There are no degrees of difficulty in miracles · Practice and Test

There are no degrees of difficulty in miracles. There is none that is more 'difficult' or 'bigger' than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximum.

Beginning of Miracle 1 · UCDM

How long will you continue to believe that "this" is impossible to forgive, that "that" has no cure, that there are wounds so deep or problems so enormous that no force of the Spirit can touch?

How many more times will you kneel before the implacable logic of your mind, which places your problems on a scale of one to ten, deciding—without asking your permission—that suffering has colors, sizes, levels, and above all, exceptions?

The answer to A Course in Miracles is its first principle: none of this is true. There are no degrees of difficulty in miracles. Take a second, drop the shield, and listen. Not because a book tells you so, nor just because, but because, deep down, there is something in you that longs with all its strength for this to be true.

Why do you insist that your pain is special?

You go through life convinced, convinced, that your story weighs more, that your illness is crueler, that your loss, your shame, your fear, that hole in the bottom of your chest, are different, more real, than those of others.

And that is not vanity, it is the great deception of the ego: it separates you, isolates you, sells you the idea that your demons are hopeless, or at least not in the same way as other people's.

But what if—really—all the problems were one? What if the cure – the miracle – were identical for all pains, great or small? What if love, when expressed, had exactly the same force, whether you embrace your daughter or look tenderly at the one who hurts you?

And, above all, what if this whole spectacle of differences were just the echo of a single idea: that we are different from God, different from each other? If you look at it face to face, it starts to fall apart.

Every problem is an opportunity to heal — without exception

Remember. What distresses you today (the fight with your brother, the bank bill, the illness) seems different from that little anger about traffic, right?

But look closely. Don't you react with the same anxiety, the same justification, the same prison of your story? Don't you feel, deep within, that voice that lists your reasons, your rights, your wounds? Doesn't it always seem true to you that TODAY you DO have something really serious on your hands?

The course says no, absolutely not. And in that NO there is a promise.

• There are no degrees of difficulty in miracles.
• Healing a broken friendship is no less miraculous than healing a terminal cancer.
• Forgiving a trivial insult is just as miraculous as being able to leave behind years of hatred towards the one who destroyed your childhood.
• To love implies to cross any border; it does not recognize differences. The miracle is the same on your daughter's face and a stranger's. Everything is the opportunity to return to Oneness.

What if you began to treat every little anger, every dull sadness, every stroke of life, as if they were the same—just as false in their origin, just as worthy of love?

The Origin of Suffering: The Trap of Degrees

To live in the world of the ego is to live within a kind of infinite catalog: this problem is important, that one is not; This wound is serious, that is a game. Make a list of your concerns right now and you'll check this word for word.

Who decides that there are small things and huge things? Your mind. The mind trained by the ego constantly compares, establishes differences, hierarchizes, boxes, orders.

It is what he knows how to do; it is their way of reinforcing the separation. Because, if there were only one real problem—the idea of being separate, separate, from God—it would be too easy to heal. It would be impossible to sustain the guilt.

That's what you have to look at head-on if you really want to walk this path: all pain comes from the belief in separation. Of guilt.

The "problems" of the world, whether it's a broken tooth or the death of the woman you love, are symbols of that one idea. All fear is fear of having turned away from your Source. All conflict is, in truth, your unconscious attempt to deny the inextinguishable greatness that inhabits you.

So what does the miracle do? It reminds you. It brings you back home.

List of Ego Traps in Perceiving Degrees of Difficulty

• Thinking that you only deserve miracles for "important" problems.
• Stop asking for internal help because "I can solve this myself".
• Making forgiveness impossible when you feel that the wound is too deep.
• Believing that the Spirit is engaged in great tragedies, but indifferent to your domestic battles.

The miracle is a change of perception

Here comes the radical turn proposed by A Course in Miracles, so simple, so devastating in its implications: the miracle is not a supernatural event, nor a magical cure, nor an event that violates the laws of physics. The miracle is —simply— a change of perception. That's how humble. It's that real.

You don't have to pretend. You don't have to force yourself to see with different eyes—that would be just another trick of the ego to make you guilty when you fail to respond with love. It is a disposition, an offering of your mind: "I don't understand anything I see here, but I am willing, willing, to understand something new."

In everyday life, this translates into light, barely perceptible gestures. A sigh before exploding. A smile. A moment of honesty where you let go of the logic of having been a victim and allow – even if it's through a crack – for the miracle to appear.

Everyday expressions of the change in perception:

• Feeling relief when you stop fighting with your own thoughts.
• Realize that you don't need to have a reason to be at peace.
• Recognize that you don't know what the meaning of that disease is, but you can open yourself to see it in a different way.
• Learn to look at your mother or father and see past the years of resentment.
• To offer the present instant the possibility of being different from the past.

You're not guilty for believing in degrees, but you can let go of that burden

The honesty, the courage – and yes, the humility – that ACIM asks for is nothing more than this: admitting that you still believe that there are degrees of difficulty; that you judge, that you face life as if some challenges were almost impossible and others, routine.

Don't hurt yourself by falling into that trap. No one, no one who is here, has yet escaped that comparative and fragmented mind. The function of the miracle is never to make you feel smaller, less spiritual, more false, or more false. It is simply to create the space where the lie can be seen, exposed, healed.

• The only reason you look at your tragedies as insurmountable and your blessings as foolish is because your mind is struggling to survive as a separate being, a divided mind.
• It's not your fault. But it is your chance.

Remember:

• You can't change your mindset if you don't first see the trick you've fallen into.
• Everything that you now feel as negative, fearful, permanent, is only asking to be reinterpreted.
• The miracle does not judge the size of your pain; it simply dissolves it.

Do you dare to look at all your problems as the same problem?

Try it—not to force yourself, but because you're tired of suffering in your own way. Look at your world the folds, the folds, the colors, the dramas. Ask:

• What if everything was just a call to remember love?
• What if underneath the conflict, the pain, the rage, there was only a request for unity, to return to innocence, to return home?
• How much more time do you need to give up and admit that trying to solve each problem separately has never brought you peace?
• How much energy do you spend fearing what could happen, making calculations of which are your insurmountable wounds and which ones you can disguise, fix, decorate?

You don't have to do it all at once. You can practice with the small, with the trivial, with the "easy" according to your measure. Or you can go straight to what hurts the most, if you have that determination and Spirit is with you.

The only thing that matters is the willingness—the honesty of looking, with love, at the absurdity of continuing to defend differences.

Hints for applying this principle in your daily practice

You usually read about the miracle, reflect, feel inspired for a while, but when it comes to practice... reality drags you along. It's okay. Here are signs and small exercises to help you in that leap from thought to experience.

Observe your reactions

• When a problem arises, take a moment to mentally ask:
  Am I willing, willing, to see this as an opportunity to heal—just like any other?
• If you catch yourself thinking "this is different, this is too much", recognize that defense. It's okay. Release it when you can.
• Make a visible list of your "big problems" and your "small problems" of the day. Then, apply the same phrase to each one: "There are no degrees of difficulty in miracles. All this asks for the same thing: to return to love."

Recognize the only underlying problem

• When you feel anger, fear, sadness, repeat mentally: "There's only one problem: the belief in separation."
• Do it before looking for answers, solutions, comfort outside.

Give up control

• Practice not defending yourself so quickly when life slaps you.
• Allow the Spirit to show you the meaning, rather than rushing to decide it yourself.
• Ask yourself honestly: Why is this happening in my life? How can this pain, this discomfort, this absurdity, bring me closer to union?

Give yourself permission to heal in layers

• If a resentment comes back again and again, don't think you've failed. You're just ready, ready, to go deeper now.
• Use each repetition as a new opportunity to practice mercy, with yourself, with yourself.

The impossibility of "loving halfway": all expressions of love are maxim

You can't be "a little pregnant," nor can you just love "a little." Either you love, or you don't. Either there is a miracle, or you are dreaming of your usual problems.

A maximum expression that sounds ambitious, doesn't it? But it is quite the opposite. Love has no degrees. When you "love" even for a little while, you love completely. When you truly forgive, there is nothing to forgive.

On your path and my path there will be mediocre days, of lukewarm practice, old relapses. Don't fight it. But do not fall into the trap of believing yourself to be less worthy, less worthy, less capable, when it seems to you that your love is scarce. Love is—no matter how much or how little you feel it—always total.

The function that awaits you: to teach – from within – that everything is the same

You won't need to "teach" anyone. Your example, your disposition, your small leap of perception every day is enough. Peace is transmitted invisibly, in your silence, in your ability not to react, in the way you look at your child or your boss after an argument.

When you allow yourself to experience that every problem is the same because all pain is the same, others feel it. Your children, your friends, your partner, your clients, your environment. The miracle does not need propaganda; it needs willing channels.

If you want to "teach" this world something, teach yourself, yourself, to stop believing in the scales of suffering. That is living the miracle.

When your faith fails and guilt comes back

Yes, you'll do it wrong a thousand times. Yes, you will judge, you will compare, you will defend your dramas again. It's normal. The course is not about superheroes, but about honesty training. What counts is that every time, even as you fall, you remember the phrase: there are no degrees of difficulty in miracles.

Use your mistakes, your relapses, to practice the only miracle: forgiveness. Forgive yourself from the heart for not knowing how to love more, for not knowing how to forgive more, for letting yourself be carried away by fear.

The miracle is still available, just as close, just as free. You just have to want it again.

There are no degrees of difficulty in what you can let go of — nor in the love that awaits you

You shouldn't expect to live each day like a saint, a saint, flying above your tragedies. He only chooses to stop defending differences. Realize how absurd it is to classify your problems, your wounds, your capacity to love.

As long as you continue to think that there are "big" problems and "small" problems, you give power to the illusion of separation. As long as you choose to practice that everything asks for the same thing—the return to love—you will be opening the crack through which light sneaks in.

You don't need blind faith. It is enough to see you as worthy, just as worthy, of the miracle when you cry your eyes out in bed as when you meditate in peace.

Remember: "There are no degrees of difficulty in miracles. All problems are one, all solutions are Love."

The next time your mind insists on putting yourself on a scale of one to one hundred, smile. Breathe. Remember the rift. And if you are able, extend that peace even if it is for an instant to those who you least think deserve it (maybe it is yourself, yourself).

Let yourself be touched by the miracle that equalizes all things

One day—perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow—you will see it clearly: there is no problem too big, no fear so small that it cannot be healed by the miracle. There are no degrees of difficulty in the love that sustains you.

Thus begins the awakening. Thus begins the real journey with A Course in Miracles.

When you feel ready, give yourself permission to face the next Principle of the Miracle. Because every step on this path is, indeed, a step in the return home.

Do you dare to look at your next problem – whatever it may be – as the very opportunity of the miracle? Forward, the path is traveled as one learns to love: without degree, without haste, without exception

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