Miracles Are Seen In Light
2018-12-20 03:01:48 UTC
"It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body
*is* a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was made
to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical, for it was
made to limit *you*. Can you who see yourself within a body know yourself as an
idea? Everything you recognize you identify with externals, something outside
itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form you think you
recognize.
The body cannot know. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you
will not see the grandeur that surrounds you. God cannot come into a body, nor can
you join him there. Limits on love will always seem to shut him out, and keep you
apart from him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and
complete idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment
of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your kingdom,
where God can enter not.
Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And to defend this little speck
of dust it bids you fight against the universe. This fragment of your mind is
such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see
instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest
ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam
has decided it is the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the
ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal
illusion, holding itself apart against the universe. The sun becomes the
sunbeam's "enemy" that would devour it, and the ocean terrifies the little ripple
and wants to swallow it.
Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless
activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny
segment of themselves. Even that segment is not lost to them, for it could not
survive apart from them. And what it thinks it is in no way changes its total
dependence on them for its being. Its whole existence still remains in them.
Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone; the ripple without the ocean is
inconceivable.
Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to
be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living
alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny
fragment seems to be self-contained, needing another for some things, but by no
means totally dependent on its one Creator for everything; needing the whole to
give it any meaning, for by itself it does mean nothing. Nor has it any life
apart and by itself.
Like to the sun and ocean your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part
regards itself as you. It is not missing; it could not exist if it were separate,
nor would the Whole be whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by
an idea of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it, preventing it
from joining with the rest, and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little
aspect is no different from the whole, being continuous with it and at one with
it. It leads no separate life, because its life is the oneness in which its being
was created.
Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as yourself. The sun and ocean are
as nothing beside what you are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and
the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the
power that rests in you. Would you remain within your tiny kingdom, a sorry king,
a bitter ruler of all that he surveys, who looks on nothing yet who would still
die to defend it? This little self is not your kingdom. Arched high above it and
surrounding it with love is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and
deep content to every part. The little aspect that you think you set apart is no
exception.
Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total
lack of limit *is* its meaning. It is completely impartial in its giving,
encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give. In your tiny
kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on
love to enter?"
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18, Section 8, Scribed February 16, 1967
https://tinyurl.com/A-Course-In-Miracles-pdf
https://www.biblegateway.com/
*is* a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was made
to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical, for it was
made to limit *you*. Can you who see yourself within a body know yourself as an
idea? Everything you recognize you identify with externals, something outside
itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form you think you
recognize.
The body cannot know. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you
will not see the grandeur that surrounds you. God cannot come into a body, nor can
you join him there. Limits on love will always seem to shut him out, and keep you
apart from him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and
complete idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment
of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your kingdom,
where God can enter not.
Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And to defend this little speck
of dust it bids you fight against the universe. This fragment of your mind is
such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see
instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest
ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam
has decided it is the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the
ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal
illusion, holding itself apart against the universe. The sun becomes the
sunbeam's "enemy" that would devour it, and the ocean terrifies the little ripple
and wants to swallow it.
Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless
activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny
segment of themselves. Even that segment is not lost to them, for it could not
survive apart from them. And what it thinks it is in no way changes its total
dependence on them for its being. Its whole existence still remains in them.
Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone; the ripple without the ocean is
inconceivable.
Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to
be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living
alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny
fragment seems to be self-contained, needing another for some things, but by no
means totally dependent on its one Creator for everything; needing the whole to
give it any meaning, for by itself it does mean nothing. Nor has it any life
apart and by itself.
Like to the sun and ocean your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part
regards itself as you. It is not missing; it could not exist if it were separate,
nor would the Whole be whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by
an idea of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it, preventing it
from joining with the rest, and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little
aspect is no different from the whole, being continuous with it and at one with
it. It leads no separate life, because its life is the oneness in which its being
was created.
Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as yourself. The sun and ocean are
as nothing beside what you are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and
the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the
power that rests in you. Would you remain within your tiny kingdom, a sorry king,
a bitter ruler of all that he surveys, who looks on nothing yet who would still
die to defend it? This little self is not your kingdom. Arched high above it and
surrounding it with love is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and
deep content to every part. The little aspect that you think you set apart is no
exception.
Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total
lack of limit *is* its meaning. It is completely impartial in its giving,
encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give. In your tiny
kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on
love to enter?"
- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18, Section 8, Scribed February 16, 1967
https://tinyurl.com/A-Course-In-Miracles-pdf
https://www.biblegateway.com/