The True Miracle: Giving

What Is a Miracle? is the latest section that Lisa and I have been studying. It’s amazing – maybe you could say: it’s a miracle – that we are only 20 lessons away from finishing the 365 lessons of A Course in Miracles. Unaware that there would be a section titled, What Is a Miracle?, back in last November I wrote a post exploring the meaning of “miracle” also titled What Is a Miracle?, which you can view here, but today I am exploring a little deeper into what a miracle is. In the introduction to this section, it states: A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. The understanding that there is an interconnection between giving and receiving (or that which you give to another, you give to yourself) has come up before:

Lesson 315: All Gifts my Brothers Give Belong To Me

Lesson 316: All Gifts I Give My Brothers Are My Own

This latest section on What Is a Miracle? goes further:

Lesson 342: I Let Forgiveness Rest Upon All Things,                                                                    For Thus Forgiveness Will Be Given Me

Lesson 344: Today I Learn The Law Of Love;                                                                                 That What I Give My Brother Is My Gift To Me

The interconnectedness of giving and receiving – the (at least) two-way flow of love and forgiveness, of sharing and kindness – seems to be inherent to us on the soul level, though in the material world/mind of the separate ego, it may not. The fearful ego mind is prone to attachment, to grasping and clinging, to possessing, and to possessing more and more. It likes to hang on tightly to what it deems valuable and to what gives the ego illusory self-worth. It also likes to take in the sense of seizing more for itself and less for others (not take as in the receiving end of giving).

Interestingly, a few months ago I was reminded of something I learned in graduate school while studying Historical Linguistics. In Proto-IndoEuropean and early languages that branched off from it, The word for to give and to have and to take (as in receive, not seize by force) was one word: PIE*ghabh- “to take, hold, have, give”!

Though this is the root for our word give, we seem to have lost the interconnected meaning of the word. Today often the idea of “giving” implies loss, sacrifice, or a sometimes manipulative means of getting or taking/seizing from others. We need to return to our roots, so to speak, and create miracles in our lives by giving our love, forgiveness, and gratitude, for in that we receive the greatest joy!

A client I coached for many years once came to me upset about an issue with her husband. She tired to soothe herself and justify his actions by saying defeatedly, “But love is about give and take (here in the sense of seizing from another).” However this did not soothe her, but made her feel even more disrespected. I told her that there is no taking from another when there is love. Love is about giving and receiving. It flows both ways, and through her forgiveness of his minor moment of disrespect, that miraculous interconnected flow of love will flow stronger.

Lesson 345: I Offer Only Miracles Today,                                                                                            For I Would Have Them Be Returned To Me

Blazing Light of Glory, A Study in A Course in Miracles is a co-created and cooperative writing, studying, and teaching effort of Lisa of BloomLisa and Julianne Victoria of Through the Peacock’s Eyes.

The Pursuit of Happiness

This past week Lisa and I completed the first 100 lessons in A Course in Miracles. The theme of the lessons lately has been very much on the topic of salvation, the freeing of ourselves by our Selves from the illusions of our minds – our thoughts, belief systems, and attachments to the body, material things, and grievances. The word salvation often conjures up the image of being saved by someone, but in The Course it’s meaning is more about freedom from the ego mind. Each of us as extensions of God are the source of our own salvation, which is happiness. The Course is guiding us in the pursuit of happiness, not the pleasure of eating chocolate cake or buying a new outfit, but the pure Joy and Bliss that is the state of being One in union with God and All.

Lesson 101: God’s Will For Me Is Perfect Happiness. 

This lesson discusses how the illusion of sin, the mental constructs that we create, binds us into pain and suffering. L 101: God’s Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless. Joy is just, and pain is but a sign you have misunderstood yourself. Now the idea that “sin is not real” does not mean that it is ok to harm others physically, emotionally, or spiritually. What it is saying is that attaching our minds to sins, grievances, or wrong-doings binds us and keeps us from being free, happy, and joyous. It also creates the illusion that someone else must save us and bring salvation to us: that someone else will make us happy.

Suffering, just like happiness, comes from within. Lesson 101 very much reminded me of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: (Click each below for my posts briefly explaining each)

1. There is Suffering (Dukkha)
2. The Truth to The Origin of Suffering (Samudaya)
3. The Truth to The Cessation of Suffering (Nirodha)
4. The Noble Eightfold Path (to free oneself from suffering)

Buddha, Jesus, A Course in Miracles, and many other religious and spiritual teachings attempt to guide us in freeing ourselves from our egos, our thought patterns, our belief systems, and mental attachments including not forgiving ourselves for our sins. It is through Love and Compassion for ourselves and others that we can free ourselves to enter into Happiness, Bliss, Joy, Samadhi, the Kingdom of Heaven, Enlightenment, Source, Consciousness, Wholeness, and Oneness.

God’s Will for me is perfect happiness. This is the Truth.

Lesson 103: God, Being Love, Is Also Happiness

The ‘kingdom of God’ is not something one waits for; it has no yesterday or tomorrow, it does not come ‘in a thousand years’ – it is an experience within a heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere…

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Blazing Light of Glory, is a co-created and cooperative writing, studying, and teaching effort of Lisa of BloomLisa and Julianne Victoria of Through the Peacock’s Eyes.