one of which is almost always ‘more.’ Once on this earth it doesn’t take long for us to feel we don’t have enough.

Modern capitalist nations are founded on, and continue to exist on, the notion of more: more for the seller, the consumer, the shareholder, and - increasingly more importantly- the company director. More is almost always seen as better.

We rarely feel we have enough. Much of what we spend all our time acquiring we unconsciously believe will make us better, more attractive, more desirable, or more powerful. We have an abiding sense of inadequacy and worthlessness, and often whole lifetimes are spent trying to silence and assuage this lack of self-love. A fundamental underlying sense of shame, and the desire to flee that shame (which is often unconscious, but nevertheless continuously active on our psyche) is the driving force in most people’s lives.

I found this very behaviour in myself. It recently occurred to me that when I shop I go with a sense of lightness and anticipation, poor deluded fool that I am. I always look forward to changing my look, finding a way to make me more attractive, more acceptable in more people’s eyes. Going home with my purchases I am always hopeful that this time I have finally done it: I’ve found what I need to make me beautiful.

But you gotta love ego. Its ability to find the trick that will get you every time is boundless. You have to give it that. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to follow the crowd, and wants to wear what I think reflects who I am. I’m not always sure these days who that person is, but I want my clothes to reflect it!

But it’s ironic. No sooner do I find that item of clothing that is not found on every magazine page or every shop rack, I wear it and then I start to feel freakish. No one else is wearing it, and then I start to wonder if the reason no one else has chosen it because it is ugly, tasteless or both. So then I become paralysed, so deeply self-conscious that I start to feel everyone is staring at me, wondering who was so crass as to choose that outfit.

Actually, if I’m totally honest, this is only a fear of yesteryear. Now I’m over fifty, I could go naked and no one would notice me.

I have to say, it’s taken me a long time to begin to understand this largely unconscious, process. I’m starting to realise that what drives the whole chain of events is a deep-seated shame – shame that I am not beautiful enough and therefore not good enough as a woman, because it is very clear in this society that a woman who is not attractive has less worth.

Thus, I now realise, I am, and always have been, doomed to failure. No amount of beautiful clothes, shoes, make-up, hairstyling, waxing, working out, dieting, or even cosmetic restructuring and reconfiguring (neither of which I have undergone - but I have lived long enough to understand the wisdom of never say never!) will ever do it for me. Nothing will ever make me feel beautiful if, inside, I carry around a deep belief in my own unattractiveness.

Not even swapping bodies with Elle Macpherson will do it. I remember when I was in my mid-thirties, I was walking through a department store with a girl I played water polo with. In addition to being a top-class athlete and a part-time model, she looked more like the famous supermodel, both facially and in her body structure, than anyone I’d ever seen. So she just stopped me in my tracks when, as we walked through the lingerie department hung with large posters of Elle, she said to me: ‘I wish I looked like her.’

That was when it started to dawn on me that no matter how supposedly beautiful a woman is, she rarely feels beautiful.

Men are also wracked with this insidious self-doubt and self-hatred. Ian was driven by a deep sense of unworthiness, but for him, as with many men, it manifested in his attitude to work. He was never able to feel okay about his work, and he could never feel that he’d worked long or hard enough, despite his 10 to 12 hour days. He was so driven to achieve, to be seen to be doing a good job, that for the 18 months before he passed on, he actually added a 20-hour weekly commute to Asia, which continued right up to the week when he was finally diagnosed with terminal cancer.

For almost six months before this diagnosis he suffered extreme lower back pain. He thought it was because of all his flying, and tried to get it treated, but never once did he think that he should reduce his work commitments in Asia. Even when his pain was 24/7 he still he worried whether he was working hard enough!

His performance assessments always confirmed that he, in fact, achieved the absolute highest levels on all performance indicators, usually in the top two to five per-cent of all employees in large multinational companies. Like my new outfits, such feedback only temporarily soothed his insatiable need for approval, and all too soon the encouraging and complimentary words would fade and he would climb right back on the corporate treadmill, striving and struggling for the next ‘achievement’ and acknowledgement.

Nothing I, or anyone else, said could change his view of himself. Throughout his successful international career spanning more than 20 years, his fears never diminished.

Our sense of separation from our Source is the cause of all guilt and shame, creating our deeply embedded feelings of inadequacy, insufficiency and worthlessness. We constantly crave something to allay our fears of deficiency. Because we don’t recognise the fears that lie deep within us, we assume the problem, as well as the remedy or antidote, must come from ‘out there.’

So we all have an enduring sense of lack, and a correlative long list of needs. The only lack that we need focus on, however, is the lack of our perception of our Oneness with each other and with our Source. In our state of duality we believe we are our own creators and that we alone made ourselves with all the power a creator possesses. But the real purpose of this life is to see through the seeming consequences of our duality to understand and demonstrate our native Oneness with the Divine.

All the things we believe to be true about this life arise from our projection, that is why there are as many beliefs and experiences of human life as there are people. It says in A Course in Miracles: ‘Belief produces the acceptance of existence. That is why you can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for you because it was made by you.(6)’

This is a deeply profound idea, and truly radical, going to the very core of how our human experience is created and perpetuated. Yet it is not entirely new to us. It has already been well established in the scientific world, for instance, that optimists have happier and healthier lives than pessimists (or as Ian would call them, ‘realists’). Even so, science has not taken this phenomenon to its logical extension: that our experience and life circumstances reflect our beliefs about them.

As we are invested in the beliefs that underpin the whole charade we call life, it is difficult to become detached from them because for most of us, those beliefs seem to have kept us in good stead for many years. The difficulty, therefore, lies in identifying the beliefs created with the ego part of our split mind, and learning to use the other part of our split mind, spirit, to change those beliefs. A change of perception like this, accompanied by a desire to see our Oneness through love and forgiveness, leads to miracles.

Although miracles must at times have a physical manifestation, and because they can seem spectacular, there may be a temptation to fixate on the physical. But this is a distraction that may be misleading. The physical has some play in the process because we are, for the moment, in physical bodies. But the physical is, and can only ever be, effect, not cause.

The physical is where we are now. It is a learning device, as well as the realm for the manifestation of miracles. If miracles did not happen at the level of the physical, then

it would be difficult for us to perceive them. But just because miracles are manifested in the physical realm, physical miracles should be neither our aim nor our desire. We must learn to keep in mind that the physical and material are one part of our duality experience, the effect of our beliefs. But all the work is done for Spirit, by Spirit. Spirit is the Cause, and miracles are the effect manifested in the physical.

If Spirit is the only Reality then it logically follows that the human experience is fantasy. A Course in Miracles says fantasy is ‘a distorted form of vision (7)’, and defines fantasies as ‘an attempt to control reality according to false needs’ (8), largely as a means to achieve pleasure.

One of the main functions of A Course in Miracles is to teach ‘mind training.’ It aims to help the student understand that true, lasting pleasure cannot be obtained through physical things. Rather, it must first be perceived, and then understood, that mere pleasure becomes a weak and insignificant sham in the face of the eternal joy, love and peace of Spirit. It is only through a conscious and disciplined choice of thoughts and beliefs that we can transform our lives and fulfil our true desires.