CIM LESSONS 12-18—JANUARY  2012

Miracles Principle #3: “Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.”

Miracles do not come from us. Miracles come from God/Love by our invitation. CIM calls this “the little willingness” (T-18.IV). We must be willing to ask Spirit to help us see through the eyes of love (the Christ within) rather than through the eyes of the ego. When you have allowed something or someone to disturb your peace, always ask, “What is this for?” What purpose does it serve? And there are always only two purposes: love (to heal the separation) or fear (to reinforcement the separation).

Lesson 12: “I am upset because I see a meaningless world.” We instinctively sense that this world does not make sense. A God of love would not create a world of lack and limitation, sickness and death. Because we can’t simply accept the world as meaningless, we are impelled to write our meaning upon it, and when we do, what we see is frightening because we believe we’ve alienated ourselves from God, our Source of power and protection.  When your peace is threatened or disturbed in any way, say to yourself,” I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now.” (T-14.XI.6:7)

“When your words have been erased, you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises.”

Lesson 13: “A meaningless world engenders fear.” The idea that we are in competition with God, and therefore fear His vengeance, seems preposterous. We are told in CIM that we made a decision (symbolized by the parable of the Garden of Eden) to experience something other than the peace and perfection of God. God allowed this wish—with the caveat that the experience would not be real and therefore would have no lasting effects. “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.” Like the Prodigal, we feel we have squandered our holy inheritance and are afraid to go home and face Dad. Remember, however, the lesson says not to dwell on this idea. You are simply asked to note any fear the thought may arouse. Also remember the reception the Prodigal got when he decoded to go Home! .

Lesson 14: “God did not create a meaningless world.” The purpose of the lessons thus far has been to erase the interpretations you’ve put on the world so you can see God’s interpretation. The meaningless world we see is not God’s creation. To some, this idea feels like salvation. To others, it sounds preposterous, even sacreligious.  A negative reaction is far more common than a positive one. Our path in CIM is one “through fear to love.” The direction of the journey is towards a breadth of love that “passeth understanding.” A word of caution: this lesson is asking you to consider these thoughts about your own personal repertory of fears. It is not asking you to evangelize—to tell others their fears are not real. Note also from this lesson that many of our illusions are shared (famines, wars, HIV, etc.) and others are part of our own personal hell. This is clear support for the idea that the illusion of the world is a shared responsibility.

Lesson 15: “My thoughts are images that I have made.” The purpose of this lesson is to introduce you to the process of image making, by which your inner thoughts manifest as physical images. Physical sight is no more than this, and this is the purpose of physical sight. We gave our body’s eyes the function of seeing thought images in order to validate our belief that we are entities separate from God. Yet, there is something to be seen beyond the physical and that is God’s eternal Reality. Quantum physics is now validating the Reality our physical eyes can’t see.

Lesson 16: “I have no neutral thoughts.” There are no idle thoughts. Every thought produces an image after its kind—either truth/love or illusion/fear. This is an empowering idea, not a threatening one. You have previously been told that your thoughts are not real. Just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s unimportant or can be ignored. Think of the impact of a blood and guts movie. It isn’t real, but it makes its emotional mark on us. If war and AIDS are in our perception, the thoughts that manifest them are in our minds, singly or collectively. Therefore to see a different image, we must heal our thoughts.

Lesson 17: “I see no neutral things.” We believe that events or actions in the world cause us to think or act in certain ways. CIM says the opposite. We have no neutral thoughts and so we see no neutral things. Even a box of Wheaties holds an emotional charge for us. We ask ourselves: “What made me feel this way?” “What made me so angry or depressed?” But the thought always comes first. Our minds cause the world we see.

The statement, “I do not see anything that is really alive or really joyous” will cause resistance. CIM says the body is not alive because the body is not real. So it neither lives nor dies, except in our thoughts. Nor do the fleeing joys we experience in the physical realm. The Truth of us is spirit, which is formless. Nothing can be truly joyous when the specter of death looms at its core.

Lesson 18: “I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.” The preceding lessons have taught that your thoughts always affect the world you experience. This lesson teaches that they always affect all minds. How you think and see things quite literally affects the entire world. By opening my mind to Love, I can be a conduit of Love for the entire world.

Assignment: Text: Read Miracles Principle #4 and Chapter Two, Sections VI (Fear and Conflict) and VII (Cause and Effect); Workbook: Lessons 19-25.

Practical Application: Think of a person that disturbs your peace. Make a mental list of all his/her faults and transgressions. Then ask Spirit to help you see this person in a different way. Really “listen” with your heart. Now imagine a beautiful pink light in the area of your heart. See that light extending to the heart of the other, going over and under it and back to yours, in the pattern of infinity. Do this once a day for one week and see if you experience anything different about that person.