Ok let’s break down this passage and find out what it’s saying.
« A miracle is a correction. »
Before the correction, your mind is in a state of confusion, darkness ego. You are on a lower rung of the ladder. The correction corrects your mind and raises you up to a higher rung on the ladder. The false belief, mistaken perception, block to awareness, denial etc is « corrected » ie healed, and your mind opens up to some light. This alters your perception indirectly.
« It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. »
Being « like drops of healing rain », miracles are a little bit like detergent or soap for your mind. The correction actually comes from a higher level, e.g. the eyes of christ or through Jesus or Holy Spirit. The miracle shines or blesses or soaks into the « corrupted thought », the illusion, the false belief, the darkness, and « fixes it ». Cleans it up. Gets rid of the blockages and dirt in the mind. To remind your mind that illusions are false, it lifts your awareness up towards forgiveness, into the light, where you have the correct perspective ie the state of forgiveness. They heal you so that you can recognize what is true and false rather than being confused. It doesn’t have to add anything to do this (other than love which was lacking – « miracles supply a lack » of love/life).
« It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. »
So this takes place in your mind within the range of perception between false and true perception. You start out perceiving and believing falsely and the miracle drips into your mind and heals the error, undoes the blockage or confused belief, and raises the mind up toward the atonement. It can’t lift you up any higher than perception will go ie up towards atonement/forgiveness because all they do is essentially « remove ego. »
« Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it gives. »
Note that Jesus elsewhere states that « healing is NOT a miracle. » Nor are shifts in perception, which are temporary effects. Miracles in fact are like nuggets of light, sparks, impulses, energy, love-power-bubbles, which come down from a higher level and heal the mind, lifting it up and returning it to life ie resurrection. Miracle are the REMEDY, which cause healing and shifting to occur, but miracles are independent of the healing or shifts. They are not the healing itself, they are the « healer » or healing agent. They prepare the mind for being in a state of salvation by gradually erasing all the ego junk and setting you free. They also can be transferred, given, sent, broadcast to others like a little package of life-force, causing resurrection.
« 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. »
For miracles to occur, or for you to « do them », you have to GIVE them ie to extend love. You cannot give miracles without receiving them also, and you cannot receive them unless you are willing to give them. Giving miracles to others, ie extending christ love, blesses both of you, and lifts you both up, and benefits both the giver and the receiver simultaneously. When you send love to someone, you will feel invigorated and lightened. You can’t love without being loved. Nor can you perform miracles unless you are willing to also be healed. This is the opposite to the world’s laws which say that you receive without giving or give without receiving, as in the unhealed healer.
« 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. »
Once the miracle has done its healing, mind is corrected so perception is in line with truth and forgiveness is seen as the only sane way to see things. Unforgiveness is what has been undone. Remember « the miracle does nothing. It merely takes away… » (which is kind of a doing) and it removes the distortions… it does appear thus to DO something, it does heal the body as well, it’s just that it does it by UNDOING the ego influence and cancelling the evil distortions.
« Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. «
Here Jesus is kind of shifting gears and is no longer talking about how miracles heal and move you up towards forgiveness, but is now talking about where miracle actually COME FROM – from the top down. e.g. « Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers. » Being IN forgiveness, having RECEIVED a miracle, and your mind now being CORRECT, YOU now « deliver them » to all you look on and miracles become effortless EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE which have miracle-working capabilities, because love heals and undoes error. You can now bestow miracle onto others from a christ-minded state of love and GIVE the miracles you have received.
Note that this raises the question, who does or where does the miracle come from when you personally are in a state of hell? Apparently you are not able to DO them until you are loving enough and close enough to christ. « Miracles are everyone’s right but purification is necessary first. » WHO bestows miracles on you when YOU are in the dark? Is it a healing that comes from the Holy Spirit? Does Jesus inject healing into your mind, like he says he does? « I inspire all miracles » etc. Certainly your distorted ego is not a miracle worker, nor is any beginner to the course. Yet you are able to find healing through forgiveness and purification work, most of this purification work is I think NOT a miracle.
« Miracles ENTAIL (require, before beginning to do them), a sudden shift into vertical perception. » Vertical perception is christ vision. You have to be pretty advanced in your own mentally healed state in order to be able to DO them. In order to receive them you have to be able to GIVE them. So somehow you have to get yourself « high enough » first, and that takes purification work.
… skipping a couple paragraphs…
« Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came 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. »
Miracles are resurrection devices. They heal the mind and lift it up towards atonement. They literally GIVE LIFE where it was lacking, reversing the signs of death. The natural side effect is the cessation of ego attack, which eliminates the present-moment projection of body distortions and thus immediately heals all sickness and raises the dead. Every miracle increases life. « Miracles mean life, and God is the giver of life ». Every miracle is a resurrection. « Miracles raise the level of communication. » « Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead ». By giving/receiving loving healing through expression/extension of love, where « miracles are a spark of life », the SPARK or POWER inherent to love is given and blesses and CAN REVERSE DEATH.
The ultimate result of miracles naturally is that there is nothing left TO UNDO, because everything has been healed, and so their PURPOSE comes to an end as the world is undone and all sickness is eliminated and all death cancelled. Before this ending, bodies become healed and now symbolize ONLY LIFE and become incapable of death, because « the mind being sane heal the body. » And now the body is used for Christ/Holy Spirit purposes, representing LIFE and HEALING, and is a walking demonstration of miracle mindedness, now able to give the same miracles to others.
To know more details visit here: a course in miracles questions and answers