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?