CIM Lessons 138-144 and Miracles Principle #21

Miracles Principle #21: “Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.” God does not forgive because God never judged. When CIM talks about the forgiveness of God, it’s talking about the unconditional Love of God. Forgiveness, as CIM describes it, is forgiving your brother for what he has not done. (Text, Ch. 17, Section III, par. 1)You realize nothing has been done to you; it’s all something you’ve done to yourself. In miracles, we shift from the ego’s hate and blame to Spirit’s Love, which then becomes the extension of God’s love to us and through us. Jesus says we demonstrate he did not die in vain by demonstrating that he lives in us, which means living according to the same principles of love and forgiveness he did. The more we practice his example, the closer we come to the Christ within and, thereby, to remembering God.

Lesson 138—“Heaven is the decision I must make.” The physical realm is a world of duality, of opposites. In this world, choice is not only possible, it’s life. God’s creation is one of non-duality, of perfect oneness. If reality is oneness, choice is impossible, inconceivable. A place where nothing changes and there are no opposites sounds boring! We are addicted to drama, devoted to the delicious agony of indecision. To be without decisions seems to us like death. Yet this is what the Course offers.  When this truly dawns upon our minds, we recoil in mortal terror. It’s unconscious; we don’t realize what’s going on, but we literally run away from truth and from total love, not knowing what we’re doing. It seems as if we’re being asked to die. And, in a sense, we are: to die to life as we have known it. The only way out is through—through fear to love. Through fear to faith that our Creator would not “stick it to us,” but rather wills to give us all there is in place of nothing. Our guilt is the only thing holding this all from us. When we look at this choice “with Heaven’s help,” we see that purpose of this world is to make one final choice—the choice for heaven, the choice between illusion and reality. Time exists only for this—to “give us time” to make this choice.

Lesson 139—“I will accept Atonement for myself.” To accept the Atonement for myself means to accept the truth of what I am—and what everyone else is as well. And what am I? God created me as an extension of His Love. That is my purpose. To accept the Atonement is to begin to function as God’s Love in the world. This lesson is magnificent in its dissection of the insanity of the way we question our identity. It questions our questioning. It raises our doubts to doubt. It belittles our thoughts of littleness. How can we be anything except what we are. And how can we not know what we are? God’s grandness, this magnificent inclusiveness, this divine generosity is our very being! Every time we refuse to see the magnificence in another, we deny our own. When we look on others with less than love, it’s because we refuse to accept how much we merit unconditional love. We are here to restore the grandeur of what we all are to every mind. Through us our Father’s Love can contain all minds. Our heart is big enough for all the world. Think of this the next time you’re inclined to think your life has no purpose!

Lesson 140—“Only salvation can be said to cure.” The “cure” CIM is talking about here is a healing of the mind, not the body. This lesson applies to bodily sickness, but it also applies equally to any apparent “problem” in this world—financial lack, loneliness, etc. To seek a cure by any means in the physical realm is what CIM calls “magic.” Finding a magic formula within the dream is never the solution because we are curing the symptom rather than the cause. The root of the problem is in the mind. Early in the Text, Jesus makes it clear, however, that the use of magic isn’t evil. It just doesn’t really work. Yet sometimes it’s the best we can do. If we have a splitting headache, we take an aspirin. There is no shame in this. Only let us not deceive ourselves that we have really done anything to cure the dis-ease. The magic of this world can mask symptoms but cannot cure. Bringing our illusions to truth, allowing our guilt to be removed from our minds—this cures and nothing else. Sin, and therefore sickness, cannot be real because God is everywhere present. He has not left us and, therefore, what we think is sin cannot be so. In our awareness of His presence, guilt disappears, and with it, the cause of sickness.

Lessons 141-144 are review lessons with the theme of “My mind holds only the thoughts I think with God.” What does this mean? Does it mean all the thoughts I have somehow mysteriously come from God no matter how meaningless or ugly they seem? No. It means that the mind of which I’m aware is not my real mind. My conscious mind, filled with erratic private thoughts, is an illusion of a mind—a mirage floating over my real mind. My real mind is a limitless domain, at one with the Mind of God. In that mind, my thoughts are not petty or fleeting, but stable, eternal realities. The thoughts in my real mind are not self-initiated but rather stream from God through me. The “self-deceptions” mentioned in this review material are all the thoughts of which you’re currently aware. They are self-deceptions because they deceive you into thinking your mind is not that infinite mind which thinks in unison with God. These self-deceptive thoughts affect Reality “No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides.”

Assignment: Miracles Principle #22; Lessons 145-151; Text Chapter Two, pp. 23-28—“Healing as Release from Fear” (First words: “Our emphasis is now on healing.”); The Function of the Miracle Worker (First words: “Before miracle workers are ready to undertake, etc.”; and “Special Principles of Miracle Workers” (First words: “The miracle abolishes the need, etc.”)

Practical Application: This week, as you make the many choices you will undoubtedly make, ask yourself as you make each choice, “What is it for?” What is the motive behind your choice? Is the motive or intent one of love or one of fear? Is it one of eternality or one of passing importance or value? As you choose what you will wear for the day, is it to impress or is it to bring comfort and joy? As you choose what to eat, is it a choice of fear (Oh! The calories!) or is it a choice of mindful engagement and gratitude. As you choose what activities to do or not to do, be consciously aware of how the activity blesses you and others or not. Remember, as you engage in this “exercise,” that salvation is happiness.

CIM Lessons 131-137 and Miracles Principle #20

CIM Lessons 131-137 and Miracles Principle #20

Miracles Principle #20: “Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.” The temple of the Holy Spirit (aka Higher Self or Voice for God) is not in the body; it is in the relationship (T-20.VI.5:1). Spirit cannot be in the body because there is no body. God wouldn’t place the Holy Spirit in a place that doesn’t exist and where there is no problem. Bodies don’t get sick. Only the mind can be sick, and only the mind can heal. Spirit is not needed out in the world, because the world isn’t the problem. Spirit is needed in the mind, where the altar of truth is. The body is not the temple of Spirit; it is the use of the body that is, which is always found in terms of a relationship: joining in a common purpose. Spirit is made manifest in relationships.

In Chapter 19, Jesus says Christ stands within the holy relationship. This doesn’t mean Christ is not present in an unholy relationship, which CIM calls a “special relationship.” But in a special relationship, where guilt is the goal and separation is the principle, Spirit is obscured.

Lesson 131—“No one can fail who seeks to find the truth.” Searching, looking outside for oneself for one’s Self, is the nature of the world. At times it seems that search will never succeed. Yet God made an ancient promise to you that you would go back through the door in your mind to the real world. These exercises are like rehearsals, engaging our minds and training them in a pattern that leads to the discovery of the door to Heaven in our minds.

Lesson 132—“I loose the world from all I thought it was.” This lesson contains perhaps the most startling statement in CIM: “There is no world!” Most of us are not ready to accept this idea. As this lesson says, no madman can be “swayed by questioning his thoughts’ effects.” The approach that will lead us to understand there is no world does not follow the path of directly questioning the real world. That is a fruitless approach—as fruitless as trying to convince a madman his hallucinations aren’t real. So the focus of CIM is not on denying the reality of the world, but on opening our minds to bring healing to the world we see. The unreality of the world dawns naturally on us as we begin to grasp the reality of our Self. If we are as God created us, we cannot suffer. To “loose the world” is to heal it. Absolving the world of guilt and thoughts of vengeance manifests our true Self to us, transforms our thoughts and, in turn, transforms the world that is their effect.

Lesson 133—“I will not value what is valueless.”

This lesson provides the criteria by which we can decide when we are choosing the valuable and when we are choosing the valueless.

Two laws govern all choice:

1) There are only two alternatives to choose between: everything and nothing.

2) There is no compromise, no in-between.

The following four criteria determine what is of value:

Will it last forever?

 Is it a choice in which no one loses? (Where anyone loses, all lose.)

 Is the purpose free of the ego’s goals?

 Is the choice free of all guilt?

If the answer to any of these questions is “no” then it is valueless.

How can we know whether or not the ego’s goals are intruding? The ego’s favorite masquerade is innocence. The ego detector is quite simple: guilt. If we feel any guilt about our choice, we are not being Spirit led. If we apply these criteria to the decisions of our lives, our lives will be transformed.

The first criteria alone rules out anything material, including bodies and ordinary human relationships. What lasts forever in this world? Only love. And not all that we call love lasts forever. But there is a love not of this world. In every moment, we are choosing to be taken over by and to extend this love, or we are choosing to withhold ourselves from it, in fear. To choose love is the only guiltless choice. It isn’t complex.

Let’s take an everyday example. I decide to go out to dinner with someone. I go to a favorite restaurant, expecting great food and great service. The food isn’t so good, and our server is inattentive. Since neither the food nor the evening’s service will last forever, I choose not to let either bother me. What I choose to focus on instead is seeing the eternal in my dinner partner—and in the inattentive server—and in conveying this vision through my kind words, loving attitudes, and generous actions. Now what I’m seeking will last forever.  

Lesson 134—“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.” Forgiveness, to be true, must be absolutely justified. Sin, if real, can’t be justified. True forgiveness sees the nothingness of sin—that it never happened in God’s Reality. Since this concept is so foreign to the human mind, CIM wants me to experience the results of forgiveness, which is relief, which is freedom. Even if I don’t understand or believe CIM’s theory behind forgiveness, I can forgive and experience the lifting of a tremendous burden from my heart. When I condemn someone else for his sins, I condemn myself. By condemning another, I’m saying, “Sin is real and deserves to be punished.” My form of “sin” may not be the one I condemn in my brother, indeed I may be accusing him of something I think I’d never do, and I think that because I’m free from that particular fault, somehow my condemnation of him will purchase my salvation. But I’ve supported the principle that sin is real and deserves punishment. And I know, deep within me, that I, too, have “sinned,” and if I have, I have nothing to hope for but punishment. What I apply to my brother, applies to me as well. Releasing my brother from his chains releases me at the same time.

Now, if everything is instantly forgiven, what’s to keep us straight? Why wouldn’t I just run out and steal everyone blind? Through forgiveness, I experience my true Self, which is unconditional Love, which is All That Is. When I remember Who I Am, I realize that I have all because God created me as all. I (Capital “I” aka I Am) have no needs and therefore no desire to “steal.” Everything that is, in God’s Reality, is already mine.

Lesson 135—“If I defend myself, I am attacked.” If you see a need for defense, you must perceive attack. Only the body can be attacked. The physical self you think you are is very vulnerable indeed and needs continual defense. The Self that you are in Reality, needs no defense. CIM teaches that all attack is self-attack. We delude ourselves into thinking that attack comes from somewhere outside ourselves, but all “attack” is generated by our own sense of guilt. I make the world I see. Does that mean one generates the experience of being raped? Certainly not on a conscious level. But if I feel deserving of punishment, I will experience that punishment in myriad forms until I release the guilt that is making this “request” of the universe. It’s like wearing a sign that says, “Kick me.” And since the universe obeys our every command, stand by!

This lesson also identifies our plans as a form of defense—defense against perceived future threats. Again, it’s like wearing a “Kick Me” sign. CIM says a healed mind doesn’t plan. But how can I survive in this cruel world without a plan? The healed mind follows a plan; it just doesn’t make the plan. Rather than receiving the plan from the ego, which operates on fear, it receives the plan from Spirit, Who sees the Big Picture, in which we are always safe, always loved, always invincible.

Lesson 136—“Sickness is a defense against the truth.” Sickness is a decision we make to distract ourselves when the truth gets too close for comfort. It’s a decision to root ourselves firmly back into our body. Most of us react to being told that we choose sickness with flat denial. The lesson says our choice is “doubly shielded by oblivion.” We choose to push away the pesky truth that has begun to nibble at our sense of separateness and of the physical nature of our bodies by making ourselves sick. (“Of course my body is real. It’s sick!”)) We then choose to forget we made that choice—the first shield of oblivion. Then we forget that we chose to forget—the second shield. But this all happens in a split second, so the shields are up so quickly the whole process seems to be unconscious. CIM says nothing can ever happen to you without your consent. Even your so-called death. So we can remember, if we are willing, that illness is a choice. Then we can chose again. The antidote to the whole process, however, is not attempting to heal the sick body but rather to accept the truth about myself (“I am not a body.”), to let my mind be healed.

Lesson 137—“When I am healed I am not healed alone.” Healing, which is our function in the world, is a phenomenon that is shared. To heal is to share. Healing restores Oneness. Sickness is a secret desire to separate oneself. Healing reverses that. It’s a move toward others, a joining. We are speaking here of healing the mind. Physical healing may or may not follow, but whatever the seeming state of my body, if I refuse to accept sickness as my reality, my mind becomes a “haven where the weary can remain to rest.” Sickness is a demonstration of “I am a body.” So what we’re called on to do is not just to refuse the limitation of sickness, but to refuse the limits of the body altogether. What is opposed to God, what is opposed to perfection or eternality, does not exist.

Assignment: Read Miracles Principle #21 and Lessons 138-144. Read Text, Chapter 28, The Undoing of Fear, at your own pace.

Practical Application: Next Tuesday night, if you are so inclined, bring to class a CIM quote or passage that has been especially meaningful and helpful to you. Be prepared to share your thoughts on this passage.

CIM Lessons 124-130 and Miracles Principle #19

Miracles Principle #19: Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time. Miracles don’t make us one in God. They remind us we are one in God. Separation is the key idea in the ego’s belief system. The body is an illusion, a means to “prove” we’re separate. If I believe my body is sick, then I’m making my body real and reinforcing the ego’s purpose. If I am upset because you are sick, I’m doing the same thing. Because we are all One on the level of our minds, all people are the same—whole and perfect, as God created them. Therefore the solution to all so-called problems or “dis-eases” is the same: ownership of our Reality, the Oneness, which is Perfect Love.

Lesson 124—“Let me remember I am one with God.” This lesson tells us enlightenment is not a change but a recognition. To pray, to give thanks for the Truth about me as God created me is a very profitable exercise. We spoke in class recently of another CIM quote that basically says, if I but realized Who walks with me, I’d never have reason for concern. This lesson is a portrait of a teacher of God. Everywhere he walks, light is left behind to illuminate the way for others. The teacher walks in constant awareness of God’s Presence. He feels God within. God’s thoughts fill his mind, and he perceives only the loving and lovable. This teacher heals people in the past, the present, and the future—at any distance. The latter part of the lesson reminds us that Jesus knows very well that most of us are so far from this conscious awareness that we may spend a half hour trying to get in touch with this Truth and never get even a glimmer of it. And he tells us not to worry about that. Even though we may experience nothing in practicing this lesson, he assures us “no time was ever better spent.”

Lesson 125—“In quiet I receive God’s word today.” All we’re asked to do today is to be quiet for ten minutes three times during the day and for a moment each hour. Our ego is a constant noise machine, trying to drown out the Voice for God. The difficulties I have being quiet are indicators of how much I need this practice. As soon as I sit down to meditate, the ego reminds me of something I’ve left undone or takes me on a distracting detour, a “frantic rush of thoughts.” Clearly, CIM is teaching me that a quiet mind is essential to our goal. “The memory of God comes to the quiet mind.”

Lesson 126—“All that I give is given to myself.” This lesson aims at thought reversal. Our false understanding of forgiveness is the reason we can’t understand how forgiveness brings us peace nor how it restores our unity with our brothers. The idea that “all that I give is given to myself” is crucial. Understanding it makes forgiveness effortless. The “cries for love” of others are my own, and I cannot condemn another without condemning myself and losing my peace of mind. If I understood this and believed it, forgiveness would happen naturally. I would realize that how I see another person is how I see myself. I would learn to perceive that ego actions are not sins but cries for help and would respond accordingly. I would realize that my judgmental attitude has an adverse affect on the behavior of others and on myself. I would see that I’m not separate but that we all share the same fears and doubts, and we share the same longing for release from them. How wise of my Father to gently teach me by holding a mirror before my eyes! If I ask for understanding sincerely, it will come.

Lesson 127—“There is no love but God’s love.” This is an extremely important lesson. It asks me to “take the largest single step this course requests in [my] advance towards its established goal.” Contrary to what I believe, there are no different kinds of love—romantic, maternal, fraternal, etc. Nor are there different degrees of love. I merely torment myself looking for these different kinds of love outside myself. They aren’t out there to be found. God is Love and God is all there is. This Love is truly unconditional and is not affected by anything outside Itself, outside my Self. I am what God is. I am unconditional love. The goal of today’s lesson is to catch even the faintest glimpse that this is my true nature. This is an attempt to free my mind of all the limits I have placed on myself and all the changes I believe I’ve made in myself, and to find my true Self, Who is Love. To be able, even in a very small degree, to perceive myself as this Love is a quantum leap indeed. To spend a little time for this purpose is well worth it. “There is no better use for time than this.”

Lesson 128—“The world I see holds nothing that I want.” The purpose of this lesson is to learn to let go of the value I place on things of the world so that I may free my mind to experience what is truly valuable—my home in God. This seems like a harsh and scary teaching, but it’s the key to our ultimate freedom. It’s similar to the first three of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths: life is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire for self at the expense of others; and the way out of suffering is the relinquishment of all such desires. When I assign value to things of this world, I chain myself to heartache because everything in the world must have an end. My cravings for bodily possessions, protection, longevity, etc., only divert my attention from my purpose here. To the Holy Spirit, this world and everything in it has only one purpose—to heal my mind, to remember Who and What I am.

Lesson 129—“Beyond this world there is a world I want.” Jesus realizes that to ask us to release this world without offering something of more value in return will only cause us to dig in our heels. The statement that this world is “worthless” is pretty blunt. My ego desperately clings to the idea that there is something worth preserving and striving for here. 

The emphasis of CIM is not on “giving up the world but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering [me] peace.” This begins to look a tad more enticing when I take a hard look at the world I’m trying to hang onto. Terrorism, starvation, disease, apathy . . . In this world, even when I do find peace or love, I know it can’t last forever. So why wouldn’t I want to consider a world where it is impossible to lose anything? I drag my feet because this other world is as yet far too vague to me. (What will I do all day if I don’t have a body?) Such fears stem from the root fear that God intends to punish us—to bait and switch, to trick us. CIM tells us we give up “nothing” for “everything” in this process. 

Do I personally know what that “everything” looks like? I do not. One thing that gives me some glimmer of this “other world” is my dreams at night. I don’t have a body in these dreams yet my experience is vivid and “palpable.” In my dreams, I am ageless, limitless, and invincible. The bottom line, however, is that even though I don’t know exactly what this world will be like I’m getting in exchange, I do know I can trust Unconditional Love not to “shaft” me. I can trust Unconditional Love to exceed my wildest dreams for joy.

Lesson 130—“It is impossible to see two worlds.” The first two paragraphs of this lesson are as clear a statement of CIM’s teaching on the workings of perception as there is in all three volumes. What I value, I want to see. What I want to see determines my thinking. And what I see reflects my thinking. Believing is seeing! Since I can’t hate and love simultaneously, I can’t project totally opposite worlds simultaneously. Through my thinking, I project either a world of fear or a world of love. If I try to exclude part of my projection, thinking“ surely this is good,” I’m trying to “accept a little part of hell as real.” 

At the same time, Course does not try to foster a rejection of the world. It tells me that only the part of it I look upon with love is real. Therefore, I’m urged to love all equally and thereby to “make the world real unto myself.” If I’m willing to do this, I will see another world with sight that “is not the kind of seeing that [my] eyes alone have ever seen before.” When I want only love, I will see nothing else. This is very literal.

Assignment: Miracles Principle #20; Workbook lessons 131-137; Text, pp. 227-229, The Vision of Christ. (First words: “The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world,” etc.)

Practical Application: This assignment has been made previously, but you may wish to give it another try. Resolve to go this full week without watching TV or reading a newspaper. Also avoid “inflammatory” books, music, and movies. In some of the spare time this frees up for you, journal. You may wish to use the day’s lesson, or a line or lines from it, as your starting point. Try to journal at least 5 minutes, preferably 10-15. One technique for really getting thoughts flowing is to write non-stop, without lifting your pen or pencil for that period of time. Do not stop to erase or scratch out. Suppress the urge to self-edit. At the end of the week, re-read and reflect on what you’ve written. 

CIM LESSONS 117-123 AND MIRACLES PRINCIPLE #18

Miracles Principle 18: “A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor’s worth simultaneously.” A miracle is a service because it brings love to one who is in fear, and by being a channel of love to another, I’m also bringing love to myself. This principle reminds me we are one and the same and that God establishes our worth. If I see you as more or less worthy than me—as victim or victimizer—that is an attack. It’s an attack on the Sonship and, therefore, an attack of the Creator of the Sonship. The miracle is not behavioral, despite what may appear as behavioral effects. It is only on the level of the mind. It is joining with each other through forgiveness—through love and acceptance.

(Lessons 117—120 are review lessons and so not expanded upon here.)

Lesson 121—“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.” Notice this doesn’t say “a” key but rather “the” key to happiness. When I admit that the descriptions in this lesson describe me, that I find myself in these miserable states of mind, the very word “forgiveness” sounds like an oasis in the Sahara. Lesson 79 says I have to recognize the problem before I can solve it. Though it manifests in myriad ways (attack, fear, illness, death), there is only one problem: the belief in separation. And there is only one solution: forgiveness of that error in myself and everyone else. Since forgiveness is acquired, not inherent, a methodology is necessary to achieve the transition between where I think I am and where I am in Truth. Forgiveness wasn’t a part of my mind as God created it. There was no need for it. Without the thought of sin, the concept of forgiveness is meaningless. Because I taught myself the idea of sin, the antidote is needed. The unforgiving mind can’t teach itself forgiveness. Why? Because it believes in the reality of sin, and on that basis, forgiveness is not rational. This is why I need the Holy Spirit. He teaches me to forgive and through forgiveness my mind is returned to my Self. The only thing standing between me and perfect peace and happiness, perfect well-being and abundance is my grudges. And all I’m asked to do is to turn them over to Spirit for healing. If I’m not whole and completely happy, I’ve still got forgiveness work to do.

Lesson 122—“Forgiveness offers everything I want.” Again, this doesn’t say forgiveness offers some benefits to me. It says it offers everything I want. Appearances change, but the Spirit within me, having been created by the eternal, is changeless. Forgiveness is a way of looking past appearances to the unchanging reality. It disregards the temporary picture of the ego’s mistakes and sees the Son of God. Forgiveness lifts the veil that hides the face of Christ within us all. It removes the blocks to love, the reasons we’ve built up for withholding love. We then experience love everywhere, in everyone.  My ego thoughts and actions have changed nothing. Nor have my brother’s. My brother is not my changing perceptions of him. My brother and I are still as God created us. My pain comes from identifying with my changing perceptions. My peace comes from identifying with God’s eternal reality. Nothing that changes was created by God. Therefore, nothing that changes is real. Herein lies the peace of God.

Lesson 123—“I thank my Father for His gifts to me.” Let me take time today to express my gratitude to God for His gifts to me. Praise awakens and magnifies the power of Divine Life within me. I thank my Father for this Course, which has become my way home. I thank Him for relief from all those years I lived in quiet desperation. I thank Him that, when I wandered off, He never deserted me. I thank Him for never giving up on me, even when I gave up on myself. I thank Him for not allowing me to destroy myself. I am grateful for His Spirit within me, my Guide and my Faithful Friend. I am grateful for all the loving friends and companions He has brought my way on this journey without distance, this journey Home.

Assignment: Miracles Principle # 19. Lessons 124-130. Text pp.168-170, The Holy Spirit’s Plan of Forgiveness. Manual for Teachers, pp.27-28, How Is Judgment Relinquished?

Practical Application: Think of 3 things you want most in life. CIM says, “Forgiveness offers everything I want.” Can you see how that might relate to the 3 things you desire? How might forgiveness forge the way for these things to manifest in your life?