Chapter 3: Retraining The Mind

III. Miracles as Accurate Perception

¹ We have repeatedly stated that the basic concepts referred to in this course are not matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot be meaningfully understood in terms of coexisting polarities. It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness, or everything and nothing, as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is essential that you realize that behavior is erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made.

² A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness is impossible. No one has ever lived who has not experienced some light and some thing. This makes everyone really unable to deny truth totally, even if he generally deceives himself in this connection. That is why those who live largely in darkness and emptiness never find any lasting solace. Innocence is not a partial attribute. It is not a real defense until it is total. When it is partial, it is characterized by the same erratic nature that holds for other two-edged defenses.

³ The partly innocent are apt to be quite stupid at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a genuine viewpoint which is universal in its application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent (or true) perception means that you never misperceive and always see truly. More simply, it means that you never see what does not really exist. When you lack confidence in what someone will do, you are attesting to your belief that he is not in his right mind. This is hardly a miracle‐based frame of reference. It also has the disastrous effect of denying the creative power of the miracle.

⁴ The miracle perceives everything as it is. If nothing but the truth exists, (and this is really a redundant statement because what is not true cannot exist), right‐minded seeing cannot see anything but perfection.

We have said many times that only what God creates, or what man creates with the same will, has any real existence. This, then, is all the innocent can see. They do not suffer from the distortions of the separated ones. The way to correct all such distortions is to withdraw your faith from them, and invest it only in what is true.

⁵ You cannot validate the invalid. I would suggest that you voluntarily give up all such attempts, because they can only be frantic. If you are willing to validate what is true in everything you perceive, you will make it true for you.

Truth overcomes all error. This means that if you perceive truly, you are cancelling out misperceptions in yourself and in others simultaneously. Because you see them as they are, you offer them your own validation of their truth. This is the healing which the miracle actively fosters.

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