A Course in Miracles Self-Study Guide

The following posts provide study commentaries and practical life application suggestions for the 365 lessons in the ACIM Workbook. The commentaries are summaries based on Robert Perry's A Workbook Companion, Volume I and Volume II. For more in-depth comments, refer to Perry's original insightful texts. Practical applications have been added because just reading ACIM and understanding its principles intellectually will never lead to the experience of peace and joy and liberation that is the goal of this work. The principles must be diligently applied, day after day and moment after moment, to claim your divine inheritance: complete dominion over your life experiences. Welcome to the "journey without distance" to the Christ in you! (To begin, scroll back to Lesson 1.)

CIM Lessons 355-365

Lesson 355—“There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give when I accept God’s Word. Why not today?” I am here to extend God’s love. I am here to see innocence. I am here to bless my brothers and, thereby, to bless myself. I can continue to resist What I Am, but What I Am can never be changed, so why not accept the glory of my reality TODAY?

Lesson 356—“Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him.” Being sick is not a sin. There is no such thing as sin. Sickness is a manifestation of the mind’s belief in the reality of sin. Our mistaken thoughts do cause sickness, but they are simply mistakes, not sin. When we choose to be sick, at some level we are choosing to identify ourselves as a body rather than as a spirit. The truth we are defending against is the realization that we are spirit and one with God. When I “see” sickness in myself or in another, it “proves” the body is real and separate from God. To heal is to recognize the truth— that I share God’s infallible nature.

Lesson 357—“Truth answers every call to God, responding first with miracles, and then returning us to be Itself.” The two stages are 1) miracles, or changed perception, and 2) the apprehension of truth. We find our way to God through others. We see Christ first in our brothers, and then in ourselves (1:2). First we see the face of Christ and then we remember God.

Lesson 358—“No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.” The ego wants us to believe we want many different things, things that often compete and conflict with each other. Since I am so confused about what I want, it’s best to leave that choice to Spirit. I believe that God wants happiness for me, but I still want to dictate the form in which it comes to me. I need to take it a step further: I want what God wants, and whether I can see it or not at the moment, I want it in just the form Spirit chooses to give it and not in the form I think it should take. I will trust Holy Spirit’s wisdom.

Lesson 359—“God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.” Here we are told that when God answers, the answer “is some form of peace.” So the answer I want is peace—in every situation. When I make peace my goal above all else, I will learn forgiveness. When I begin to realize that what I want is not things, but rather the peace I think these things will bring me, then I can start to ask for peace directly and remain entirely open to the form. Once I let go of my insistence that the answer come in a certain form, I will much more quickly become aware of God’s answer and of the fact that God always answers my call.

Lesson 360—“Peace be to me, the holy Son of God. Peace to my brother, who is one with me. Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.” This is, for all practical purposes, the last “lesson” of the Workbook. The last five days of the year will be spent on a single lesson, which gives us an idea of how every day can be spent by a Course “graduate.” This lesson summarizes what CIM is all about: finding the peace of innocence within ourselves, sharing that peace with another, and together sharing it with all the world. Finding innocence within ourselves is the basis. The message of Course is one of radical innocence, radical forgiveness. All are innocent, and no one must be condemned for all to be free. Sharing the peace of innocence with another confirms it within us, and the relationship gives us a microcosm in which to learn to extend that peace.  Having learned to share together, we can then extend the peace of innocence to all the world.

Lessons 361-365—“This is holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace.”. If the idea of giving our lives to God sounds unappealing, we can consider the alternative. It is the notion that we want something other than God that generates all our misery and pain. Try not to let the words “the only way” scare you off. This isn’t saying CIM is the only way to God, Whom, by the way, we’ve never left. It’s saying that the route of forgiveness, the truth that we are all innocent before God, is the only way, no matter what form it may take. God created us all to be His expression, and His Will will be done in the end. As it says in the Introduction to CIM, we don’t have any choice about the content of the curriculum, just about when we choose to learn it.

Let’s take a closer look at the words of this last lesson.

This holy instant would I give to You. I set my past beliefs aside and give this moment to You, so that it may become a holy instant.

Be You in charge. I don’t know what anything is for. I set my thoughts and words aside and place You in full charge of this moment.

For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace. I do this because then You can come in and lead me along Your way of love. And only on that way will I find peace.

Assignment/Practical Application: Read the Epilogue, Workbook, pp.487-488. Reflect and meditate on what you have taken away from this year’s course of study and how you can more effectively apply what you have learned to your daily life experience. Remember daily, hourly, that YOU are God’s beloved, in Whom He is well pleased. Roll back your shoulders, lift the corners of your mouth in a smile of acknowledgement and appreciation, and LIVE as if You Are That! 

CIM Lessons 348-354

Lesson 348—“I have no cause for anger or for fear, for You surround me. And in every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me.” Close your eyes and be quiet, and think of the Presence of God as a golden light. Imagine that light shining on the front of you. Feel its warmth, its golden glow, like the radiance of the sun on a bright summer day. Now, become aware of that same light behind you and on the left and right of you, above and below you. You are immersed in this golden light. You are surrounded by perfect safety (1:5), perfect benevolence. Allow yourself to feel what that is like. In this Love there is no cause for anger or for fear. There is no cause for anything except the perfect peace and joy you share with God.

Lesson 349—“Today I let Christ’s vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead.” “The law of love,” mentioned in the second sentence, has been referred to in Lessons 344, 345 and 346. Lesson 344 defines it: “what I give to my brother is my gift to me.” The law of love is that giving and receiving are the same. Do I want others to refrain from judging me, forgive my mistakes, and offer me love? Then let me give what I want to receive today. Each time I give the miracle of love to another, I have solidified my learning that the miracle belongs to me. (1:6) And thus I remember God.

Lesson 350—“Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world.” To offer a miracle, which is to offer love/forgiveness, is the way to remember God and to literally save the world.  Offering love reminds “the mind that what it sees is false.” To offer love is to look beyond the illusions and to see the truth. It is a refusal to share the littleness in which others see themselves. I want the memory of God to return to my mind, and “only my forgiveness teaches me to let God’s memory return to me, and give it to the world in thankfulness.” (1:8) As I remember God through my forgiveness, “His Son will be restored to us in the reality of Love.” (2:2) Forgiveness “restores” the Son by rejoining the seemingly separated fragments through love and unity.

Lesson 351—“My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.” The perception of my brother as sinful is a choice I’m making. Choosing to see my brother as sinful will always lead to pain. The question is: Am I willing to see my brother as sinless? When I am, I will experience the peace of God and all I am created to be.

What Am I? This section is a powerful statement of the Course’s vision of my true nature. In the first sentence, I read, “I am  . . . complete and healed and whole.” Immediately and loudly, my ego jumps in to disagree: “You’re a total wreck is what you are! A loser that can’t finish anything she starts.” I can recognize these thoughts are blocking me from my acceptance of the Course’s message, and I can choose against them. For example, I might say, “I feel incomplete, but in reality I’m already complete. I want to know my wholeness.” We are all that our elder brother Jesus is and that is what he’s telling us in this Course. Creation is “sanctified” (made whole, holy) in me. What I am, my very being, is what makes creation holy. I do not need to be made whole or become whole, but only to recognize that is my natural state. I don’t experience myself that way yet, but I am moving in that direction. I can remind myself that though I think I’m feeling fear, fear in me is impossible. I can try to realize that what I think I’m feeling is not in me, but a delusional concept I have mistaken for myself.

Lesson 352—“Judgment and love are opposites. From one comes all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself.” In the intro to the Text, Jesus says, “The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.” (T-In.1:8) Therefore, fear is but illusion. Here, Jesus says love’s opposite is judgment. If I judge something as “bad,” I will fear it. If I fear something, I will judge it as bad. In “The Two Emotions” (T-13.V) it is clear that both love and fear are “a way of seeing,” and that “different worlds arise from their different sights.” The same thought is expressed here about judgment and love. CIM says all the sorrows of the world come from judgment. No wonder we are asked to give it up. Course makes a point that pure love, love without ambivalence, is impossible in this world. (T-4.III.4:6) The closest refection of love in this world is forgiveness. By choosing to forgive rather than to judge, I find my own peace again, the peace of God.

I was lost, “sold” into slavery by my own hand. God did not abandon me. God gave me two things: 1) the memory of God in my mind; and 2) the Holy Spirit, Who leads me to discover that memory. It is up to me whether I will continue to listen to the voice of the ego or to the Voice for God. I have very powerful help. And where that help leads me is to the point of knowing my own Identity. I cannot love what I am unless I love everyone else. That is so because what I am is identical to what everyone else is; we are all the Son of God, the Christ. When we talk about loving someone else “from another room,” let us remember that may be an okay starting point, but there are no other rooms in Oneness.

Lesson 353—“My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles.” These last ten lessons represent the state of mind to which CIM seeks to bring us. In this lesson we see the final outworking of the Course’s thoughts about the body. Not that the body is to be ignored or despised, but rather that it is to be used to bless the world with miracles. The body is not attacked or belittled; rather it is given a new purpose. Our function in Heaven is creation. Our function here is the reflection of creation—the giving of miracles, the extension of forgiveness. Let us then, with all the determination we can muster, this day join with Christ’s purpose. Do not despair if this seems far beyond you now. It’s much nearer than you can imagine. You are much more than you think you are. Simply move, as best you can, in this direction and do not judge how near or far you think you are, how easy or how difficult you think the way. Only be willing to be willing. Don’t be anxious or restless. Anxiety is merely a delaying tactic. Rest. Trust. Let Spirit do the driving.

Lesson 354—“We stand together, Christ and I, in peace and certainty of purpose. And in Him is His Creator, as He is in me.” This lesson expresses the awareness of my identity with Christ. The Creator is in Christ and also in me; God is in me as he is in Christ. Identical.

As we arrive at these last lessons, we may feel as though, somewhere along the line, the Course has evaded us. Somewhere we missed the boat, or more likely, got off the boat and stayed behind.  A part of our minds does not yet believe the words we read. My experience has not yet caught up to my understanding. I still cannot believe I’m identical to the Christ, and so my experience follows my belief, and I experience something other than my perfection.

Does this mean the Course has failed, or that I have failed the Course. Absolutely not! In the epilog, which follows the last lesson, Jesus speaks of how the Holy Spirit will “be our Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may thing is real.” So he obviously expects that those who have completed the Workbook will still experience difficulties and pain and will still sometimes mistakenly believe the pain is real. He says of this, “Whatever troubles you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly give it to you, if you simply turn to Him and ask it of Him.” (W-Ep.1:5) Further, Jesus says, “This Workbook is a beginning, not an end.” The Text and Workbook are meant not to bring us to the end of our journey but rather to train us in the proper way to travel, to develop proper habits of spiritual practice. We are one with God, just as Jesus is, and all our learning is designed to help us unlearn everything that tells us anything different.

Assignment: Lessons 355-361. Read Text Chapter 13, Section V: The Two Emotions.

Practical Application: Before you rise each morning and before you go to sleep each night, envision yourself surrounded and suffused with the Light of God—in a protective golden bubble of divine protection. Then imagine that all the seeming parts and pieces, all the seemingly separate beings of the universe are one living organism. Just as your physical body is a universe unto itself, with the interworking of all its systems, your eternal “body” is one cooperative unit. Begin to envis

CIM Lessons 341-347 and Miracles Principle #50

Miracles Principle #50—“The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.” Here is the difference between making and creating. The miracle compares what we have made, which is the physical world, with creation. There are certain things we do in this world that are in accord with creation, such as joining with people. It is not creation, but it is in accord with creation because it follows the principle of oneness. Truth is only of spirit, what God created, but anything we do that unites us with each other reflects the truth of heaven. The miracle occurs when we “see” that the person who seems to be attacking is really calling out for love. You don’t deny what your eyes see; you just shift your interpretation.

Lesson 341—“I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe.” Whenever I attack anyone, I attack myself. When I see sin in another, my own sinlessness is being attacked, and only that keeps me safe. How does my acknowledgment of my sinlessness keep me safe? It contains the recognition of Who I am, which contains the power of God.

What Is a Miracle? “A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all.” (1:1-2) We tend to think of a miracle as some amazing change in the way things are, but a miracle merely adjusts a mistaken assessment of what already is. We don’t need to become sinless; we already are sinless. The miracle looks on the illusion of sin we have laid over our innocence and reminds us that it is an illusion. We do see devastation in this world, but the miracle reminds us that what we see is false because God, Who is Love, did not create anything capable of destruction.

Lesson 342—“I let forgiveness rest upon all things, for thus forgiveness will be given me.” The key to freedom is in my hands. As I forgive, I receive forgiveness—not from God as a reward for my “good behavior”—but from myself! Forgiveness really means no more than that I “let creation be as You would have it be and as it is.” In every instant today when I face the choice between judgment and forgiveness, I’m standing at Heaven’s gate, holding the key in my hand, wondering if I should go in.

Lesson 343—“I am not asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God.” To the ego, the notion of Oneness necessarily asks for sacrifice of individuality. Yet the whole idea of sacrifice is foreign to CIM, “a notion totally unknown to God. “(T-3.I.4:1) Conventional Christianity says I must suffer to attain Heaven. I must pay for my mistakes. Course says I am asked to sacrifice “nothing”—all that will pass away—for everything! This lesson reminds me that God only gives. He never takes away! As I was created, I remain, eternally—eternally a thumbprint of God. Created in God’s image, it is in giving that I am magnified.

Lesson 344—“Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.” What if I truly realized that what I give to others will be left to me in the end? What if I recognized that everything I try to hold onto for myself alone will be lost? How would that change the way I live? The lesson is referring to my gifts of love and forgiveness rather than to anything physical. I am inextricably and totally linked to all others. If I allow suspicion, judgment, and contempt into my thoughts, my experience will be that I will feel suspect, judged, and held in contempt.

For the next few weeks, let’s try to really get a handle on what this is saying. Let’s STOP AND THINK before we judge our neighbor or co-worker or relative or friend’s cries for love. Remember: I Am LOOKING IN A MIRROR! Let me look gently and with love.

Lesson 345—“I offer only miracles today, for I would have them be returned to me.” Again, what I give is returned to me. The fairness of God’s Universe is impeccable. Realizing this is so, let me decide as this day starts, as every day starts, to offer only what I want.

Lesson 346—“Today the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except His Love.” All there is to do is to be happy, to accept God’s love. As I read this lesson, let me suspend my judgment, just for a moment, that this is all too simple. All my strain and struggle comes from my resistance to this idea. I still harbor a fear of loss. It feels as if I’m giving up something valuable when I give up my struggle. Yet all I’m giving up is pain. What if I simply started focusing on being happy? What if I let go of my insistence that things should “be different?” Only my insistence that I’m not worthy of Your Love keeps me from enjoying it in every moment. What if I give Your promise of unconditional Love a genuine try? What if I actually allow myself to experience the truth or falsity of it—and begin to let go of my deep investment in my own unworthiness?

Lesson 347—“Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me.” The previous lesson was about miracle-mindedness. Today, we see why we don’t always experience that state of mind. We actively keep it away from us with thoughts of judgment and attack. Today, let me straighten my mind by giving all my judgments to Spirit and asking Spirit to judge for me. Spirit will show me that what I see does not mean what I think it means. He will use what I thought proved guilt to reveal innocence.

Assignment: Lessons 348-354. Review the Fifty Miracles Principles. Bring questions to class. Read as you are led by Spirit.

Practical Application: Make a list of things you LOVE about the people you interact with or think about this week. Remember as you do this that you are looking in a mirror. These are YOUR traits and qualities, too! Isn’t it wonderful?

CIM Lessons 334-340 and Miracles Principle #49

Miracles Principle # 49: “The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness.” This is a restatement of Miracles Principle #1: “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.” The miracle corrects all errors, regardless of what they look like, because errors are all the same. When we believe one thing is more difficult than another, we are falling into the ego’s trap. We are making the body real and making it the focus of attention. The body has only one purpose—to convey God’s Love.

Lesson 334—“Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.” This lesson is about not wasting anymore time chasing after the “treasures” the ego dangles before us. There is a verse in Ecclesiastes that says all our seeking is like trying to hold on to the wind. The illusions of the ego can never satisfy the Son of God. Only that which is eternal can satisfy me. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot) Let me remember that what I truly want is the peace and abundance of God in my heart. Every encounter today offers me a chance at that peace and abundance.

Lesson 335—“I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.” This continues yesterday’s lesson about decision and choice. What we see results from choices we’ve made about what we believe. The misperception happens like this: I see guilt in myself. I want to get rid of it, so I project it onto a brother. I think this will ease my own feelings of guilt, but rather, it magnifies them. Correction happens in reverse: I realize I’m not at peace and therefore I must have decided wrongly. I decide to see my brother as innocent. When I’ve truly made that choice, I’ll see myself as innocent, too. Seeing one another as guiltless restores the memory of God to us.

Lesson 336—“Forgiveness lets me know minds are joined.” CIM speaks of the idea that minds are joined as something that is experienced in a holy relationship. In a holy relationship, the members of that relationship regularly practice forgiveness with one another. The result is that the relationship becomes “a reflection of the union of the Creator and His Son.” (T-22.VI.14:1-5) The idea that forgiveness is related to the experience of Oneness is not intuitively obvious. Our perception tells us we are separate in myriad ways. Forgiveness opens the way to an experience that takes us beyond perception and shows us the underlying unity that perception cannot see. In the experience of union with another person, we begin to remember our union with God.

Lesson 337—“My sinlessness protects me from all harm.” This lesson is about accepting the Atonement. There are only two steps to the full knowledge of complete happiness and invulnerability:

1.     Realize I need do nothing of myself. (God does it all through us.)

2.     Accept what God has already done. (God made All That Is, including me, perfect.)

All the turmoil we experience comes from thinking we lack something and therefore we have to do something to get it. We feel unhappy and set out to seek some “thing” or someone to make us happy. Unhappiness, however, is not a condition of lack. It’s a condition of denial. We block out the awareness of Love’s presence and abundance. We think the solution is to do something when, actually, it’s to stop doing, to end the activity that is obscuring our happiness. That is one of the values of meditation. When we stop the mental activity, happiness can shine through.

Lesson 338—“I am affected only by my thoughts.” This is a key Course concept, repeated over and over again: “I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.” (T-21.II.2:3-4) Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing is beyond you.” (T-10.In.1:1) CIM says accepting this is foundational to our release from suffering.

The realization that there is nothing outside me threatening me in any way at first may induce guilt—because if no one else is doing this to me, I must be doing it to myself, and that seems a horrendous admission to make. In actuality, however, the realization that I am affected only by my own thoughts brings my release from fear and suffering.

Even though I know the truth of this lesson, I will still have frightening thoughts. That is not anything to be concerned about. When such thoughts surface I can learn to shrug and tell myself, “So, I still have an ego. What else is new?” Today let me be willing to recognize my fear thoughts rather than denying I have them, so that with the help of Spirit, I can allow them to be exchanged for happy thoughts of Truth.

Lesson 339—“I will receive whatever I request.” This can be an upsetting idea because it means whatever I have received, I’ve requested on some level. Why would anyone “request” misery and pain? Nobody wants pain, but nevertheless, we do request it. The lesson explains that I’m confused about what I want. I can secretly believe that freedom is threatening. I can secretly believe that love is threatening. Perhaps you’ve had the thought: This is too good to last. We really do think too much joy is threatening. And we value our suspicions. We cherish our defenses. We’re afraid of simply opening up to joy. So, quite unconsciously most of the time, we request separation and unhappiness.

But we can change our minds. We can begin, consciously, to choose the joy of God instead of pain. When pain arises, we can accept the fact that we are choosing it and choose again. We can say, “Oops! I’m doing it to myself again.” Stop a moment and adopt this mindset. Accept responsibility for your pain and choose again.

Lesson 440—“I can be free of suffering today.” Workbook lessons 221-365 are meant to be used as brief introductions to the holy instants of direct experience of the Truth. The “words of inspiration” refer to the prayers in each lesson. The idea is that we read the lesson and think about it a minute or two. Then, we repeat the prayer that invites God to join us. Then we wait quietly until we’re aware of God’s presence. Perhaps my holy instant won’t last more than an instant or two. But even if I forget or “lose” the experience, the memory will remain and sustain me, transforming my day. There is no need for anxiety because God has promised we cannot lose our way back to Him—because we never left Him.

Assignment: Lessons 341-347 and Miracles Principle #50. This is the last miracles principle. Please review all fifty principles this week and try to be sure you understand their meaning. If not, please bring your questions for discussion in class.

Practical Application: Meditate on some pain, disappointment or seeming lack in your life. Consider accepting responsibility for choosing this situation. Then consider choosing God’s peace instead. What would that “look” like? What would you be saying and/or doing differently?

CIM Lessons 327-333 and Miracles Principle #48

Miracles Principle #48: “The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all.” Revelation is not a correction but rather an experience. Revelation unites us directly with God. The miracle is a correction. The miracle undoes the belief in separation, allowing us to recall our Oneness with All That Is. A miracle is any expression of love. Expressions of love shift our perception, so that we see God’s Reality rather than the ego’s illusions.

Lesson 327—“I need but call and You will answer me.” The bottom line of this lesson is “Here are God’s promises; try them, and prove to yourself that He means what He says.” It tells us we can “learn from . . . experience that this is true” (1:3), that we can take God’s promises and “test them out.” We can sit around discussing the principles of the Course till the cows come home and learn nothing. But if we try the principles out, test them, CIM promises it will change the way we think about everyone and everything. It will bring us peace.

Even as we sit in our weekly discussion groups, comments make it apparent that we’re still judging, still feeling like victims when CIM has told us over and over again that we make the world we see. Jesus says we are far too lazy about the thoughts we allow to take root and produce after their own kind. As long as we insist on holding on to our judgments, we’re going to see chaos and disharmony. Try it this week! When you are tempted to judge anyone (including yourself) or anything, call on Spirit to help you see things in a different way.

Lesson 328—“I choose the second place to gain the first.” When we consider choosing to join our will with God’s, it seems like some kind of loss, a submission to something outside ourselves. It seems like taking “second place.” In our mistaken identity as egos, we feel the only way to have autonomy is to make ourselves independent from God and from the rest of God’s creation. All that we experience by asserting our independence is “sickness, suffering and loss and death.” (1:3) We are like a branch severed from the tree expecting to survive. It ain’t happening! Our identity isn’t lost by joining it with God; it’s found!

Lesson 329—“I have already chosen what You will.” Not only is choosing God’s Will the only way to find our true autonomy (yesterday’s lesson), we have already made that choice. We may think we’ve wandered away from God’s Will, defied it, and broken its laws (1:1), but we have not. We cannot. Because we are the will of God, “extended and extending.” (1:2) When did we make this choice that we seem to be unaware of? In the very instant of our creation. (1:5) When we came into being, we were the extension of God’s will. Our choice was already made, and made “for all eternity.” We cannot change that. We can make up an illusion in which we appear to have a separate will from God’s, but we cannot make it real. This fact is our safety. The unity of God is unbroken, now and forever.

Lesson 330—“I will not hurt myself again today.” Whenever I think I’m less than what God created, I hurt myself, and only myself. I do no real damage, but I have the entirely realistic illusion of pain, sacrifice, and suffering. All my physical and emotional senses confirm its reality; only the vision of Christ sees past the illusion. The way toward that deliverance is to understand that “life is but a dream” as the old song says, and we are the writers, producers, and actors in that dream. Let me observe my thoughts, what I’m writing and producing today, and how my experience changes when I give my unloving thoughts to Spirit to correct.

Lesson 331—“There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.” CIM says nothing we do can affect God’s love for us or the reality of our perfection. Many fear this information could be used to justify any kind of vile behavior. The truth is that when we realize our Oneness, we no longer feel the need or the desire to attack another. When we realize that we have all because we are all, that the eternal fountain of abundance is within us, there is no need or desire to covet or to steal or to numb ourselves into oblivion. The truth is that we can trust ourselves when we realize the ego is not who we are. But we must first see the ego for what it is. It operates in a secretive, stealthy fashion. As long as we don’t know what our “enemy” is, we’ll be run by fear. We have to get to the pace where we can see clearly, “Oh, that’s just the ego, it’s just me thinking I’m separate.” Then we can let it go.

What is the ego? “The ego is idolatry.” (1:1) Idolatry is the worship of a false god. That’s what the ego is—an insane attempt to make real an identity that is apart from God and intended to replace Him in our awareness. The ego is “the sign of a limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death.” (1:1) The ego is not some “thing” inside of us, some sort of evil twin, the dark side of our soul. The ego is the whole concept of a separated self that is set apart from “other selves.” Changing our self-concept from ego to spirit doesn’t mean that this separate self, which was “evil,” now becomes “good.” It means that this seemingly separate self is replaced by something completely inclusive. I cease to be “I” in the way I thought I was. The ego sees God’s will as enemy because God is “other,” something different and separate from itself. Since God is a very powerful “other,” His will represents a threat against which we feel we must struggle. We know a child is beginning to develop an ego when he begins to say “no” every time you say “yes.” The ego is a big “no” to God and His Will.

Lesson 332—“Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.” Fear and unforgiveness are the same. Our fear is rooted in guilt. Our primal fear is of punishment for what we believe we’ve done wrong. Our belief in our sin produces guilt, and that guilt produces fear. The fear “binds” us. It’s a restrictive emotion. Forgiveness, which undoes guilt, thus sets us free. The belief in sin is the ego’s fundamental illusion. The truth about us is that we are guiltless. Forgiveness doesn’t attack sin and guilt. It gently shines them away. When I exercise forgiveness, the realization of the freedom and power of my mind comes more quickly. When I realize the picture of sin I’m seeing in my brother is of my own making and that I can choose to see it differently, I am reclaiming my power as God’s Son.

Lesson 333—“Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.” This is a magnificent lesson! It states unmistakably, in very certain terms, that we cannot dodge correcting our mistaken thoughts of conflict. Each one must be faced squarely and forgiveness applied. Our thoughts of conflict “must be resolved” (1:1). They will not simply go away. Our intent should be to see the ego conflict exactly as it is. In other words, to recognize the hatred, attack, self-isolation, grandiosity, and anger exactly for what they are. To stop playing innocent. Only when we are willing to go through this kind of ruthless self-examination, taking total responsibility for our own thoughts, will the defenses of the ego be resolved and the truth be free to shine them away. The conflict has been unreal—illusion fighting illusion, fear reacting to fear. And with that realization, my own guilt melts, and the way of return to God is open.

Assignment: Lessons 334-340. Miracles Principle #49. Read as you are led by Spirit.

Practical Application: Spend some time in self-examination this week. Look at those relationships that still need some work.

Ask yourself:

What am I afraid will happen if I forgive this person?

Would I accuse myself of what I’m accusing him/her of?

What is the “payoff” to me to continue to try to hold this person in hell?

What am I losing or forfeiting to continue to try to hold this person in hell?

If I knew today was the last day I would spend on earth, would I do things differently? 

CIM Lessons 320-326 and Miracles Principle #47

Miracles Principle #47: “The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.” Though the miracle appears within the dimension of time, it collapses time or lifts us above the world of time. When we choose to forgive, we can work through a huge chunk of guilt—a process that could take us a thousand years—in an instant. The miracle is the means that Spirit uses to teach us that we are not the victims of the world.  I can be treated unfairly only by myself, and for that I’ve already been forgiven. Thus, healing doesn’t take time, only realization.

Lesson 320—“My Father gives all power unto me.” These words paraphrase words spoken by Jesus shortly after the resurrection: “All power is given unto me.” (Mt. 28:18) In this lesson, Jesus puts these words into our mouths. It is an indication of the equal plane on which Jesus places us with him. All of us, along with Jesus, are the equal sons of God and all of us have the limitless power that God endowed us with at creation. Sweet Spirit, let me examine my thoughts today for beliefs in limits that hold back Your power working in me and through me. Let me recognize them as false, and open myself to Your limitless power.

Lesson 321—“Father, my freedom is in You alone.” This lesson, like many in this last part of the Workbook, is written from the perspective of a person entering the last stages of the journey home. It is the song of one whose uncertainty has ended, whose decision for the Kingdom of God is strong and clear. These are the words of one who has realized the peace of God is all he wants.  Most of us don’t feel this absolute confidence or commitment as yet.  We’re along about NC on a trip to Canada. We’re not at our destination yet, but we’re well on our way.

What Is Creation? CIM speaks often of “your creations,” yet never clearly says exactly what those creations are. It tells us our creation process continues unabated despite our unawareness of it, and that the Holy Spirit saves all our creations for us. There is an image of us entering Heaven and being greeted by all our creations. We have a fundamental misconception that makes it difficult for us to understand what creations are. We think God created this world. Therefore, when we think of creation, we think of something material and concrete. Yet CIM clearly tells us this entire world is an illusion, so how could our creations be here? My creations are not objects. They are thoughts. “Thoughts,” in this lesson, is capitalized, so we know this refers to God’s Son, the Christ. In the physical realm, we’re not used to equating thoughts and living beings. We don’t think of living beings as “only” thoughts. But CIM teaches us that we are only Thoughts in God’s Mind. “You are not a body.” (W-pI.91.5:2) We are something wholly other than material. We are spirit. We are thought.

Lesson 322—“I can give up but what was never real.” I can’t give up anything real: “As You created me, I can give up nothing You gave me.” The whole idea of sacrifice is alien to God. Oh, we are asked to give up things. CIM even asks us to give up the entire world. But not to sacrifice. The point of this lesson is quite simple: “I sacrifice illusions; nothing more.” (1:1)

Lesson 323—“I gladly make the sacrifice of fear.” Yesterday’s lesson ended with “What loss can I anticipate except the loss of fear?” and today’s lesson picks up on that idea. So . . . all I’m going to lose is fear? I can live with that! Losing fear is no sacrifice. I will lose my fear with pleasure. It may seem I’m being asked to give up some pleasant and valuable things, but all I’m really being asked to give up is “all suffering, all sense of loss and sadness, all anxiety and doubt.” (1:1) As I ponder this, let me remember I’m not letting go of anything real. All I’m doing is “letting go of self-deception and of images I worshipped falsely.” (2:1) When “fear has gone . . . only love remains.” (2:4) So why would I not “gladly make the ‘sacrifice’ of fear”?

Lesson 324—“I merely follow, for I would not lead.” Learning to follow my Inner Guidance is the goal of the Course. That Voice is the Voice for God in me. I am well served to learn that I am not on my own. God has set every step of my “journey.” As I look back with God, I know this is true. Nothing I’ve ever done has been anything but for my highest good. It has all worked together perfectly to get me exactly where I am now. What I thought were detours away from God were really lessons bring me closer to Home, and I am grateful for them all. Though the time I’ve spent wandering seems long indeed, put in the perspective that we are eternal, that time is literally nothing, a fragment of a dream.

Lesson 325—“All things I think I see reflect ideas.” This lesson is perhaps the best single summary of CIM’s theory of perception. Everything I see is a projection. By this analysis of perception, we see absolutely nothing real with our physical eyes. All that we see “reflects a process in my mind” and nothing more than that. As an earlier Workbook lesson says, “I have given everything I see . . . all the meaning it has for me.” As we choose what we believe, a testament to that world arises in our sight. What we really want is the ideas of God reflected in our world, rather than our own error thoughts and fears. Today, I don’t want dreams; I want God’s Reality.

Lesson 326—“I am forever an Effect of God.” The cause determines what the effect is. If I strike a billiard ball with my cue stick, the ball has no say in where it goes. If I am an Effect of God, and I am, I have no say in determining what I am. What I am is determined by my Cause. This is why it’s true that “as You created me I have remained.” (1:3) Does this preclude free will? Yes, it does, insofar as determining what my nature is. And thank God it does! Otherwise, I would have irretrievably damaged myself and made sin and hell into realities. Free will, as the Course says in its introduction, doesn’t grant us the right to “establish the curriculum.” It only grants the freedom to choose when we will learn/accept the truth of what we are in God’s mind. God’s will is “to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. (1:5) What an amazing statement! If God is Love, so is His Son. “God is but Love, and therefore, so am I.” (Lessons 171-180.)

Assignment:  Lessons 327-333 and Miracles Principle #47. Read as directed by Spirit.

Practical Application: When you have spare moments this week, sitting at a stoplight, stirring your soup—whatever—review in your mind the attributes of God according to your understanding. (Ex., “God is love, God in non-judgmental, God is joy,” etc.) After each statement, substitute the words “I am . . .(I am love, I am non-judgmental, I am joy,” etc.) So it goes like this:

“God is love. I am love.”

“God is nonjudgmental. I am non-judgmental.”

God is joy. I am joy.”

CIM Lessons 313-319 and Miracles Principle #46

Miracles Principle #46: “The Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are temporary communication devices. When you return to your original form of communication with God by direct revelation, the need for miracles is over.” Holy Spirit communicates from God to us. He is the mediator between reality and the dream. When we are all finished with our dream/experiment of separation and have forgiven everyone including ourselves, we no longer need the Holy Spirit as a link to God. We are then restored to awareness of perfect Oneness and direct communication with God. The miracle and the Holy Spirit have meaning only within the separated world.

Lesson 313—“Now let a new perception come to me.” The vision of Christ “beholds all things as sinless.” (1:1) To see all things as sinless is not something I need to strive to do; it’s a gift, given to me by God. I need only to be open to receive it. When I perceive sin, what I can learn to do is to ask for a different perception. “Now let a new perception come to me.” I can want this new perception, and this is all that’s required of me. Christ—Who is my true Self, eternal and changeless—already “sees no sin.” There is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go; we’re already there. All that’s required is the recognition of what is already true.

What is the Last Judgment? “The final judgment on the world contains no condemnation.” (2:1) Most of us have been taught for generations that in the Last Judgment God will separate the “sheep” from the “goats,” the “wheat” from the “tares”—the good guys from the bad—and send the bad guys into everlasting hell. When we envision standing before God in the Last Judgment, we get a little nervous because we know we’re not perfect. How can there be no condemnation in the Final Judgment? Because God knows He created only perfection. Our Creator “sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin and wholly purposeless.” (2:2) This idea, that the world is “wholly purposeless,” obviously cannot be squared with the idea that God created the world. Would God create anything without purpose? Have you ever looked at the world and thought it was fundamentally without purpose? The endless progression of birth and death doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. We struggle through life, attain what we can, and then we die. Seen without purpose, we can consider letting it go and be willing to be willing to consider that our true home is in God.

Lesson 314—“I seek a future different from the past.” In the ego’s perception, the future is only the result of the past. To the Holy Spirit, “The future now is recognized as but extension of the present” (1:2). What we choose to perceive and believe in the now determines what the future will be like. The future is not determined by the past. By letting go of the past, I bring into being a future different from the past. Without remembrance of the past, fear can have no effect. Let me “choose to use the present to be free” (2:1) The more I practice bringing my fears and hurts to Spirit for healing in the moment, the more peace will extend itself outward into my day. Let me choose to leave past mistakes behind and leave the future in God’s hands.

Lesson 315—“All gifts my brothers give belong to me.” In Lesson 97 we’re told that Spirit will multiply our gifts “tens of thousands” of times—plural tens, so that means as much as ninety million times! The numbers are probably just symbolic of an extremely large number, but Jesus makes it quite clear that an unimaginably large number of minds will be affected by our choice. Every mind that’s open to receive will receive our gifts. In this lesson, we’re given the opposite side of the coin. For all those millions who are open, and who, like us, give the gift of their mind to God for a moment, we, in turn, receive their gifts. All minds are joined, and so this cosmic exchange within the greatest “Internet” in the universe is going on all the time. Everyone is wired in.

Lesson 316—“All gifts I give my brothers are my own.” This lesson is obviously reinforcement to yesterday’s. We not only receive a gift every time one is given by someone else—a smile, a word of mercy, and act of love—but also we receive a gift each time anyone else receives a gift! Our treasure house is full! If we feel uncertain how to go about claiming and recognizing all these treasures, we can join in the prayer that closes this lesson.

Father, I would accept Your gifts today. I do not recognize them. Yet I trust that You Who gave them will provide the means by which I can behold them, see their worth, and cherish only them as what I want.

Lesson 317—“I follow in the way appointed me.” “I have a special place to fill; a role for me alone.” (1:1) There is something that is meant specifically for me to do, and until I find and fulfill my part, “salvation waits.” My particular twist on the insanity of separation needs to be healed before healing is complete. But how do I know what my special function is? Ask Spirit. As a clue, you can know that whatever your function is in some way involves alleviating guilt, some way of recognizing and validating the Christ in those around you.

Lesson 318—“In me salvation’s means and end are one.” The goal of salvation is what I already am, and the vehicle for bringing about salvation (happiness) is also what I am. I am what salvation is, and I am the way to get there. Salvation is the recognition of Oneness and therein the recognition of our purity and wholeness. I am the thing I seek because I have been It since I was created. I don’t need to change. I need to accept what I (and my brother) have always been.

Lesson 319—“I came for the salvation of the world.” CIM is very clear that our purpose here, every one of us, is the salvation of the world. This is quite different from the purpose for which the ego came to the world, which was to find a place that God could not enter, a place to hide from God, so to speak, and eventually, a place to die. But Spirit has a different purpose for everything the ego made for its nefarious purposes. Our purpose here is to bring the world back to light by allowing ourselves to be transformed, becoming God’s extension into the dream to awaken our brothers along with ourselves. I am here to help. I am here to heal. I am here to bless. I am here to save the world.

Practical Application: This week think about what others could do to make you feel whole and worthy and loved. Then look for opportunities to do those things for others. Think Random Acts of Kindness. We’ve had this assignment before, but it can’t be too often repeated.

Assignment: Miracles Principle #47. Lessons 320-326. Focus your reading in The Teacher’s Manual. We’ll be focusing on the Manual for the remainder of the year—which is almost over!

CIM LESSONS 299-312 AND MIRACLES PRINCIPLES #44 AND #45

Miracles Principle # 44: “The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His Atonement.” We are all one in Christ. The miracle is the awareness of the Christ within, which simultaneously brings to our awareness our Oneness with All That Is.

Miracles Principle #45: “A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.” Think of the model of the hologram, where we are all joined, and all the dimensions of time and space are in each part.  There is no way we can ever grasp the power of what it means to let go of our grievances or let go of our beliefs in separation. “When I am healed, I am not healed alone.” (W-pI.137) This affects not only people who are “here,” but also people who have “died.” Time is not linear, and we are joined in one mind as in the hologram, regardless of the particular dimension of time and space we believe we or others are in. The only thing CIM asks us to do is to accept the At-one-ment for ourselves. The extension of that miracle is not our concern.

Lesson 299—“Eternal holiness abides in me.” Sometimes I can accept the idea that there is holiness in me. I want to accept it more often and more deeply. I want to know that holiness is all that I am. When I am aware of my union with God, that holiness becomes real to me. CIM repeats this point so frequently that I have to realize there is enormous resistance in me to the idea. How can I release this resistance? This day, I affirm that my holiness is not of me (2:1) I’m not responsible for creating it, nor can anything I do, think, or say affect it. God wills I know it and so it will be known. I now allow the truth of me to enter my mind, if only for a moment.

Lesson 300—“Only an instant does this world endure.” This lesson wraps up a series of 10 days in which we’ve been contemplating the idea: “What is the Real World?” The thought for today is the flip side of the “holy instant.” This world is nothing more than an “unholy instant.” The idea for today could be taken negatively, with a focus on the transitory nature of life. On the other hand, the brevity of this world’s existence can be a very encouraging thought. This world is nothing more than a cloud crossing the serenity of my right mind. Let me then seek that serenity now and every time today I can remember to do so.

Lesson 301—“And God Himself shall wipe away all tears.” The title of this lesson is a quote from the Book of Revelation (verses 7:17 and 21:4). We’ve all shed plenty of tears in our lives. How can God wipe away these tears? When I look around with my “normal perception,” it seems impossible not to shed tears for the suffering and unfairness of life and death.  CIM’s answer is that I will choose to no longer look at the world with “normal perception,” but rather with a new kind of vision that I ask for and allow. The vision of the Christ within me. I will begin by allowing myself to imagine how it would feel to know that all the ugliness of the world is nothing but a bad dream. Nobody was really hurt. Only my projected images of fear and separation suffered. God’s Reality was never affected by the dream.

What is the Second Coming? CIM’s teaching of the Second Coming is drastically different from most orthodox Christian churches. Typically, the term refers to a second physical appearance by Jesus to be judge and ruler of the world. Here, the Second Coming is:

1)   The correction of mistakes. Instead of being a cataclysmic event that overthrows the devil in the battle of Armageddon, it’s a gentle correction of our mistaken beliefs in the reality of sin and separation. The old view saw evil as a real force, a will in opposition to God, a will that had to be combated and overcome. CIM teaches there is only one power, God the good, omnipotence.

2)   The return of sanity. The Second Coming is when each aspect of the mind of God’s Son, which has, in insanity, believed itself to be a separate being, is fully restored to its awareness of oneness with all other aspects of the one mind. As long as any part of the one mind is not healed, Christ’s wholeness is not manifest. No one can be excluded from the At-one-ment.

Lesson 302—“Where darkness was I look upon the light.” This is the change the shift in perception brings. What appeared as attack becomes a call for love. Insanity in a brother becomes an opportunity to bless. Stones I stumbled over become stepping stones. All things become lessons my Higher Self would have me learn. The sun is always shining beyond the clouds and darkness.

Lesson 303—“The holy Christ is born in me today.” The birth of Christ in me is what it’s all about. The evil self I made is passing away, and the Christ is being born. What I believed I am is not the truth. The truth of me is the Christ in me.

Lesson 304—“Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.” My world is the world I made to support my ego—the illusory world of separation and attack. The sight of Christ is a faculty that is native to all of us, part of our Being. Christ’s vision shows us reality and oneness, not the fragmented chaos we see with our physical eyes. The world, then, shows us only our own minds. What we see is what we want to see. Today, I will tune in to my natural, God-given desire to bless the world, and a blessed world is what I will see.

Lesson 305—“There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.” This lesson indicates that we judge and therefore resist the peace of God. I judge peace as inappropriate based on my perceived circumstances. Yet since nothing really exists that can take away the peace of God, my insistence that there is such a thing is a delusion chosen to excuse my refusal of God’s peace. There is something, Jesus is saying in this lesson, I think I’ll lose if I accept peace. What is it? It is the ability to justify attack against my brothers. If I simply accept peace, I’d have to give up, forever, the idea that anyone else can be blamed for my unhappiness.

Lesson 306—“The gift of Christ is all I seek today.” Often the closing lessons of the Workbook tell me I can enter the real world today. Yet these lessons appear to be speaking from a vantage point that is beyond my current reach. Most of the time, I don’t feel like I’m on the verge of reaching the end of the journey. One of the means for salvation CIM propounds is the holy instant. The holy instant is a brief interval in which I allow my mind to enter the real world, to reach another state of mind that is, in fact, my natural condition as God created me. I may not yet be able to sustain that state of mind, but I can taste it, and the more I taste it, the more I will realize this is where I want to stay.

Lesson 307—“Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.” “There is no other will for me to have” (1:2) except the Will of God. No other will exists. The idea that there could be something—the devil, myself, even part of myself—that is opposed to God is the root idea of separation. If no will but God’s exists, then “conflicting wishes cannot be my will.” The Jekyll and Hyde within myself must be an illusion. I must learn to accept that the desires in me that seem to conflict with my true Self are not real. In simple terms, I am as God created me. I have no choice in the matter.

Lesson 308—“This instant is the only time there is.” Time is an illusion. It does not flow from the past nor into the future. All there is, is now. One of the keys to reaching “past time to timelessness” (1:2) is in learning to experience now as the only time there is. This is one way of describing the holy instant. Pay particular attention to paragraphs 8 and 9 in regard to practicing the holy instant. Right now is the only time you can have the experience of being saved from time. Forgiveness lets the past go and focuses on the present. So, if you will forgive, you automatically enter the holy instant. Everyone is “equally released from what he made” (4:2) in the Second Coming, which is simply the willingness to let forgiveness rest upon all things without exception and without reserve.” (1:3)

Lesson 309—“I will not fear to look within today.” “I fear to look within because I think I made another will that is not true, and made it real.” If I look within, often the first things I see are the ugly, grungy things. I will see them, but the good news is that they are not true. All I’ve succeeded in making are illusions. The ugliness is a smoke screen, a mask the ego has placed over the face of Christ. If I will look at the “ugliness” with Spirit, He will translate it into truth about me.

Lesson 310—“In fearlessness and love I spend today.” All of my days are meant to be spent this way. Though I seldom do spend them this way, today I choose to do so. Today I will let a song of thankfulness rise up in me, increasing my awareness that I am joining an eternal song, sung by every part of God’s creation. Where there is love, there is no room for fear.

Lesson 311—“I judge all things as I would have them be.” We don’t have the equipment to judge. We don’t know enough to judge. Instead of attempting to judge anything, CIM asks us to “make a gift of it to Him Who has a different use for it.” (1:5) Another way of looking at it is that we allow Spirit to tell us what we truly want: to see the perfection of God’s creation everywhere and in everyone.

What is the Last Judgment? At the end of time, we shall know that “ . . .what is false is false, and what is true has never changed.” This is the Last Judgment. God’s Son is innocent. God’s love for YOU is always justified because God created you “wholly lovable and wholly loving.” (T-1.III.2:3)

Lesson 312—“I see all things as I would have them be.” This lesson pairs with the previous one. “Perception flows from judgment.” Judgment is synonymous with interpretation. First I want a thing to be true; I therefore judge or interpret what is around me according to that desire; and having judged (interpreted), I perceive what I wanted. It’s hard to admit that what I am seeing is what I wanted at some level of my mind. But I must first be willing to accept that this is true in order to see something different. If I want to see the real world, I will see it. I can look upon “a liberated world, set free from all the judgments I’ have made. (2:1)

Assignment: Lessons 313-319. Miracles Principle #46. Read as Spirit leads you.

Practical Application: This week, practice using the principle of denial. In traditional psychology, denial is described as avoidance of the truth—burying our heads in the sand. As a Truth Principle, denial is a means of rejecting or extinguishing false beliefs. This week when you find yourself judging yourself or others as unworthy, ugly, or grungy, say, “NO! This is NOT the truth. I am, you are, we are still as God created us. Whole and innocent.” This week when you are tempted to play victim, to blame someone or something for your misery, say, “NO! This is not the truth. God gave me complete dominion over my experience of the world. I accept that dominion now. Spirit, let me see this in a different way.” There’s no need to “parrot” the words here. You will have more success if you use words that feel natural or have meaning to you.  

CIM Lessons 292-298 and Miracles Principle #43

Miracles Principle #43: “Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind, or a state of miracles readiness.” This is referring to what CIM calls “right mindedness,” or moving from the ego to the Holy Spirit’s way of thinking. When we give up the ego’s way of thinking—attack, separation, etc.—and choose the Holy Spirit’s—forgiveness, unity, love—we begin to experience miracles. Our mind always brings us “witnesses” to our beliefs and state of mind.

Lesson 292—“A happy outcome to all things is sure.” When we experience the outcome of joy in all things is up to us. My experience of anything less than total joy is due to my own choice to “let an alien will appear to be opposing His.” If I am alike to God in every way, God and I have only one will. Yet all of us go around consciously or unconsciously disturbed by our feeling of resistance to God’s will. We study CIM and resolve to be more loving, more forgiving, and then we encounter a deep resistance to the entire idea, a seemingly immovable wall that won’t allow us to change. We focus on a brother that seems impossible to forgive despite all our efforts. Then we feel despair. We feel we can’t do it. Somehow we are incorrigible. Some part of our will is implacably opposed to God.

As long as we believe that this part of us, which seems opposed to God is real, Jesus is saying we won’t find the real world. We won’t find our escape. We won’t find the happy outcome to all things. We have to come to a point where we are simultaneously aware of that stubborn knot inside us and aware that it is not real. We have to get to the place where we see it, own it, and take responsibility for it, and yet do so entirely without guilt. To look on the ego’s darkness without guilt is possible only if, as we look, we abandon all belief in its reality. It’s all a dream. The ending of the dream is certain and is totally unaffected by the ego’s raging. There simply is no will but God’s will. The craziness of the ego is just a play of images in the mind and nothing more. The most potent force “against” the ego is the simple thought: “It doesn’t mean anything.”  Just bring resistance to the Holy Spirit and let Him handle it. Say, “Oops, I’m dreaming again.” And let it go.

Lesson 293—“All fear is past, and only love is here.” Fear comes from the past. When I make the past real, then I have fear. What I fear is that the past determines the future. If my past is filled with mistakes and “reasons” for guilt, and I consider it to be real, this generates my present fear of the future. The source of fear is making the past real in the present. To say the past isn’t real is a hard pill to swallow. A physical analogy helps me. Does an ocean wave exist? There is no such thing as a wave apart from the ocean. What we call a wave is no more than the play of physical energy on water. The water, the “ocean,” is what is real; the wave is here one moment, gone the next. It doesn’t exist in itself, independent of all else. The entire physical universe is nothing more than a wave in the mind. In this sense, nothing of the past is real. The past of a wave no longer exists as it “melts” back into the ocean. Where it passed now lies the placid and calm. Waves don’t change the ocean. Underneath all the sounds and fear and fury of the “waves,” the Oneness that We Are sings “hymns of gratitude.” The perception of the Holy Spirit is able to penetrate through the veneer of fear we’ve placed over reality. When we share Spirit’s perception, we realize the past is gone, and we see and hear what is here now, which is unity and love.

Lesson 294—“My body is a wholly neutral thing.” This lesson sums up CIM’s attitude towards the body. The body is “neither good nor bad”; it is neutral. Its only usefulness is awakening from the dream, communicating salvation. Accepting that the body is neutral protects us while it has a use. To the mind that is healed, the body is immortal until its work is done and then it is simply “laid aside” because it no longer has a purpose. How can we attain such a high state and gentle “death?” This lesson indicates that our path lies in gradually coming to see our bodies as “of service for a while and fit to serve, to keep its usefulness while it can serve, and then to be replaced for greater good.”

Lesson 295—“The Holy Spirit looks through me today.” In this lesson, we are asking that Spirit’s vision replace our own limited vision. As we give our lives to God, we begin to experience that rather than living, we are “being lived.” Spirit is looking through our eyes, speaking through our lips, thinking with our minds. It’s an experience of being taken up and carried through life by a limitless energy of love that is far greater than we can contain because it includes everything. Most times, we feel far from that, and yet we know somewhere deep inside that it is nearer to us as breathing. In a way, this lesson encapsulates the entire Course: to let Spirit look through me and bathe the world in love.

Lesson 296—“The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.” When I allow Spirit to look through me, sharing His perception, then He also speaks through me. Through me, Spirit communicates to my sisters and brothers. He speaks the exact words of healing and upliftment that each one needs to remember Who and What He is.

Lesson 297—“Forgiveness is the only gift I give.” What do I want to have? Whatever it is, the way to have it is to give it. The more I grow, the more I realize that “forgiveness is the only gift I want.” What could I possibly want more than absolute freedom from the burden of self-judgment? If this is what I want, let me give it to everyone today. My salvation is already accomplished. There is no need to be restless or anxious. I will realize my divine inheritance when I’m ready to realize it—all in Divine Order.

Lesson 298—“I love you, Father, and I love your Son.” Gratitude is what permits my love to be accepted without fear.  Gratitude is simply the acceptance of and thankfulness for God’s gifts. When I let go of what I thought I made and accept instead God’s gift of my true Self, suddenly my love for God and for His Son is no longer terrifying. All that makes it seem frightening are my vain attempts to make real what never was real and to hold on to my imagined separateness. I’m afraid of my love for God and His Son because I believe that if I give in to it, I will lose myself in the infinity of God. I will lose my “little self” in Him but not my true Identity.

Assignment: Miracles Principle # 44. Lessons 299-305. Read as Spirit leads you.

Practical Application: Try to remember what brought you joy as a child. Re-experience those simple pleasures. 

CIM Lessons 285-291 and Miracles Principle #42

Miracles Principle #42: “A major contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing you from your false sense of isolation, deprivation and lack.” We feel isolated from God and from each other. When we feel separate, we project the blame onto others. Deprivation is the feeling that you are depriving me of something I need or want. CIM says the secret of salvation/happiness is but this: that you are doing this to yourself and are free to choose again.

Lesson 285—“My holiness shines bright and clear today.” The only reason I experience pain or loss is that somewhere in my mind I think I deserve punishment. In some way, I think suffering is good for me. When I accept my holiness, the idea that suffering is necessary becomes poppycock. My mind has complete power to create the experience of life I want. Today I choose to create joy!

Lesson 286—“The hush of Heaven holds my heart today.” We are at home in God, dreaming of exile. We are all already in Heaven. In fact, we never left it. The Christ nature isn’t something I have to develop. The Christ nature is Who I am! If I feel I have to struggle and make difficult changes, I’m listening to the ego. My only problem is thinking that I have a problem! The thought that I don’t “have it yet” is the problem. In the stillness of today, I can taste the reality of the journey’s end, even in the midst of my traveling.

Lesson 287—“You are my goal, my Father. Only you.” This lesson comes from a very high place. It’s something that would be spoken by a person ready to live in the real world, a prayer from the heart of Christ within me. If I feel today I cannot say this without simple honesty, let me ask myself what gift I would prefer over the peace of God. Am I looking to find and keep something I think is more valuable than my own Identity? Recognizing my unwise goals is the beginning of wisdom.

Lesson 288—“Let me forget my brother’s past today.” I cannot come to God without my brother because my brother is me. We all have people we just can’t seem to let off the hook. But the bottom line is, I can’t see myself as having any gift of God that I’m not willing to give to everyone else. “You cannot be holier than your brother.” If I hold him to the past then I am held to the past.

Lesson 289—“The past is over. It can touch me not.” My mind is the cause of the world I see. Past events are not the cause of my feelings. Bringing thoughts of the past into the now cause my misery. When I recognize that my present feeling is caused by viewing the present events through the filter of a memory of the past, I can begin to detach my feelings from what is happening now. The past doesn’t exist. Only my thoughts of the past can affect me now, and so I drop them gladly into the Sea of Nothingness from which I dredged them. The forgiven world can only be seen now.

Lesson 290—“My present happiness is all I see.” If I continue to see through the eyes of the ego, I’m going to continue to see evil, guilt, and danger. If I keep doing what I’m doing, I keep getting what I’ve got. If I can stop for a moment looking at past or future, I will see my present happiness. I’m not being asked to bury my head in the sand. I’m being asked to willingly put on corrective lenses and see the world differently, as a witness to love, joy, and peace. As thoughts of the past or the future come up, I will let them gently float by. If I can do that, what I will discover is my present happiness. I don’t have to manufacture it because it already exists.

Lesson 291—“This is a day of stillness and of peace.” How do we find peace in the midst of the turmoil of the day? This lesson speaks of “Christ’s vision,” which “looks through me today.” (1:1) The peace being spoken of here is the peace that comes from a different perspective, an inner peace. Though my busy “doing” may not cease, my mind can be at peace in the midst of busy doing, a “quiet center” from which I operate. I do not have to understand everything perfectly or fix everything that appears broken. The Father within me is fully in charge of all that matters.

What Is the Real World? CIM’s discussion of the real world seems paradoxical. If there is no world, how can there be a “real” world? The real world is a symbol. Just as the word “tree” is not actually a tree, likewise, the real world is not the thing it represents. The real world symbolizes the opposite of what we made. We made separation; the real world symbolizes unity. We made fear; the real world symbolizes love. We made error; the real world symbolizes truth. The world itself is not the reality of anything. It merely stands for something that exists in the mind, as all perception does. It is the “outside picture of an inward condition.” What changes in the transformation made possible by Spirit is not the world itself, but how we see it; what it symbolizes for us. That is why CIM says this” “Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. (T-21.In.1:7)” The real world we seek then is not a changed world, but a changed perception of the world.

Assignment: Miracles Principle #43. Lessons 292-298. Read as directed by Spirit.

Practical Application: We’ve done this before but cannot do it too often. Find a time and a place where you can be quiet for a while. In your mind, list what you feel are your darkest “transgressions” one by one, pausing on each one and asking Spirit to help you see this in a different way. When you feel a sense of peace, which signals Spirit’s “answer,” mentally/visually drop that “sin” into the Sea of Nothingness from which you dredged it. Then move on to the next “transgression” and repeat the process.