[acimlessons_list] Lesson 132 - May 12

[Sue Carrier Roth]

Lesson 132 - May 12

"I loose the world from all I thought it was."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

Purpose: "To free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about
it, and about all living things we see upon it..that we may be free" (14:1,
5).

Longer: Two times, for fifteen minutes.

Begin by repeating, "I who remain as God created me would loose the world
from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I
would know my own reality." The rest of the practice period sounds like
Workbook meditation to me, in which we place our minds in a state of rest,
"alert but with no strain" (15:4). Based on the lines we repeat, this
exercise reminds me of a couple of other lessons-128 and 188-in which we
have a sense of withdrawing our mind from its focus on the outer world and
drawing it inward to the quiet center, where we rest, where our thoughts are
transformed, and where we experience our true reality. 

Remarks: You will sense your own release, but you may not realize that your
release will also free the world, bringing healing to many brothers far and
near. 

Response to temptation: Whenever you believe that your thoughts have no
power to help the troubling situations we see around us.

When you notice such a thought, repeat, "I loose the world from all I
thought it was, and choose my own reality instead" (it will be helpful to
memorize it), realizing that by doing so you are unleashing your mind's
power to free the world, and adding to the freedom you gave in the longer
practice period.

COMMENTARY

To me, today, the point of this lesson is: I have the power to do that. I
can loose the world from all I thought it was, simply by changing my own
mind.

This lesson contains what is perhaps the most startling statement in the
Course: 

There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.
(6:2-3)

The lesson admits that not everyone is ready to accept this idea, although
it makes it clear that all of us will, eventually, accept it. (Such
acceptance could take many lifetimes, I think, and doubtless we have gone
through many already to get wherever we are; this is my own opinion, not
necessarily that of the Course.)

In speaking of this in the analogy of a madman, the first paragraph says
that no madman can be "swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects" (1:6).
>From the perspective of the Course, it is the world that is the effect of
our thoughts. So the approach that will lead us, eventually, to understand
that there is no world does not follow the path of directly questioning the
reality of the world. That is a fruitless approach, as fruitless as trying
to persuade a madman that his hallucinations are not real. The approach that
bears fruit is raising the source to question-that is, in questioning the
thoughts that produce the hallucinations.

"Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change
accordingly" (5:2). As we begin to allow thoughts of healing to flow through
us, we open ourselves to learn the lesson. "Their readiness will bring the
lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize" (7:2).
The focus for us, then, is not on denying the reality of the world, but on
opening our minds to bring healing to the world we see. Doing so will bring
us experiences that will convince us that the world is not as real as we
supposed. We may have a near-death experience. We may undergo some
experience of enlightenment that shows us an incontrovertible reality that
contradicts all that we have believed to be reality up until that time. We
may, in fact, experience something in doing today's exercises that will
bring us our awakening.

The unreality of the world dawns upon us as we begin to grasp the reality of
our Self: "To know your Self is the salvation of the world" (10:1). If we
are as God created us, then what appears to change us cannot exist, it
cannot be real; there cannot be a place where we can suffer, or time to
bring change to us. The world is the effect of our thoughts, and nothing
more: "You maintain the world within your mind in thought" (10:3). As we
discover what we truly are by allowing love to move through us in healing,
we realize that "If you are real the world you see is false, for God's
creation is unlike the world in every way" (11:5). We release the world from
what we thought it was by accepting our oneness with God, and realizing that
the world, as we see it, cannot be real because it does not reflect this
truth: "What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father
end, the Son begin as something separate from Him" (12:4).

To "loose the world" is to heal it. The meditation for today is one in which
we "send out these thoughts to bless the world" (16:1). "I loose the world"
means that I extend healing to all the world, I free it from suffering, I
absolve it from guilt, I heal it of sickness, I lift all thoughts of
vengeance from it. It is taking this role as savior to the world that
reveals our Self to us, and transforms our thoughts and, in turn, the world
that is their effect. This is "the power of your simple change of mind"
(17:1).