What is a Miracle?

A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time's limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.

A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified.

Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.

The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there.

Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality. ACIM

 "Let the higher part call the lower part back from its wandering
in the wilderness." VH

Veil of Maya

Maya or Māyā, in Indian religions, has multiple meanings, usually quoted as "illusion", centered on the fact that we do not experience the environment itself but rather a projection of it, created by us. Māyā is the principal deity that manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics, this manifestation is real. Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity, is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this—more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body (refer bodymind), is the result of an unenlightened perspective.
The word origin of māyā is derived from the Sanskrit roots ma ("not") and ya, generally translated as an indicative article meaning "that". The mystic teachings in Vedanta are centered on a fundamental truth of the universe that cannot be reduced to a concept or word for the ordinary mind to manipulate due to the impossibility to create a complete, perfect and accurate semantic web. Rather, the human experience and mind are themselves a tiny fragment of this truth. In this tradition, no mind-object can be identified as absolute truth, such that one may say, "That's it." So, to keep the mind from attaching to incomplete fragments of reality, a speaker could use this term to indicate that truth is "Not that."
In Hinduism, māyā is to be seen through, like an epiphany, in order to achieve moksha (liberation of the soul from the cycle of samsara). Ahamkāra (ego-consciousness) and karma are seen as part of the binding forces of māyā. Māyā may be understood as the phenomenal Universe of perceived duality, a lesser reality-lens superimposed on the unity of Brahman. It is said to be created by the divine by the application of the Lilā (creative energy/material cycle, manifested as a veil—the basis of dualism). The sanskaras of perceived duality perpetuate samsara.
Everything you see is illusion, the Veil of Maya. Where Eastern philosophy goes wrong is in assuming that the Veil of Maya is hiding something big and important. What lies behind the illusion of a brick is the actual brick. The vast majority of the time, you can forget the Veil of Maya is even there.

Has New Age confused Māyā with the Maya of Mexico and Central America?

2012 and Eschatology

The term Eschaton refers to the end of the present world and is addressed in the study of eschatology.

Eschatology (from the Greek eschatos meaning "last" and -logy meaning "the study of", first used in English around 1550. is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell’".

While in mysticism the phrase refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and reunion with the Divine, in many traditional religions it is taught as an actual future event prophesied in sacred texts or folklore. More broadly, eschatology may encompass related concepts such as the Messiah or Messianic Age, the end time, and the end of days.

History is often seen as being divided into "ages", an age being a period of time when certain realities are present. An age may come to an end and be replaced by a new age where different realities are present. This transition from one age to another is often the subject of eschatological discussion. So, instead of "the end of the world" we may speak of "the end of the age" and be referring to the end of "life as we know it" and the beginning of a new reality. Indeed, most apocalyptic literature (and movies) do not deal with the "end of time" but rather with the end of a certain period of time, the end of life as it is now, and the beginning of a new period of time. It is usually a crisis that brings an end to current reality and ushers in a new way of living / thinking / being. This crisis may take the form of the intervention of a deity in history, a war, a change in the environment or the reaching of a new level of consciousness. If a better world results, we say it is "utopian". If a worse, it is "dystopian."

Eschatologies vary as to their degree of optimism or pessimism about the future (indeed, the same future may be utopian for some and dystopic for others - "heaven and hell" for example).

Most modern eschatology and apocalypticism, both religious and secular, involves the violent disruption or destruction of the world, whereas Christian and Jewish eschatologies view the end times as the consummation or perfection of God's creation of the world. For example, according to ancient Hebrew belief, life takes a linear (and not cyclical) path; the world began with God and is constantly headed toward God’s final goal for creation.

Empirical and Rationalist based
More recently, many involved in futures studies and transhumanism have noted the accelerating rate of scientific progress and anticipate a technological singularity in the 21st century that would profoundly and unpredictably change the course of human history, and resulting in Homo sapiens no longer being the dominant life form on earth, if the species survives at all. The time estimate for the occurrence of the technological singularity has been approximated to be about the year 2030.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology

Bahá'í eschatology In Bahá'í belief, creation does not have a beginning nor end. Instead the eschatology of other religions is viewed as symbolic. In Bahá'í belief, human time is marked by a series of progressive revelations in which successive messengers or prophets come from God.

Brahma Kumari eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Kumaris_Beliefs
Buddhist eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_eschatology
Christian eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatological_views
Hindu eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_eschatology
Islamic eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_eschatology
Jewish eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_eschatology
Zoroastrian eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrian_eschatology

In other words 2012 belongs under the realm of New Age which is influenced by Theosophy, spiritualism, occult, tarot, astrology etc. External influences. "Eye of Horus", Christ grids, Spirals, planetary alignments, Ancient Prophecies and Hopi Prophecies etc. are sensationalistic in nature and New Age in context.

New Thought, on the other hand, teaches that we draw strength and wisdom from God by looking within ourselves. The Christ within, father within.

2011 and 2012 are looking better and better.

“Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death. "
~Horace