CIM LESSONS 110-116 AND MIRACLES PRINCIPLE #17

Miracles Principle #17: “Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal.” “Shifts into invisibility” simply means shifting focus from the body, or the external, to the mind, the source of all problems. The body is never the problem. Lesson 76 says, “I am under no laws but God’s laws.” CIM teaches that God did not make this world. We did. The mind made up physical laws—laws of gravity, of nutrition, of genetics, etc.—and we give those laws power by virtue of our individual and joint allegiance to them. Jesus says our faith can move mountains. Since our mind made up the mountain in the first place, why could we not move it? Many people are able to train their minds to move a glass or cup to another part of the table. If a cup can be moved, why not a mountain? Such mastery, however, does not give you peace of mind, nor does it bring you closer to God. All it does is enable you to get back in touch with the power of your mind. But it is the misuse of the mind that got us in trouble in the first place. That’s why CIM says it’s imperative to place our mind under the guidance of the One Who will never misuse it.

Lesson 110—“I am as God created me.” This is the Workbook’s premier lesson. We are reminded repeatedly that today’s idea is “enough” to save you; that it is “all you need.” This one thought, we are told, is not only enough to save ourselves but also to save the world. The primary idea is this: Nothing I have done has changed anything. Fear and evil, misery and death, have not occurred except in the dreams of the ego mind. I have not damaged anything. The tiny, mad idea to replace God on His throne accomplished nothing. I am still innocent, perfect love. I can trust my brothers, who are one with me, because I am as God created me and have never split from them. What I find within myself when I listen to the Voice for God is what all others are as well. Let me simply become aware of any thought that says different and allow Spirit to take that thought from me and return it to me anew. Again, this is how Heaven manifests on earth. Now I see through a glass darkly, but as I allow Spirit to cleanse my error thoughts, what I “see” and experience quite literally changes simultaneously.

Lessons 11-120 are review lessons.

Assignment: Read Introduction to Review III, Workbook pages 201-203, and Lessons 117-123. Read Text pp. 382-83 (The Happy Dream).

Practical Application: What we’re attempting as the practice time requirement continues to increase is to develop the habit of prayer without ceasing—noting when the mind is on “ego autopilot” and deliberately turning it back over to Spirit. A helpful question to ask in this process is, “What is it for?” As you make decisions throughout your day, check in with Spirit. Is the motivation behind your choice love or is it fear?

CIM Lessons 103-109 and Miracles Principle # 16

Miracles Principle # 16: “Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.” This is the same idea as Principle # 9. You will see that a lot of the principles are now going to repeat themselves. Like time, the miracle is a teaching device. It teaches that “to give and to receive are one in truth.” We are all the same—teacher and pupil; therapist and patient. The error the miracle has to correct is the error of thinking we are separate. The miracle, then, becomes an expression of our joining. Grasp this one, and your life instantly transforms!

Lesson 103—“God, being Love, is also happiness.” Happiness is an attribute of Love. They come or go together. The denial of happiness is the denial of God.  The Text (T-10.V.12:3-4) says that depression is blasphemy. The point of this is not to make us feel guilty. It’s just saying I’m hurting because I’m turning my back on God, on Love, on happiness. It’s not something outside myself that’s doing this to me. I’m sad because I think what I’ve made is real. I’m sad because I believe Love has limits. I’m afraid of Love’s “conditions.” I’m afraid Love will be withdrawn if I misstep somehow. How can I be joyful, even when things are “good,” if the rug can be pulled out from under me at any moment? Know this: Right now, without a single thing changing, the Love of God radiates to you without limit, without reservation or question. To know this is happiness.

Lesson 104—“I seek but what belongs to me in truth.” Today, I set aside the complex and focus on two very simple things: the joy and peace of mind by right of who I am. Today, I will not concern myself with profound metaphysical truths. I set aside the urgency of self-made goals, the self-imposed importance of everything I think I must do. I ignore the man-made standards by which I so often judge myself or allow others to judge me. Today, I reflect on my many blessings. I open myself with gratitude to God Who gave me these gifts. I honor Him by enjoying them.

Lesson 105—“God’s peace and joy are mine.” Today’s lesson expands yesterday’s by adding the thought that I receive my gifts by giving them. This idea runs all through CIM, but this lesson specifically identifies it as “a major learning goal.” By accepting God’s peace and joy as mine, I allow God to “complete Himself as He defines completion.” I experience this myself, in some small way, in giving to another. When I give in love, and it is received in joy, our love is strengthened. Shared love is a great joy. This is how God’s giving works, and we are meant to be part of it. This kind of giving is how we create and how we complete ourselves. To truly experience that God’s peace and joy are mine, I must open my heart to share peace and joy with others. And it begins with that person to whom my heart has been most closed. If I will open my heart for love to flow out, it will also flow in. As I open my heart, allowing peace, joy and love to flow out, what I’m doing is “letting what cannot contain itself fulfill its aim of giving everything it has away, securing it forever for itself.”

Lesson 106—“Let me be still and listen to the truth.” At first, today’s lesson doesn’t seem to follow yesterday’s theme on giving and receiving, but then it switches midway back to that theme. The first part of the lesson talks about what I’m listening for—the Voice for God correcting the error thinking of God’s “dear Son, whose other name is YOU.”  The thinking of the world tells me that to give is to lose. The Word of God tells me to give is to receive. To extend that same message to the world is the “ministry for which you came.” Again, as we’ve discussed, this does not mean banging on doors and evangelizing. This means living the principle day to day. This lesson also tells me that every time I pause for five minutes to be still and listen to the truth, one thousand minds are opened to the truth. Five minutes! Suppose I took that seriously and paused every hour as instructed. In the course of a day, fifteen thousand minds would open to the truth. What better investment of my time could I possibly make?

Lesson 107—“Truth will correct all errors in my mind.” This is the promise that gives me courage. An illusion that isn’t recognized as illusion causes me to react as if it were real. If I see an illusory “enemy,” that doesn’t make me bad or stupid. The reaction is appropriate, given what I believe to be the truth. But when I look at the illusion with Spirit, it disappears. The “holy instant” is that moment of unquestioned peace; a moment in which I realize the trials and fears I seem to go through are all part of the illusion. Jesus says it (salvation/happiness) will be mine; it already is mine. It is guaranteed. I am safe. I am steady. I am whole. Today I will bring to Spirit for correction any thought that tells me anything different.

Lesson 108—“To give and to receive are one in truth.” This lesson describes the state of One-mindedness where all opposites are resolved into “once concept that is wholly true.” When that occurs, the concept will disappear because “the Thought behind it will appear instead to take its place.” This is how Heaven manifests on earth. This is “a state of mind so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all.” It is the Christ mind, and from it comes my peace of mind. One of the most useful lessons we can learn while drawing on this state of mind is that giving and receiving are one and the same. Like all opposites, they aren’t truly opposite at all; they are a part of a unified spectrum of reality. Neither precedes the other. Both occur simultaneously. Quite literally, what we give, we receive. Immediately. There is no pause or delay. There is one act, and it contains both things. Cause and effect are one in Truth. 

We think of cause and effect in a linear fashion. I think what I do today will impact me in the future. That is an incomplete picture. In fact, there is no time delay at all. My thought of attack impacts on me now, just as my thought offering peace immediately makes me peaceful. I am constantly giving birth to the universe of my experience. There is nothing outside my mind. The world I see is just my thoughts given form.

Lesson 109—“I rest in God.” This lesson epitomizes what so many CIM lessons are trying to get me to do: simply take a little time out of my day to rest in God. The lesson tells me of wondrous things that come from willingness to take these times of rest. These moments of quiet are not for me alone. They are my mission for the world. Through them I am brining peace to every mind, including those who came in the past or haven’t yet come (see 2:5 and 9:5). Every time we rest in God, we heal the world. 

I envision myself as a cell in a cosmic body, a body that has been invaded by a deadly virus of disharmony, hatred, envy, sorrow and pain. As I take my time of rest, this cell produces antitoxins, the remedy for the virus: the peace of God. And the connecting current of our shared thoughts is the bloodstream that carries this antitoxin to other cells, who absorb it and begin, in turn, to produce more antitoxin. What greater purpose could I have?

Assignment: Miracles principle #17 (Text p.4); Workbook Lessons 110-116. Text read pp. 189-192—“The Denial of God.”

Practical Application: Here’s an experiment to test the truth of giving and receiving being one. Sit quietly, and mentally begin to send peace to everyone. Go through your list of family, of friends, and of “enemies,” sending peace to each and every one. Offer it to the world at large. “I offer you quietness. I offer you peace of mind. I offer you gentleness.“ (Based on Lesson 108). What we find as we do this is that, as we offer peace to others, we experience it ourselves.

What Jesus is telling us throughout CIM is that as long as we listen to the voice of ego, we will “see” and experience sin, attack, pain, sorrow and death. That is the ego’s method of convincing us there is no God—or that God has turned His back on us or is punishing us. Seeing is believing, right? I see “sin” on the 5:00 news and in the newspapers everyday. CIM tells us our physical eyes do not see at all. In fact, it tells us that believing is seeing. Take that quite literally and ponder it a while.

As we begin to turn over each unloving or troublesome thought to Spirit, what happens is that we literally begin to see a different world—a more loving and peaceful world. CIM calls this the Happy Dream. It is the state of mind preceding Heaven—the remembrance of Oneness.

Because each of us is a hologram—a “universe unto itself” within the All-ness—I can stand beside a man who is totally enmeshed in the hell of his ego and experience the Happy Dream. Where he sees murderers and pedophiles, I see wounded “children,” crying out, seeking the Love they believe they have lost forever. Like attracts like. If I believe the world is full of “low-lifes,” the universe will bring me witnesses to that belief, blessed and multiplied. I will see them everywhere I look. If, on the other hand, I believe in the inherent goodness of my fellow man, the Christ within each one, then that is what I will see and experience in my world. The more of us who focus on the latter, the more antitoxin we supply in the broken Body of the Son—the closer we bring it to healing.

CIM Lessons 96-102 and Miracles Principle #15

Miracles Principle #15: “Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.” This principle talks about the fundamental goal of CIM, which is to help us spend every hour of our day, all the days of our lives, continually seeing things as Spirit would have us see them.

The third lesson of the Holy Spirit (Chapter 6) is “Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom.” CIM is mind re-training. We are choosing to give up the petty battles of the ego. We are seeking another way of looking at life—the joy of Spirit’s miracle instead of the gloom and doom of the ego’s grievance.

The purpose of time is to teach me there is no time. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Nothing in the world is an end in itself because nothing in the world is real in itself. It is merely a teaching device. But don’t try to deny the world; that’s not what the Course teaches. Rather, our goal is to look at the world differently, through the eyes of the Christ within us all. Everything that occurs, to the extent that it pushes our buttons or upsets us in any way, becomes an opportunity to learn. The world is a classroom. Our individual lives are individual classes we take within the university. This whole path then becomes like a curriculum, and our individual experiences become specific classes we take to undo the guilt we have made specific. This is the purpose of the world, the purpose of time.

Lesson 96: “Salvation comes from my one Self.” Experiencing myself as divided is a universal experience. On one hand, I want to do the CIM practice because I want the peace and freedom it promises. On the other, I resist doing the hourly five-minute remembrances. It seems as if there are two selves in me, one wanting the light, the other holding onto the darkness.

My mind has duped itself into believing the reality of separation, of physical being. To this end, my mind has become the servant of my body, trying to devise ways to make my body comfortable, to pleasure it, to make it last forever, to keep it safe from harm. In doing this, my mind has lost its true function, which is magnifying Spirit. Through CIM, I am rediscovering myself as an extension of God. The Self CIM refers to isn’t something apart from me. It IS me!

You may ask, “What is it I’m waiting to hear as I sit for 5 minutes?” I can’t tell you. No one can. Remember the hologram. Though we are One, there is no One exactly like you-- no One with exactly the gift you bring. You are as unique within the whole as a fingerprint or eyeprint. Relax. Be patient. You will know your message when you hear it.

Lesson 97: “I am spirit.”  The One Self that CIM speaks of is spirit. To affirm, “I am sprit,” is to let go of all illusions of a split identity, of a good and bad self, and of all attempts I might make to reconcile the ego self that is bound to a body with the spiritual Self this is unlimited by a body.

CIM doesn’t attempt to unite so-called opposites—the seeming evil of Hitler and the seeming holiness of Mother Teresa. The “nondualism” of CIM affirms unity by declaring that all that seems to be opposed to holiness is illusion.

I love the part of this lesson that says that by doing this practice, “a thousand years or more are saved.” The Course presents itself as a means of saving time as we see it, and clearly teaches that any of us could wake up at any moment we choose. The attitude towards time that’s encouraged by Course is unconcern about it, since it is ultimately part of the illusion.

When we make our effort of 5 minutes for God, Spirit joins all of His strength with us. He takes the little we give and carries it around the world to every open mind. The gifts we give to Him are multiplied by a thousandfold or more. Take that literally or as a figure of speech. It doesn’t natter. The meaning is the same. What we give to Spirit is multiplied and spread to all minds because our minds are all joined.

Lesson 98: “I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.” How can I say doubts are gone? Of course, doubts are there, and Jesus knows that. He’s only suggesting that in these five minutes I spend with him, I lay them aside—see what it’s like. There is One within me that is always certain, and He is me. I have forgotten that. Today, I will allow myself, however briefly, to identify with His certainty. This is surrender. This is all I’m asked to do. It’s that simple. I just need to stop trying to make it on my own. I just need to let go and let God do His perfect work in and through me.

Lesson 99: “Salvation is my only function here.” Remember that CIM defines salvation as happiness. Separation, pain, grief, and death are not God’s Will for me. Such a belief stems from a subconscious fear that God is punishing me. Sometimes I’ve agreed that I deserve punishment. Sometimes I’ve denied I deserved it and accused Him of being unfair. Most often, I’ve simply been bewildered, wondering what I did to deserve my pain. Sure, I must have done something, but I’m at a loss as to what it might be. I’ve dissociated myself from the shame of “running away from Home.” I’ve forgotten this was a choice I made and that I’m free to choose again.

What lends my pain such sharpness is the underlying thought that He Whom my heart loves uncontrollably has not only turned His back on me but actively seeks vengeance. Because I believe my pain is His will, I can’t even take it to Him for comfort. Instead, I flee from Him. If I but let down my unwarranted defenses against God, I find the doorway to my release. God is not angry. Remember the story of the Prodigal. God is overjoyed at the prospect of my choosing to go Home.

Lesson 100: “My part is essential in God’s plan for salvation.” My part is God’s plan for salvation  (happiness) is to be happy. A good affirmation for today would be, “My joy heals.” I teach through my happiness. Nothing has to change for this to happen, because happiness does not depend on anything outside my mind.

Sometimes, I mistakenly think my happiness enables the errors of others. If someone is being cruel, and I continue to be happy, I seem to condone his cruelty. However, to be upset by cruelty doesn’t heal it. It makes it seem real. It’s far more healing to see cruelty as a cry for love. Within that “cruel” person is a longing he shares with me—an overpowering longing for God. My happiness in the face of cruelty teaches that the grounds for cruelty don’t exist. It doesn’t attack the symptoms of the cruelty; it undoes cruelty at its source. That source is fear. Fear that I’m not worthy. My job today is to release myself and everyone else from the heavy burden of thinking I’m more powerful than God—that I have defiled the eternal perfection God created me to be. 

My job today is to be happy. I am essential to God’s plan because my smile is the healing light of the world.  

Lesson 101: “God’s will for me is perfect happiness.” In CIM, salvation and happiness are synonymous. How starkly this contrasts with the common view of salvation—that I must pay for my sins. The notion of paying for sins is imbedded in my consciousness. One of the most subtle ways I know this is true is that I feel guilty when I’m happy. When a friend or family member is upset, I feel obligated to join them in their misery. Somehow it just doesn’t feel right or safe to be “too happy.”

Thinking, “This is too good to last” is also a symptom of this syndrome. The idea that I could be happy all the time seems ridiculous. Misery is a part of living, right? Wrong. Misery’s a choice. There is no need for penance because there is no sin. Instantly, the ego says, “If there’s no price to pay, sinners will go wild! Punishment is necessary to control evil!” Amazingly, what I learn when I refuse to participate in the ego’s game of sin and punishment is that it quietly fades away. Because everyone’s natural function and desire is to love and be loved. It is only in the face of perceived threat that the thought of attack emerges.

Lesson 102: “I share God’s Will for happiness for me.” The Self within me is always happy because God created it happy. So in these exercises, I’m not trying to “make myself happy” but rather to reach a preexistent happiness. Unfortunately, I still believe in the values of suffering. The lesson doesn’t expect us to be totally free of these beliefs at this point. But deep inside, I do at least question this belief. I don’t want to suffer. Yet, if I do, I realize I’ve chosen it on some level and have seen some value to me in that suffering. The message of this lesson in this regard is that pain is purposeless and without power to accomplish anything.

Unhappiness is my excuse for being less loving than God. How can I open my heart to you when I am unhappy? By being happy, I enable myself to wholly love.

Assignment: Lessons 103-109; Miracles Principle # 16; Text, pp. 272-274, “The Happy Learner.”

Practical Application: This week, pay attention to the message you are sending, both to yourself and others, through your facial and bodily expressions. Take a moment through out the day to inventory your body. Remind yourself to turn up the corners of your mouth. Studies have proven that the simple act of upturning the corners of our mouth releases healing endorphins, natural painkillers and mood elevators. When you notice your shoulders are slumped, pull them back. When your hands are clenched into fists, open them. If you’re leaning forward in an aggressive stance, fall back. No eye rolling. No sucking teeth.  ;--D

CIM Lessons 82-88 and Miracles Principle # 13

Miracles Principle #13:”Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.”

 CIM teaches that when the “separation” began, in that one instant, the entire world of evolution occurred (Text, Ch. 26, Section V). In that one instant that we believed we’d separated from God, it was as if a huge imaginary carpet spun out. This “carpet” constitutes the entire world of evolution—past, present, and future.

CIM also teaches that in that same instant, God created Holy Spirit (HS), an unbreakable and direct connection between Himself and His Son, you. In this manner, then, God provided the correction for separation the instant you imagined it. The challenge is that you believe this world of time and space, which is really a dream, is reality.

One way the ego has rooted you in this dream, has made you believe it’s a reality, is that it made up the notion of time as linear: past, present, and future. This is the key stumbling block in trying to understand how the miracle operates. Your mind is so structured in the belief that time is linear that it’s almost impossible for you to recognize that time is really holographic, which is a model that quantum physics has given us. Holography teaches that within each part of something is contained the whole. This means that within each of our minds is the entire history of the ego, the entire history of the physical universe—as well as the entire “history” of our divinity.

What happens is that at any given moment what we choose to experience is a particular part of this hologram. We dip into our minds and choose a part of the dream to experience. This is what the Course means when it says we walk through a script that’s already written (Workbook, Lesson 158, par. 3-4). HS doesn’t write this script. HS doesn’t cause things to happen to us in this world. What HS does do is to join with us in the script and teach us there is another way of looking at it.

Salvation/happiness is the ego’s script turned upside down. Where the ego’s script is to reinforce our feelings of separation, HS uses that script to teach us we are not separate. Spirit uses our world as a classroom. The ego uses it as a prison.

What keeps us on this carpet of time is guilt. That means the way to get off “the carpet,” waken from the dream, is to be free of our guilt. That’s what forgiveness does. The one claim Course makes is that it will save us “time.”

The only reference Course makes to reincarnation is in the Teachers Manual. It does imply in other places, however, that this is not the first time we’ve come to the physical plane. When it says we could save a thousand years, it’s saying we could save many lifetimes. If we choose to work out our unforgiveness issues now, then, in one lifetime, we could erase the seeming separation. That is what it means when it says of the miracle that it abolishes time or “alters temporal order.” It doesn’t abolish our sense of the whole span of time, but what it does is collapse the amount of time, in our minds, it would have taken us to work through the huge problem of guilt that we have.

Again, it’s not necessary to understand or even agree with this whole metaphysical view of time. What is necessary is to realize, when we find ourselves in difficult or painful situations, is that there’s a purpose you could identify within that situation. That purpose is that you could learn not to see yourself as a victim, and to the extent that you accomplish this, to that extent you will heal the guilt within yourself. That’s what saves you time.

Lessons 82-88 are all review lessons, so I will make no further comments on these lessons than previously provided to you. The short review statements in this section are all that you need.

Assignment: Miracles Principle # 14; Workbook Lessons 89-95; Text pp. 103-111, The Lessons of the Holy Spirit.

Practical Application: Find a small to medium box. If you like, decorate it to give it “sacred significance.” Cut a two-inch slit in the top of the box. This is your “God Box.” This will be an exercise in 1) faith and 2) in staying in the now—releasing guilts from the past and fears of the future. For the next 9 months, when you find your mind dwelling on or obsessing about a guilt from the past or a fear regarding the future, write it down on a small strip of paper and drop it into your God Box. As best you can, resolve to truly release this guilt or this fear to the One who can truly resolve it for all time. Make a note on your calendar to open your God Box on New Year’s Day and go through each item, noting the current status of the challenge or concern you released to God. Expect a happy surprise. If you are truly releasing these issues to God, you will have made a giant step toward developing the faith necessary to releasing the ego’s grip of fear. 

CIM Lessons 75-81 and Miracles Principle #12

Miracles Principle #12: “Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual.” This is a very important principle. Miracles are thoughts, so a miracle is a change from the ego’s thought to the Holy Spirit’s thought. Miracles are thought because everything, ultimately, is thought. Nothing has existence outside our minds. The miracle is the thought that corrects the ego’s thought of separation. This is the first time CIM differentiates between the words “make” and “create.” Spirit creates the eternal. The ego makes ephemeral. (For a more detailed description of the difference in “make” and “creating” read Text, page 44—Beyond Perception—paragraphs 2-3.)

Lesson 75—“The light has come.” This lesson speaks of me as though I’ve accepted its message and forgiven the world; as though I’m ready, this very moment, to see the real world. Though I may not feel ready for such confidence, this lesson is the truth about me whether or not I have yet recognized it because any impression I may have that my will differs from God’s is only an illusion. Today is for the celebration of vision. I accept myself as God created me. The light has come!

Lesson 76—“I am under no laws but God’s laws.” This stunning, almost unbelievable statement confronts, head on, all our basic assumptions about life and ourselves. Our subjugation to the laws of the world is a choice we make from moment to moment. To realize this is true, we have to undo the mistake we’ve made in identifying who and what we are. That undoing is what CIM is all about. The following scenario forms the background to this lesson:

1.     We are perfect, formless mind, each of us parts of a seamless whole, but have wished to separate off a small piece of mind to call “me.” Our sense of identity has become restricted to this little fragment of mind, and we have felt enormous fear and guilt as a result of this false belief.

2.     We have made up a world filled with bodies for two reasons: first, to support our illusion of separateness; and, second, to escape the guilt in our minds by projecting that guilt onto others.

3.     Believing we are the body, and that our bodies are endangered by many things, we have devised an endless list of means for protecting and preserving our bodies. These are the “laws” we have agreed will govern the chaos we’ve generated.

Lesson 77—“I am entitled to miracles.” This lesson celebrates our true Identity as beings who are one with God. What we are entitles us to miracles. Nothing we do or say, no rituals we observe, entitles us to miracles. They are the gift of God. We do not try to generate miracles ourselves; we ask Holy Spirit to work miracles through us. We also remember that miracles may or may not always have observable effects. The essential ingredient in a miracle is not anything in the material world, but the freeing of our minds from illusions.

Lesson 78—“Let miracles replace all grievances.” If we did not have grievances, everything would be miraculous. God’s perfect world shimmers all around us, but it is blocked from our awareness by our grievances. The very purpose of a grievance is to hide the miracle behind it.  The Son of God is hidden in all of us. Only our grievances prevent us from seeing him everywhere. We have the power to release him in everyone around us simply by looking past our grievances to the Christ within them.  Perhaps we’re not ready to let go of our judgments entirely. This lesson is only asking that we try it on for size for fifteen minutes. “Let me behold my savior in this one.” This lesson offers reason to reconsider mindsets such as, “I have to love her from another room.” As we said in our last session, this is a good starting point, but as CIM students, we must be willing to take this a step further, whenever we feel ready. The one we are seeing as “toxic” is our savior, our greatest teacher—if only we are willing to be willing to ask Spirit, sincerely, to help us see that “toxic” person in a different way.

Lesson 79—“Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.” This lesson brings us back to the CIM principle—“One problem, one solution.” These lessons merit repeating until the concepts they teach become imbedded in our thought processes. We seem to be faced with myriad problems, overwhelming in their complexity.  To break free of this illusory burden, our first step must be to recognize the problem in every problem. As long as I think the problem is anything other than my imaginary separateness from God, which has always been a non-issue with God, I will continue to think I have a sea of problems for which there is no solution. The seeming complexity of the world is nothing more than our minds’ attempts to not recognize the single problem, thus preventing its resolution. If we can see the separation at the root of every problem, we realize we already have the answer.  We are already free. All we’re being asked to do at this point is to “suspend all judgment about what the problem is.” So today we’re being called to doubt—to doubt our own version of what our problems are. And then to ask Spirit, “What is the real” problem here?”

Lesson 80—“Let me recognize my problems have been solved.”” An unresolved problem is an excuse for unforgiveness. An unresolved problem generates a grievance that blocks the light or truth from our awareness. Whenever we choose, we can accept the fact that the “problem” is already gone because in God’s mind, which is ALL THERE IS, there never was a problem. We are still as God created us.

Lesson 81—Begins review: ”I am the light of the world.”

Assignment: Miracles Principle # 13; Lessons 82-88. Text Chapter 14, Section III “The Decision for Guiltlessness,” pp. 274-278.

Practical Application: This week, practice applying The Rules for Decision (Text pp.625—629) whenever something or someone disturbs your peace. You may find it helpful to write the steps down on a sticky note or note card that you can keep handy. 

CIM Lessons 68-74 and Miracles Principle #11

Miracles Principles #11—Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.“ This principle introduces the idea of prayer, a word not often used in CIM. The Text, Ch. 3, section V, says “the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness” because forgiveness heals our minds. When we pray to God for something to happen on the level of the body—ours or someone else’s—we are making the body and the world real, which means we’re falling into the ego’s trap. When we say, “This is my problem, God, and I want you to take care of it,” this is the arrogance of the ego speaking. God has already given us All That Is; it is only our thinking that makes that seem not so. A miracle is the “little willingness” to join with the Holy Spirit that thereby joins us with our brother and heals the mind of both—from the ego’s way of seeing to Spirit’s.

Lesson 68—“Love holds no grievances.” This lesson doesn’t try to “lay down the law” or make us feel guilty. It simply tries to motivate us to want to let grievances go by showing us, first, how much pain they bring to our minds and, second, by helping us experience how wonderful it feels to let them go.  Because our Self is Love, holding grievances is an act of betrayal.  Our Source is Love, and we are created like that Source. When we hold a grievance, we seem to be different from our Source and, therefore, feel cut off from Him. However, the mind can’t quite conceive of a source and its effect being totally different; therefore, to logically cope with the dilemma, we make God over in our own image: angry and vindictive. We dissociate, forget who we are, to ease the pain of constant Self-betrayal. That‘s why CIM teaches that forgiveness is not something we do for others but something we do for ourselves.

Lesson 69—“My grievances hide the light of the world in me.” I am the light of the world, but my light can’t shine out because grievances hide it. When I let my grievances go, it simultaneously releases the light in my brother and in myself. Today’s practice is another attempt to become aware of our Self as God created it. The form of the practice is repeated often in the Workbook. The pattern is one of attempting to move through or past the thoughts that normally occupy our minds and to settle into deep stillness to the Self we’re not normally aware of. This is a CIM method of meditation and one of the tools given to us that can be used even after Workbook practice per se has ended.

Lesson 70—“My salvation comes from me.” It is tempting to lay the blame for my problems somewhere outside myself, and the idea that all of them are in my mind and nowhere else seems preposterous. However, if the source of my problems is outside of me, I am the helpless victim of these outside forces. I can only rant and rave about them. If, however, my problems lie solely in my own mind, then I am capable of doing something about them. In fact, only I can do anything about them and nothing outside of me can prevent me from doing it. I (capital S!) am in complete control and therefore I am already free.  The cost of this truth is the realization that the “cavalry” isn’t coming to rescue me. Nor can my position, my money, my spouse, my analyst or my guru. Not even Jesus will do it for me. Jesus is simply a part of my wakened mind. He is me, remembering and reminding me.

Lesson 71—“Only God’s plan for salvation will work.” After being told yesterday that salvation comes from me and only me, it’s a little annoying to be told that only God’s plan will work. But this isn’t really saying anything different. The ego’s plan involves looking outside myself; God’s plan is wholly centered on my change of mind. In God’s plan, salvation comes from me; in the ego’s plan, it comes from any place except me. In the ego’s view, I’m the innocent victim. In the ego’s plan, the mind’s only function is to determine what, outside of me, has to change for me to be saved. The ego looks in every place except where the answer is: in my own mind. God’s plan is that I look for it where it is: in myself.

Lesson 72—“Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan.” This is a long, tough lesson. The scope of ideas presented here is daunting, even to an experienced CIM student. One primary truth the lesson tries to get across is that we are not bodies. The general thrust of the message is that grievances imply a certain view of life, in which the body is the real source of happiness and God is to be feared because He appears to command us to sacrifice our happiness. In this view, grievances are always about how another body has mistreated us; our happiness depends on how others treat us. This view also implies that God is a body and is intensely focused on getting treated right by other bodies. He demands that we serve Him, obey His commandments, and forego the pleasures of the body as sinful. In the end, He requires us to pay our debts by dying. Given this view, the natural impulse is to run from Him. That’s how grievances attack God’s plan—by inducing us to run from Him.

Lesson 73—“I will there be light.” The desire to attack cannot be our will; it can only be the idle wish of the ego. Our will and God’s will are identical. The wishes of the ego, which oppose the will of God hold limited power. This is why affirmations, based on the ego’s desire to “get” something, at best bring sketchy results. The will of our Self, however, is all-powerful. These lessons attempt to get us in touch with that Self through forgiveness. Forgiveness erases the dark places in our minds that are being projected as dark places in the world, just as a dust mote in a movie projector throws a dark blotch on the screen. The ego sees through a glass darkly. Forgiveness clears that glass so that we can again see God’s perfect creation. That is the will of our eternal Self. That is the will of God.

Lesson 74—“There is no will but God’s.” There is nothing apart from God and His creation. There is no devil, no “evil force” that opposes God. Nothing exists that is independent of Him and therefore capable of having a different will. How can we explain then our common experience of wanting things we think are opposed to God? Or even more down to earth, the experiencing of being torn between conflicting desires? If there is no will but God’s, how is this possible? It isn’t! Unless illusions are involved. When there seems to be a will opposed to God, we are seeing illusions. When we realize our minds cannot be in conflict incredible peace results. (Note the difference [par. 5] between true peace and false peace.)

Included in these lessons:

How to Listen for Guidance

1.  

           Listen in patience. Don’t give up too soon. Once you have asked Holy Spirit a question, wait patiently. And while you wait, periodically repeat your request. Not to remind a forgetful Holy Spirit, but to renew your own focus and your confidence that you will hear.

2.     

      Listen with confidence. God wills with you that you hear. Claim what belongs to you!

3.    

      Listen in deep silence; wait for Him in quiet expectancy. Success in hearing Spirit boils down to this: How still can you get your mind? This stillness, however, should not be passive or lax. Rather, it should be an alert, attentive expectant stillness. Combining a quiet restfulness with a poised alertness is central to the art of listening. Of course, holding your mind in this state is something most of us can’t do for more than a half a minute in the beginning. This is why the Workbook instructs us to draw ourselves back again and again to our focus—as often as we need to—while we develop the art.

Assignment: Text: Read Miracles Principle #12 and read/review Chapter 30, The New Beginning, pp. 625-630 (Introduction, Rules for Decision, and Freedom of Will).

Practical Application: Whenever something or someone disturbs your peace this week, silently say, “Thank you for this opportunity to learn to let go/forgive.”

CIM Lessons 61-67 and Miracles Principle # 10

Miracles Principle #10—“The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose.” When our gifts or abilities are used to demonstrate our superiority—that we are wiser, holier, or better—we are serving the ego’s purpose, not Spirit’s.

Lesson 61—“I am the light of the world.” In traditional Christian teaching, Jesus is the light of the world.  Jesus is saying here that we are his equals. At first this idea can seem arrogant, even blasphemous. What, however, could be more arrogant, when God has made you the light of the world, than to say, “Sorry, Boss, you are mistaken. I’m a poor miserable sinner”? We are here to be conduits of God’s light. That is our only function in the physical world. In giving more light and love, we receive more light and love and become increasingly closer to our true nature as a child of God.

Lesson 62—“Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.” As the light of the world, our function is not to convert people, to straighten them out, or to be their knight in shining armor. Forgiveness is the means CIM sets forth as the way out of “hell” because the “hell” we live in was made by our judgments and attacks. Though we think of attack more in terms of the “big” things, such as betrayal or obvious intent to harm, any thought that demeans or belittles or views others as “less than” is attack. Allowing Spirit to replace these thoughts with thoughts of love and forgiveness simultaneously brings light into the minds of those around us and into our own minds. Forgiveness calls upon the Christ within us, while attack calls upon and reinforces our ego.

Lesson 63—“The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.” Have you ever been the recipient of real forgiveness? There is nothing quite so liberating, nothing that eases the mind as much as being truly forgiven. We have the power to bring that kind of peace to every mind. That is our function. We can allow Spirit to do this through us. What greater purpose could we hope to serve?

Lesson 64—“Let me not forget my function.” What causes me to forget my function? The entire world. The ego made the world and the body to obscure my divine reality. The ego depends upon my identifying with my bodily form and vigilantly protecting it from perceived attacks. At the same time that I’m moved by Spirit to forgive, I find myself resisting tooth and nail, trying to justify withholding forgiveness. This resistance can be a horrendously difficult habit to break and requires diligence in surrendering to Spirit.

Lesson 65—“My only function is the one God gave me.” To say, “My job is to love and be loved” is a major paradigm shift. This lesson advances us past the simple recognition that love is our function; it adds the idea that this is our only function. In the beginning, we have no idea how many competitive goals we’ve set up for ourselves. Is CIM asking us to relinquish our roles as parents, spouses, employers and employees? Of course not. But it is asking that we recognize these as temporary roles in a temporary world rather than as our ultimate function. It may help to think of “function” as meaning “nature.” My divine nature is love; therefore, my true function is love. My divine nature is joy; therefore, my function is joy.

Lesson 66—“My happiness and my function are one.” Our happiness and our God-given function are not only connected, they are one and the same. If we think about all the ways we’ve tried to find happiness following our egos—as instructed in this lesson—we must admit, if we are perfectly honest, none of them have worked. There is a God-sized hole in every heart that can only be filled by accepting our function. If God gives us only happiness, and God gives us our function, what is the logical conclusion? My function must be happiness. My reason for being must be happiness. Fulfilling my function is what makes me happy.

Lesson 67—“Love created me like Itself.” CIM spends a significant amount of space in telling us what we are, how we were created like God, Who created us, and how that reality is “unchanged and unchangeable.” Lesson 229 virtually duplicates today’s thought: “Love, Which created me, is what I am.” Review V has us repeat, “God is but Love, and therefore so am I” every day for ten days. The same message is echoed in Lessons 94, 110, 132, 139, 162, 201-220, 260 and throughout the Text. Love is what I am. That’s why I’m the light of the world. Notice that the lesson does not expect us to “get” this idea all at once. If we were expected to get it right away, we wouldn’t be asked to repeat it eighty times. All we are looking for is to “realize fully, if only for a moment, that it is the truth.”

Assignment: Lessons 68-74; Text Chapter Six, “The Lessons of Love,” pp.91-96.

Practical Application: “Happy Hour”—Set aside an hour a day this week to do something that makes you happy. If you feel this is impossible, set aside a half hour a day. (Get up a half hour earlier if you have to!)