[Please note: ACIM passages quoted in this article reference the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) Edition.]
I read a section in the Text yesterday that really grabbed me. It is called “Looking Within” (T-12.VII) and the point I took away was that I will only believe in the presence of the Holy Spirit in me when I make Him manifest through me, through my giving of miracles. Here are some passages:
The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them you will learn that He is there. (3:1)
You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for His Presence. (4:1-3)
For you can be aware of what you cannot see, and It can become compellingly real to you as Its Presence becomes manifest through you. (4:5)
I am very familiar with this section, but as I read it now it added a crucial piece to my recent focus on giving miracles: Giving miracles is the way to become convinced that the Holy Spirit is in me. And if I really believe, based on concrete experience, that the Holy Spirit is in me, that has to do wonders for my self-esteem. It has to uplift and even divinize my sense of who I am.
I could see this at work yesterday. There were a couple of situations where I looked within to see what my miracle impulse was, and then when I expressed that I saw it have clearly positive results. In light of this teaching, I then looked at those situations as concrete evidence that the Holy Spirit is in me. It seemed to make perfect sense. If I could look within, find an impulse from Him, express it, and thereby have healing effects on another, then where else could He be but within me? As I tuned into this sense, I definitely felt differently about myself. I felt more clean, more upright, more light-filled.
This is striking me as a truly powerful motivation for giving miracles. Why wouldn’t I want to see daily, concrete proof that Divinity resides in me?
The section also makes the opposite point, that if I make the ego manifest, I will be convinced of its presence in me. I could see this at work, too. There were a couple of times when I got quite upset and angry yesterday, and in those situations I asked myself, “Whose presence in me am I convinced of now?” I barely had to start asking the question to realize that of course it was the ego’s. In those moments, my picture of myself was like a jar filled with the dark, brooding presence of the ego.
Clearly, this principle has been operating less noticeably, more subliminally all the time. Whenever I made the Holy Spirit manifest, I must have become subliminally convinced of His presence in me. And whenever I made the ego manifest, I must have become unconsciously convinced of its presence in me. In that light, two questions the section asks seemed particularly poignant:
Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would you be convinced? (5:3-4)
Whose presence will we make manifest? Whose presence will we be convinced of within? Surely these are the same question in different forms.
