To speak of hearing the Holy Spirit is really a metaphor, just as it is to speak of Him as being God's Voice. The Holy Spirit communicates to us through our minds, and He will use any means or vehicle that we can accept. Thus, it can be what we call intuition, imagination, a sudden thought or insight, a dream, a feeling of words or thoughts coming to us that we "hear" and know are not our own. He is not fussy; He will use anything we give Him. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50Princ_1b.html
Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first.
"Purification," as the Course uses it, has nothing to do with the body. … The Course's idea is that you purify the mind. As St. Augustine said, "Love and do what you will." If love is in your heart and in your mind, then everything you do will be an extension of that love. Therefore, you do not have to worry about the body; that is worrying about the wrong thing. That is not where the problem is. What you worry about are the thoughts in your mind. The one thought that has to be healed is the thought of guilt; that is what has to be purified. So, when the Course says that miracles are everyone's right -- it is saying that miracles are for all of us. … the miracle is shifting from the ego's perception to the Holy Spirit's. That is what the miracle is; and this is everyone's right. This then means that any person can be the instrument for the Holy Spirit or Jesus, extending Their Love through him or her in whatever form is the most helpful and most loving. Our focus, then, is not on the external miracle. Our focus is on purifying the impediments to this miracle, on removing the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence. What has to he purified are our thoughts of separation, our thoughts of guilt. What purifies them for us is asking the Holy Spirit to forgive through us. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_7.html
The word "Atonement" is basically a synonym for the word "correction," and is the Course's term for the overall plan that came into existence with the Holy Spirit to undo the error of believing we are separate. The Holy Spirit was placed in our mind by God, and reunites us with the Father we thought we left. The Holy Spirit is the connecting link between ourselves and God, which thereby undoes the separation, correcting the error. So, we could say that the Holy Spirit really is the expression of the Atonement principle, which is that the separation from God never truly happened. The word "Atonement" is the Course word for the overall plan of awakening the Son of God from his nightmare that he was separate. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_25.html
"Atoning" means "undoing," which is another word for "correction." Basically, when we atone for our sin, we undo the belief in it. We do not make it real and then try to undo it, which of course is the way the world -- the theological, psychological worlds, etc. --usually proceeds. There are two sections, "The Unreality of Sin" (text, p. 376; T-19.III) and "Sin versus Error" (text, p. 374; T-19.II), that point out that you deny the reality of sin by changing it to a mistake. As the Course teaches: Sins are punished, mistakes are corrected.
This does not mean that you deny what you see. You do not deny what you read about in the newspapers or what people have done. What you do is shift your interpretation from sin, which is always a projection of our own belief in sin, to a mistake that has to be corrected, which is our own as well as the other person's. Once again, sins are punished by the ego; mistakes are corrected by the Holy Spirit. And, thus, they are undone. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_26.html
If you really want to be an instrument of healing, then you join with that person, which means, perhaps, that you rush the person to the hospital. But what you are really doing through the form of your behavior is joining with that person, and realizing that you are being healed as much as that person is. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_5a.html
The only real energy that is in this world is the Holy Spirit. Anything else in this world is a false energy, and is really of the ego, the body. The "healing energy of the world" is forgiveness, which comes from the Holy Spirit inside our minds. Any other form of energy may have relevance, existence, and reality within the world of the body, but that world of the body is inherently illusory. That is not what the Course is talking about in terms of healing. It is talking only about joining with the Holy Spirit in your mind by sharing His perception, thereby joining with other people. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_5a.html
… the Course says the only thing we should ever ask of anything in this world is: "What is it for?" What purpose does it serve? (text, p. 341; T-17.VI.2:1-2) And there are only two purposes, just as we said there are only two contents. One is the purpose of the ego, which is to reinforce separation; the other is the purpose of the Holy Spirit, which is to heal the separation. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_3.html
It is our thoughts that are important (the content); not our actions (the form)
The Holy Spirit does not heal the sick body because He did not make the body sick. What the Holy Spirit does is heal the guilt in our minds that made the body sick by helping us change our minds about the guilt we chose. This is a very important distinction to keep in mind, so you do not fall into the trap of asking the Holy Spirit's help for something in the material world. All that does, again, is make the world real, just as you should not ask the Holy Spirit for a parking space. That is a favorite one with people who work with the Course. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_24.html
There is a difference between the psychic and the spiritual. The psychic is something that we do with our minds; the spiritual is something we do with His mind. There is a big difference between the two. And we can get very impressed with the psychic things that we are all capable of. Finding parking spots may be one of them. But to attribute that to the Holy Spirit is a mistake, because He does not do things in the world; He does things in our minds. There is no world. To believe the Holy Spirit operates in the world is to make Him as insane as we are: seeing a problem where there is no problem. The problem is not that you need a parking space; the problem is your concern about needing the parking space.
You are telling Him that you need a parking spot. The better prayer would be to ask His help to relieve you of any concern that you find a parking spot. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_24.html
… the goal of Course in Miracles is not to awaken from the dream. The goal is to change the nightmare dream into a happy dream. In the happy dream, we are still living within this world of illusion, the world of separate bodies, but no longer projecting any guilt onto it. It is living in this world with what is called "true perception." That is what the Course terms "the real world": it is a world totally without sin in our minds. That is the goal of the Course. Then it says that God takes the last step Himself, and that is what finally awakens us from the dream entirely. But the focus of Course in Miracles is to help us live in this world, which is a world of the body, but without the projections of guilt. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_24.html
At-one-ment is the state of our being in Heaven, where we are all at one with God and with each other. Atonement, however, has nothing to do with Heaven. It has to do with the state here, so if you want to use "atonement," it would be in the sense that atonement restores to us the awareness that we are at one with God. http://www.miraclestudies.net/50P_41.html
From The Fifty Miracle Principles of A Course in Miracles
by Kenneth Wapnick
http://www.miraclestudies.net/50PrincIntro_p1.html
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