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.