41. 59 The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God in them. The specialness of God's Sons does not stem from exclusion but from inclusion. All my brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships. Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls him to return because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit.
60 "God is not mocked" is not a warning but a reassurance on this point. God would be mocked if any of His creations lacked holiness. The creation is whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness.
42. 61 Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It thus corrects or atones for the faulty perception of lack anywhere.
62 Here we begin to make the fundamental distinction between miracles and projection. The stimulus must precede the response and will also determine the kind of response that is evoked. Behavior is response, so that the question "response to what?" becomes crucial. Since stimuli are identified through perception, you first perceive the stimulus and then behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:
63 As ye perceive, so shall ye behave.
64 The Golden Rule asks you to behave toward others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception of both must be accurate. The Golden Rule is the rule for appropriate behavior. You cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because appropriate behavior depends on lack of level confusion. The presence of level confusion always results in variable reality testing and therefore in variability in behavioral appropriateness. Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive both, so you will behave toward both. The way to perceive for Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your own holiness and perceive the holiness of others.
65 The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love because love and its absence are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be undertaken except within a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels. Death is a human affirmation of a belief in "[hate]," or level confusion. That is why the Bible says, "There is no death" and why I demonstrated that death does not exist. I came to fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection to man. It is those who have not yet "changed their minds" who entered the "hellfire" concept into it.
66 I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me and to whatever extent he permits it. Your witnessing demonstrates your belief and thus strengthens it. Those who witness for me are expressing through their miracles that they have abandoned the belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs to them.
43. 67 A major contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing man from his misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation, and lack.
68 Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance. Whatever is true and real is eternal and cannot change or be changed. The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is already perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The only limit which is put on its choice is that it cannot serve two masters.
69 The mind, if it elects to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul creates along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creative potential but places itself under tyrannous rather than genuinely authoritative control. As a result it imprisons, because such are the dictates of tyrants. To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true Authority.
70 The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by Christ in His service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow Him. All shallow roots must be uprooted because they are not deep enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened and thus made to hold is one of the distortions on which the reversal of the Golden Rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable. However, the fact is that nothing is less stable than an orientation that is upside down. Nor can anything which holds it that way be really conducive to greater stability.
