YOU CAN CREATE MIRACLES!
by Carolyn Godschild Miller, Ph.D. • Los Angeles, CA

Driving through the Rocky Mountains at night, Karen and her boyfriend Mike were moving too fast to negotiate a tight turn. They drove right off the side of the mountain.

Plunging into the darkness below, Karen remembers feeling relaxed and amused. On the one hand, she knew that people who drive off cliffs don’t live very long, but on the other, she had the irrational conviction that everything was going to be just fine. She found herself slipping into an altered state of consciousness that was serene and even whimsical, and Mike did too.

Time seemed to slow down and expand, and many thoughts drifted lazily through Karen’s head. “Well,” she reflected ironically, “I guess this is why they tell you to wear seat belts!” Yet, despite the fact that logic told her she and Mike were about to die, she was absolutely confident that everything would turn out fine.

Surprisingly, it did! The car splashed down in the middle of a beaver pond just deep enough to break its fall. Karen and Mike climbed out onto the roof, where they joked and sang songs to pass the time until a motorist noticed their skid marks and summoned help. They, and their car were towed out of the pond without a scratch. The local people who gathered at the scene were amazed by the fact that Karen and Mike and their vehicle had come through such a spectacular fall unscathed. Even more amazing was the fact that those who lived nearby swore there hadn’t been a pond there earlier in the day.

Were you ever in a situation like this where disaster seemed inevitable, and then -- as if by magic – things turned out fine? If so, it’s just possible that you experienced an actual miracle. After some 25 years spent studying divine intervention, I’m convinced that you don’t have to be anyone special to receive it. What you do have to do is to ask for it in the right way.

As it turns out, Karen and Mike spontaneously did precisely what spiritual traditions around the world say you ought to do if you want a miracle: They went into a peaceful, meditative state of consciousness, where they were in a position to receive divine guidance. When an endangered person executes a procedure widely believed to result in miracles -- only to have an outcome that seems miraculous occur -- I think there’s good reason to suppose it isn’t mere coincidence.

“Miracles of deliverance,” are what I call situations where someone is threatened with serious harm or even death, as the result of an accident, assault or illness, and things have reached a stage where most people would confidently expect a very negative outcome. Interestingly, those who survive situations like these, all seem to report that they found themselves slipping into a deeply peaceful, altered state of consciousness, variously characterized as “totally fearless,” “unconditionally loving,” “intensely focused,” and sometimes even “humorous,” or “whimsical.” Despite impending doom, they set aside fear and anger, and retreat into a detached and loving state of mind that sounds very much like a profound state of meditation. Often they say that time slowed down for them, allowing an opportunity for deep reflection in situations that were objectively occurring at lightning speed. Many report hearing an inner voice, or feeling a loving and authoritative inner presence prompting them to say or do something they would never have considered otherwise. And when they followed this impulse, their unusual response often turned out to be the very thing that defused the danger and led to the happy ending.

I’m convinced that the key to miracles lies in the peculiar shift in consciousness that always seems to precede their occurrence. By choosing peace and love over fear and anger, I believe we do our part to make divine guidance and intervention possible. We acknowledge our inability to solve the problem on our own, and truly “turn the problem over” to our “higher power.” But don’t take my word for it. Try this procedure and see for yourself if it works. You don’t have to wait for a life-or-death emergency -- your success in small things will increase your confidence if you ever do find yourself in a more critical situation.

Based on the book Creating Miracles: A Practical Guide to Divine Intervention © 2006 by Carolyn Miller. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com, or 800-972-6657 ext. 52.

Carolyn Godschild Miller, holds a PhD in Experimental Psychology. She and her husband Arnold Weiss are founding directors of the Los Angeles-based Foundation and Institute for the Study of A Course in Miracles.