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.