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.