Monday, May 13, 2013

When going with the flow becomes a way of life. Miracle Principle #5

The fifth principle of miracles reads “Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.”

The shift in perception from the world of the ego to the world of the spirit requires thought training, but with practice, functioning in the world of spirit seems to come naturally and becomes a way of life. One’s consciousness is raised to the point of enlightenment. One no longer operates in the world of the ego, and one’s awareness of living in the spirit occurs involuntarily. It simply has become a way of living.

To live in the realm of unconditional love for oneself, other human beings, and the world requires awareness and forgiveness. Forgiveness begins with the awareness that drama, ego nonsense is an illusion. Life at this level of the ego is not real. We need not live on the ego plane because we can change our minds. How often have we said to ourselves, “There must be a better way?” As it says in the introduction to the Course: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”

We often do not apprehend this spiritual dimension until we are in crisis and suffering mightily. At the time of our greatest distress and desperation, we intuitively realize that there must be more if only we can get past the terrible circumstances that we feel so victimized by. At such times, people sometimes cry out, “How can God be doing this to me, to them?” The answer, of course, is that God is not doing this at all. In our anger and suffering we project blame for the situation onto whoever we can find even remotely relevant to the situation and when no scapegoat is available, we readily blame and attack whatever our understanding is of God. Eventually this attack on our understanding of God fills us with guilt and fear or retaliation and we enter into despair. None of this high drama is real. It is conjured up in our tortured minds to rationalize the suffering we are afflicted with.

This game of attack and defend, blame and protect, fear and accusation, is the work of the ego. Watching others play this game is titillating and exciting. We find it emotionally arousing and it distracts us from our own inner turmoil. In the media business they say “If it bleeds, it leads.” It perversely makes us feel better to learn that other people have things worse than we do because we can congratulate ourselves that while we may be bad, we are not as bad as that. This is the world of the ego where drama and gossip and judgmentalism reign. A lot of people spend a lot of their lives in this realm often with great pain and suffering as well as sadistic enjoyment of other’s misfortune.

Just as the fifth principle tells us that “Miracles are habits and should be involuntary” so too drama and gossip and judgmentalism are habits. The shift to the miracle thinking of unconditional love takes effort and practice and as one becomes more skilled, miracle thinking becomes involuntary and becomes a way of life. Once this occurs, to specifically apply our unconditional love under our conscious control can be misguided, because at this point in our development it is Spirit working through us, and not our ego that is in control of the process. One has set one’s ego aside and is living in a flow state one with the spirit. At this point it is not “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” as stated in the seventh principle of Unitarian Universalism, but rather “enjoyment of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” As it says in the introduction to the Course, “Herein lies the peace of God.” I would say, “Herein lies the joy of God.”

When miracles are habits and are involuntary” we are living in great joy and peace. This peace and joy is what A Course In Miracles promises us as does our Unitarian Universalist faith when we come to the point of practicing our faith daily, hourly, minute to minute. It simply becomes a way of life.

 Questions:


When have you felt at great peace, at one with the universe?

How do you set the nonsense aside in your life and become aware of Love’s presence?

What helps you become nonjudgmental and just accepting that “it is what it is?”

As my friend, Al, says, “When life gives you white water, get out your surf board and take up surfing.” When have you “surfed” over troubled waters, and become aware of God’s Love and Peace?

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