CIM Lessons 215-221 and Miracles Principle # 32

Miracles Principle #32: “I inspire all miracles, which are really intercessions. They intercede for your holiness and make your perceptions holy. By placing you beyond the physical laws they raise you into the sphere of celestial order. In this order you are perfect.”

The “I” in the first sentence is Jesus, which can also be thought of as your Higher Self, if you prefer. Jesus isn’t talking about intercessory prayer as it is usually thought of, or the mistaken idea that we need someone to intercede between God and us. The way he “intercedes” is between the holiness of Christ that we truly are and the self we believe we are, recalling to us the fact that we are holy and perfect and that everything else, whether we perceive something wrong in ourselves or in someone else, is merely part of the illusion.

By our choosing a miracle, which means we’re choosing to hear God’s Voice rather than the ego’s, our perceptions become holy. Holy perception is “the vision of Christ.” When we no longer see others as separate from us, we see through the eyes of Spirit. This doesn’t mean we deny our bodies, but we do deny that bodies have made us separate. When we recognize and experience our Oneness, we are no longer subject to the laws of the physical world but access and experience God’s perfection instead. In this manner, the miracle fleetingly restores to us the awareness of Who we are in God’s Reality.

Lessons 215-220 are review lessons and so will not be further discussed here.

Lesson 221—“Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.” Receiving healing occurs in listening, not talking. In this lesson, we are fostering an attitude of receptiveness. Jesus voices confidence here that we will hear God speak if we wait quietly. He asks us to accept his own confidence, telling us that his confidence is our own confidence. I find it helpful here to realize that Jesus symbolizes the part of my mind that is already awake, so his confidence really is my confidence. We wait in the quiet with only one goal: to hear His Voice speaking to us of what we are and revealing Himself to us. We are listening for an awareness of the purity and perfection of our own being as God created us, and an awareness of His Love and tender care for us.

But how can we hear a message without words? What we listen for is the “song of Love,” eternally sung, forever thrumming its harmony throughout the universe. It’s a song we hear wisps of in the eyes of our beloved, in the laughter of children, in the loyalty of a pet, in the expanse of a peaceful lake or the stately flowing of a river. It is the song to which all hearts resonate, showing their true nature.  It’s eternity calling us to dance. It’s the Father sharing Hs Love with His only Son.

What Is Forgiveness? This short essay doesn’t say that what your brother did has not occurred. Rather, it says, “What you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.” Big difference! CIM doesn’t ask us to deny that an event happened, but rather that we learn a different way to see ourselves in relationship to the event. I thought I was affected by it, hurt by it, damaged by it, whatever “it” was. But in fact I was not affected by what my brother did at all. I was affected, so CIM says, only by my thoughts.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean seeing someone or some event differently. It means seeing myself differently in relation to an event. When I forgive, what happens first is that I recognize I have not lost my peace because of what happened; I lost it because I chose to lose it. I decided at some point to let the peace of God go in my heart. The event then occurred to justify my loss of peace. I projected the loss of peace onto the event and said, “This is why I’m upset.” Once my thought in regard to myself has been corrected, I can see my brother is innocent. On the level of the physical world, he may indeed have done something despicable. I don’t have to approve of what he did, or like it, or put up with it like a doormat. However, his actions or words did not hurt me. My decision to disconnect from God’s peace manifested my experience and, therefore, my decision to re-connect with God’s peace can un-manifest it. (“I am the thinker that thinks the thoughts that make my world.”)

CIM teaches that we have identified incorrectly. We are not the ego with all its hurt feelings. We are not the body or its possessions.  To fully forgive, our identification with the body has to be overcome. Yet despite all our study, we have not yet attained this. This is completely normal! Before we can learn to forgive, we have to learn to recognize all the ways we still make pain real in our experience and belief—to recognize that we are the writers and producers of our life stories. This is the “bad” news, but more importantly, it’s the good news.

In closing, remember, “Forgiveness . . . is still, and quietly does nothing. . . It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.” Treat yourself that way! Get in touch with the part of you that doesn’t want to forgive, that doesn’t want peace. Look at it, and do nothing. Just wait without judging. It will disappear (in time) and peace will come of itself.

Assignment: Lessons 222-228. Miracles Principle #33. Text, read the “The Unbelievable Belief” and “The Dynamics of the Ego.”

Practical Application: This week, let’s experiment with the CIM principle “All that I do I do unto myself.” If we applied this one idea consistently, what a transformation there would be in our world. Use the list below to assess whether you’re treating “yourself” the best you possibly can.

How do I greet people on the telephone?

How do I respond to interruptions?

How do I regard people serving me in stores and restaurants?

How do I react to gossip?

How do I treat the poor or homeless people I encounter?

How do I regard the very rich?

How do I react to other drivers?

What do I say to others about my friends when they’re not present?

How attentively do I listen to others?

How do I generally react to others’ mistakes?

How often do I give positives, genuine compliments to others?