From sue at circleofa.org Thu Jan 1 09:59:33 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 09:59:33 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 2 - January 2 Message-ID: LESSON 2 - January 2 "I have given everything I see...all the meaning that it has for me." PRACTICE SUMMARY Exercise: 2 times-ideally morning and evening, for 1 minute Same basic instructions as yesterday, just using a new idea. In selecting subjects for today, look side to side and behind you. Remarks: Like the previous lesson, this one focuses on being totally indiscriminate in your selection of subjects. The comments in paragraph 2 about avoiding "selection by size, brightness, color, material, or relative importance to you" (2:1) are a brief reference to the Course's theory of selective attention. According to the Course, we are highly selective in what we attend to visually. We pay attention to things that visually stand out and therefore catch our eye (see M-8.1) and we pay attention to things we value (see M-8.3:7). Notice that both of these factors-things that visually stand out and things we value-are included in the sentence I just quoted. This implies that we are supposed to practice the lesson without our usual habit of selective attention, because that habit assumes that the different things in our visual field are truly different, and this lesson is meant to teach us that they are not. COMMENTARY The meaning of yesterday's lesson is now a little clearer; "Nothing that I see means anything" can be understood to say, "The only meaning anything has for me is the meaning that I give to it; there is no intrinsic meaning in anything." When I first practiced Lesson 1, I recall that the first object my eyes lit on was an excellent new photograph of my two children. At first, my mind rebelled at saying, "That photograph does not mean anything," because it sure meant something to me. But the next morning, on Lesson 2, I began to see what the lessons were getting at. The photo, in itself, has no meaning at all. To the vast majority of people in the world it really would mean nothing; but to me, it meant something because I had given meaning to it. When we begin to realize that our perception is formed by our minds, and not vice versa, it can be a startling revelation. If this lesson seems trivial or obvious to you, try applying it the next time "everything I see" includes someone who, in your perception, is betraying you, lying to you, or abandoning you: "I have given this situation all the meaning that it has for me." Not so trivial! From sue at circleofa.org Fri Jan 2 10:12:58 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 10:12:58 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 3 - January 3 Message-ID: Lesson 3 - January 3 "I do not understand anything I see..." Practice Summary: Purpose: to clear away the thick film of past associations which you project onto everything, so that you see things afresh and realize that you do not really understand them at all. Exercise: 2 times-ideally, morning and evening, for 1 minute Same basic instructions as the previous two days, only with a new idea. Remarks: Being indiscriminate in selecting subjects is a direct reflection of the lesson's purpose, which is to clear your mind of the interpretive film which you lay over things and which claims to tell you what those things really are. It is that same film which would also tell you there are some things to which the lesson does not apply. The very act, therefore, of applying the lesson to absolutely anything is also an act of setting aside that interpretive film. COMMENTARY: If nothing I see means anything, and I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me, then obviously I do not understand anything I see. The Workbook is laying the groundwork for our learning. To learn a new understanding of anything we must let go our belief that we already understand it. I find this lesson useful in many situations. When something happens that I interpret as unpleasant or upsetting, I can realize that my judgment of "unpleasant" or my upset comes, not from the thing or person or situation, but from my imagined understanding of it. By repeating, "I do not understand anything I see," I open my mind to a new understanding from the Holy Spirit. I use variants of the idea at times, such as, "I don't know what this means" or "I have no idea what this is all about." In the Course, the beginning of understanding is understanding that I don't understand anything. Remember this is an exercise. Don't expect to perform it perfectly! You are the realization that you don't understand, which means you are coming from a state of mind that believes it understand. That's OK. From sue at circleofa.org Sat Jan 3 11:42:15 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 11:42:15 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 4 - January 4 Message-ID: Lesson 4 - January 4 "These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room..." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: to train you to lump all your normal thoughts, both "good" and "bad," as well as all the things you see outside you, into one category: they are meaningless, and they are outside you (outside your real nature). This will open your mind to the fact that there is a whole other realm than that which you are aware of, which is fundamentally different, which is truly meaningful, and which lies deep within. Exercise: 3 or 4 times (no more), for 1 minute or so * For roughly one minute, watch your thoughts. Include both "good" and "bad" ones. * Then apply the idea specifically to each thought you noticed, saying, "This thought about [name of central figure or event] does not mean anything. It is like the things I see in this room [on this street, and so on]." You may also include unhappy thoughts you were aware of before the practice period. Response to temptation: optional In addition to (not instead of) the formal exercises, feel free throughout the day to use the idea as a way of dispelling specific unhappy thoughts. This is the first introduction of a practice that will become a major focus of the Workbook. COMMENTARY: The Introduction to the Workbook states that, "The purpose of the Workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world." This lesson begins to teach us to work directly with our thoughts, and the first lesson is: They don't mean anything. There is an assumption in this lesson that the student is very inexperienced (5:4) and therefore is completely, or nearly so, out of touch with what the lesson calls "your real thoughts" (2:3). The thoughts it is referring to as meaningless are the thoughts of the ego. It is the contention of the Course that our minds are nearly completely ego-directed (T-4.VI.1:4). The tone of this lesson is based on that assumption; therefore, whatever thought you focus on, you can regard it as meaningless. Our real thoughts are the thoughts of the Christ within us; they are not meaningless. What we call thinking, however, is not really thinking at all (this is made clear in Lesson 8). We have identified with our egos. The ego is like a tiny corner of our minds that we have cordoned off from the rest; we have convinced ourselves that it is the whole thing. The thoughts that swirl around in this little pocket of mind are totally unrepresentative of our true Self, and therefore, whether "good" or "bad," they are meaningless. When we have trained ourselves to look at these thoughts objectively we will realize how true this is (1:6, 7). The ego thoughts cover up our real thoughts. The "good" ones are at best shadows of the real, and shadows make it difficult to see. The "bad" ones are outright blocks to sight. "You do not want either." Realizing that we don't want the "bad" ones is fairly easy; realizing we don't want the "good" ones is much more disconcerting and difficult. The lesson calls itself "a major exercise" and promises to repeat the exercise later. It says that the exercise is fundamental to three long-range goals, and serves to begin implementing these goals: --to separate the meaningless from the meaningful --to learn to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within. --to train our minds to recognize what is the same and what is different. First, it helps us learn to separate meaningless thoughts from meaningful ones, our ego thoughts from our real thoughts. Note that there is a kind of judgment going on here, and even separation, although these are two terms usually given negative connotations. This kind of looking at our thoughts is one form of what the Text calls "the right use of judgment." Second, we are learning to see the meaningless as outside us. We may ask how, if it is our thoughts that are meaningless, we can see them as outside us; aren't thoughts within us? Here, I believe, the Workbook means our true Self when it speaks of "you." Our meaningless ego thoughts are not representative of our true Self; they are not really part of it, but outside it. Third, we are learning to recognize what is the same and what is different. We think "good" thoughts are different from "bad" thoughts, but this lesson is training us to see that they are really the same, both different forms of madness. In suggesting that we might use the idea for today "for a particular thought that you recognize as harmful," the Workbook is introducing a new form of practice, one that will become part of its regular repetoire. Besides scheduled morning and evening practice, we can use the idea as a response to random "temptation" in the form of a harmful thought. Response to temptation will be brought in as a practice exercise many more times as we go on. In asking us to do the exercise three or four times, the lesson also introduces mid-day practice sessions in addition to the morning and evening ones. From sue at circleofa.org Mon Jan 5 05:46:49 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 05:46:49 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 6 - January 6 Message-ID: Lesson 6 - January 6 "I am upset because I see something that is not there." Practice Summary: Exercise: 3 or 4 times, for 1 minute or so Same instructions as yesterday, only using a new idea. Tip: The lessons speak as if you should first search your mind for a minute, and then apply the lesson to everything uncovered in your search. However, you may have difficulty remembering all the things you uncovered. If so, rather than practicing in these distinct two phases, you may want to practice in a slightly different way: Search your mind, find a single upset, apply the idea to it, then search your mind for another upset, apply the idea to that one, and so on. Response to temptation: optional The idea can be used throughout the day to dispel your upsets. But do not substitute this for the practice periods. COMMENTARY This begins to explain why I am really upset. I am never upset for the reason I think; I am upset because I see something that is not there. (Once again the Workbook builds its case piece by piece; it does not tell us just what we are seeing, only that it is something that isn't there. If you're curious, go ahead, peek at the next lesson.) We can't begin to imagine how much of what we see, things we think of as "real" and "objective facts," are really things that are not there. The case being built here is that all of our upset comes from things that aren't there. Only what God creates is real, and nothing He creates is upsetting, and if those are facts, this must be true. So when I feel upset I can say to myself, "I'm upset because I'm seeing something that isn't there." We are asked to recall the "two cautions stated in the previous lesson." Since they are repeated they are obviously important, so let's think a little about each. "There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind." I find I have to remind myself of this a lot. It is so easy to overlook "small" upsets and leave them undealt with. A rage at someone who betrays me and steals my job is no different than a "minor" annoyance at slow service in a restaurant. Both have the power to disturb my peace of mind. If my goal is a mind at peace I must learn to deal with all upsets as of equal importance; I must learn to "recognize what is the same and what is different" (W-pI.4.3:4). "I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same." At least during the practice periods of the Workbook, we need to regard all upsets as the same, and apply the lesson to them. If I insist on not applying the lesson to some "minor" upset or to an upset that seems justified to me, I won't really be able to let any of the upsets go. I will be holding on to the principle behind all of them. It would be like saying you are going to lose weight by cutting out sugar and fat, except for that half gallon of ice cream every night. The Course insists that we be thorough and absolute in our practicing. "I am upset because I see something that is not there." From sue at circleofa.org Tue Jan 6 06:05:31 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 06:05:31 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 7 - January 7 Message-ID: Lesson 7 - January 7 "I see only the past." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: to begin to change your ideas about time, which are the foundation for all that you see and believe. Your mind will resist this change, in order to maintain the stability of your world, yet it is that world which keeps you bound. Exercise: 3 or 4 times, for 1 minute or so Look about you and apply idea specifically and indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye, saying: "I see only the past in [this shoe, that body, etc.]." "Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically" (5:1). COMMENTARY As the lesson says, this "is the rationale for all of the preceding" lessons. "It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything." And so on through the previous six thoughts. Because we see only the past, every one of those previous ideas is true. It makes this lesson an extremely important one; one we need to take in and consider very seriously. Notice how absolute the thought for today is: "I see the past." We may find this "particularly difficult to believe at first." If anything, that is an understatement. If you find the concept difficult to accept, be reassured that the Teacher realizes your difficulty and accepts it in you. The Course lays an unusually heavy emphasis on this concept, not only here, but also in the Text. For instance, three sections of Chapter 13, from "The Function of Time" through "Finding the Present," deal with how we see time and the fact that, "The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful" (T-13.IV.4:2). It speaks of the shadow figures from the past, built upon illusions, that completely block out our sight of present reality. It says that, "To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present" (T-13.VI.3:5). "Everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it." Whatever we have learned, we learned from the past; that cannot be disputed. Therefore, everything we think we know is based on the past. We look at the present through the filter of our past learning. The Course urges us not to let our past learning be the light that guides us in the present (T-14.XI.6:9). Instead we need to turn, in the moment, and inquire of the Holy Spirit to show us His vision of the present. The illustration in the lesson about the cup makes the point that our identification of things depends on the past, and our reactions to things come from past experiences. "You would have no idea what this cup is, except for your past learning." And "This is equally true of whatever you look at." What we are "seeing" is the past, pure and simple. At the moment there may seem to be no alternative to this; we may wonder what other way of seeing is possible. But there another way; the Course will bring us to that eventually. For now, simply let this lesson sink in: "I see only the past." From sue at circleofa.org Wed Jan 7 06:05:57 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 06:05:57 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 7 - January 7 Message-ID: Lesson 7 - January 7 "I see only the past." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: to begin to change your ideas about time, which are the foundation for all that you see and believe. Your mind will resist this change, in order to maintain the stability of your world, yet it is that world which keeps you bound. Exercise: 3 or 4 times, for 1 minute or so Look about you and apply idea specifically and indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye, saying: "I see only the past in [this shoe, that body, etc.]." "Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically" (5:1). COMMENTARY As the lesson says, this "is the rationale for all of the preceding" lessons. "It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything." And so on through the previous six thoughts. Because we see only the past, every one of those previous ideas is true. It makes this lesson an extremely important one; one we need to take in and consider very seriously. Notice how absolute the thought for today is: "I see the past." We may find this "particularly difficult to believe at first." If anything, that is an understatement. If you find the concept difficult to accept, be reassured that the Teacher realizes your difficulty and accepts it in you. The Course lays an unusually heavy emphasis on this concept, not only here, but also in the Text. For instance, three sections of Chapter 13, from "The Function of Time" through "Finding the Present," deal with how we see time and the fact that, "The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful" (T-13.IV.4:2). It speaks of the shadow figures from the past, built upon illusions, that completely block out our sight of present reality. It says that, "To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present" (T-13.VI.3:5). "Everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it." Whatever we have learned, we learned from the past; that cannot be disputed. Therefore, everything we think we know is based on the past. We look at the present through the filter of our past learning. The Course urges us not to let our past learning be the light that guides us in the present (T-14.XI.6:9). Instead we need to turn, in the moment, and inquire of the Holy Spirit to show us His vision of the present. The illustration in the lesson about the cup makes the point that our identification of things depends on the past, and our reactions to things come from past experiences. "You would have no idea what this cup is, except for your past learning." And "This is equally true of whatever you look at." What we are "seeing" is the past, pure and simple. At the moment there may seem to be no alternative to this; we may wonder what other way of seeing is possible. But there another way; the Course will bring us to that eventually. For now, simply let this lesson sink in: "I see only the past." From sue at circleofa.org Wed Jan 7 08:09:22 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 08:09:22 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 5 - January 5 Message-ID: Lesson 5 - January 5 "I am never upset for the reason I think." Practice Summary Purpose: to teach you that the cause of your upset is not the external situation, person, or event you think it is. Also, to teach you that your negative emotions are not truly different from one another. Exercise: 3 or 4 times, for 1 minute or so * Optional beginning: Say, "There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind." This is designed to correct your tendency to dismiss some upsets as too insignificant to bother with. * For a minute or so, search your mind for any persons, situations or events that are distressing you, however mildly. * Then apply the idea indiscriminately to each one by saying, "I am not (angry, worried, depressed, etc.) about (source of upset) for the reason I think." * If you want to hang on to certain upsets because they seem justified, say, "I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same." Response to temptation: optional In addition to the formal practice periods, feel free during the day to apply the idea to any upset you are experiencing, as a way of restoring your peace of mind. Say, "I am not (angry, worried, depressed, etc.) about (source of upset) for the reason I think." COMMENTARY This lesson is, to me, one of the most useful tools for jarring my thinking loose from a deeply worn track. "This lesson, like the preceding one, can be used with any person, situation or even you think is causing you pain." Try to remember it today when, for whatever reason, you get upset. That slow-poke driver on the road in front of you. The person who puts you down. When the job you've been hoping for falls through. When someone tracks dirt on your freshly mopped floor, or breaks your favorite keepsake. "I am never upset for the reason I think." Notice that the lesson does not identify what it is that you really are upset about. That comes later. For now the Course is simply trying to undermine your belief that you know what is upsetting you. Notice, too, that it does not ask you not to be upset! "...fear, worry, depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, jealousy"...the lesson does not ask you to be without these feelings, simply to recognize that they are not occurring for the reasons you think. Yes, of course, the eventual goal is to let them all go. But to do that we have to break our belief that they are different things with different causes. All of them stem, ultimately, from the same cause; all of them are meanings we project onto the world we see. These first five lessons have been tough, if you think about them. Lesson 1 was about letting go of what I see. Lesson 2, letting go of my judgments about meaning. Lesson 3, letting go of my understanding. Lesson 4, letting go of my thoughts. And this lesson is leading me let go of my entire thought system, the root cause behind all of my upsets. From sue at circleofa.org Wed Jan 7 08:10:08 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 08:10:08 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 8 - January 8 Message-ID: Lesson 8 - January 8 "My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to teach you that your mind spends all of its time empty, because it is always contemplating what is not there (the past). While it thinks about the empty, it itself is empty. Recognizing this emptiness makes way for something new to come in: real thoughts which will produce real vision. Exercise: 4 or 5 times (3 or 4 if you find the practice irritating), for 1 minute or so * Close your eyes and search your mind for a minute or so without investment, noting the thoughts you find and naming them by the central figure or theme of each one. Say, "I seem to be thinking about (name of person), about (name of an object), about (name of an emotion)...." * Conclude with, "But my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts." Remarks: If you find the exercise arousing feelings in you-for instance, irritation-you may want to apply the idea to those feelings just as you would to anything else. This is a helpful tip for many of the lessons. COMMENTARY "This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past." This clearly assumes that what we see simply reflects the thoughts occupying our minds. If that is so, then because our minds are preoccupied with past thoughts, we perceive pictures from the past in the outside world. "No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts projected outward." This idea is so central to the Course, yet here it is simply slipped into this discussion of the past and time. We don't really see anything! Everything we see is "the outside picture of an inward condition," as the Text puts it (T-21.IN.1:5). I've always loved the first line of the second paragraph: "The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here." Ponder that a moment. You may have some extremely clear memories of the past, especially the very recent past. Yet if several people who experienced the same thing firmly disagreed with you, you would probably begin to doubt your memory--because you cannot really be completely certain it is reliable. You know very well from experience that your memory can deceive you. "I could have sworn I left that key on the table!" "Didn't I tell you about that? I thought I did." We say that sort of thing all the time without realizing how shaky our memory really is. But there is one absolutely trustworthy thought you can have about the past: "The past is not here. This is the present." Now if it isn't here, how can the past have present effects? "To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions." You are thinking about something that no longer exists; something that does not exist is an illusion. OK, so if my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts, and all thoughts about the past are thoughts about illusions, and all that I see is a projection of my thoughts--where does that leave what I am "seeing?" Nowhere. We are seeing reflections of memories of an illusion. When we are picturing the past or anticipating the future, the Course says our mind is actually BLANK, because it is thinking about nothing. This lesson is trying to get us to recognize when our mind is not really thinking at all, but is full of what it calls "thoughtless ideas." This is why "these thoughts do not mean anything." To open ourselves to "vision" we have to stop blocking the truth with these meaningless mental images of something that isn't here. The first step towards vision is becoming aware of what is NOT vision, which are the thoughts that normally fill our minds. I find this kind of exercise helps develop a kind of mental detachment. You step back, as it were, from your thoughts and observe them. Don't make the mistake I did at first of trying to force these thoughts out of the mind and make it blank--hey! we don't need to do that because it is blank already! Just observe them and follow the lesson, saying, "My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts." Be willing to let go of your investment in the thoughts, your investment in having them be real thoughts, or deep ones, or important ones. Unclasp your fingers from them, let them go, be willing to see that they are without real meaning if they are based on the past, and thus based on something that is not here. The lesson is a gentle wedge, prying loose our attachment to what we think of as our thoughts. From sue at circleofa.org Thu Jan 8 06:49:08 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 06:49:08 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 9 - January 9 Message-ID: Lesson 9 - January 9 "I see nothing as it is now." PRACTICE SUMMARY Exercise: 3 or 4 times, for 1 minute Look about you, applying the idea without discrimination or exclusion to whatever you see. Begin with things near you: "I do not see this [telephone, arm, etc.] as it is now." Then extend the range outward: "I do not see that [door, face, etc.] as it is now." Remarks: You may accept this idea, but you do not really understand it, nor are you expected to. Understanding is not the prerequisite for this practice; rather, understanding is the goal of this practice. These exercises are meant to undo your illusion that you understand things, and by clearing this blockage away, allow true understanding to finally dawn on your mind. So at this point simply practice the idea, even if you do not understand it, find it disturbing, or even actively resist it. COMMENTARY If I see only the past, and my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts, then obviously I see nothing as it is now. I love the fact that the lesson goes on to say, "But while you may be able to accept it intellectually, it is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet." The Course clearly recognizes a vast difference between intellectually accepting something and truly understanding the same idea, so that it has become a part of us. I think of the stages of grief when a loved one dies. Immediately after the death, we may intellectually accept that our beloved is gone, but we have not truly grasped and assimilated that fact. It takes time for the reality of it to sink in. Likewise, we can accept the idea that we see nothing as it is now, but it may be some time before the meaning of that fact truly begins to dawn on us. Fortunately the lesson continues by saying that it isn't necessary, at this stage, for us to understand, and that, in fact, what necessary is the recognition that we understand! You might say that one of the things we are to grasp from this lesson is that we don't understand it! It makes a kind of sense if you think about it. "These exercises are concerned with practice, not with understanding. You do not need to practice what you already understand." Some people may feel that it doesn't make sense to work with an idea you don't fully understand or believe. I've heard people ask questions like, "How can I work with a lesson like, 'I am the holy Son of God Himself' if I don't really believe that?" And the answer is, if you believed it already, you wouldn't need to work with the lesson! Helping you understand or believe is what the practice is for. The attitude of recognizing our real ignorance is vital to learning. Without it, our false "understanding" gets in the way of learning. So when a lesson such as this one, "I see nothing as it is now," rubs you the wrong way or leaves you feeling that you don't really know what it is talking about--just be honest that you feel that way. Don't make the mistake of pretending you already understand when you don't. The lessons are designed with our ignorance in mind. "It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there." Difficult? Nearly impossible is more like it. The idea is disturbing; most of us will actively resist it in some way or another. That does not keep you from applying the idea anyhow, and that is all that is asked of us. (Remember the Introduction to the Workbook and its last two paragraphs? If not, read them over in this regard.) Just do the exercises anyhow, even if your mind is resisting the entire idea; it will still have the desired effect. Notice how the lesson talks about "each small step" clearing away a little darkness until understanding finally comes. The tone of these lessons, and indeed the entire Course, should not lead us to believe that we will reach enlightenment quickly. It comes in small steps, little by little. The Course does say that full enlightenment could come to any of us in any instant, if we could but open to it; it is nearer to us than our own hands and feet. But it also says that it will take much longer to make us willing to open than it will take for that final transformation of mind to occur. It says, "By far the majority are given a slowly-evolving training program, in which as many previous mistakes as possible are corrected. Relationships in particular must be properly perceived, and all dark cornerstones of unforgiveness removed" (M, p. 25; M-9.1:7, 8). Notice: a "slowly-evolving training program" is the norm. So don't be so restless or feel like you're working against some deadline; take things at the pace they come, and work with the exercises in this Workbook. Be content to slowly evolve. Don't worry if understanding does not leap full-blown into your mind tomorrow! The exercises are again deceptively simple, things like, "I do not see this computer screen as it is now." How is it helping me to say this? I can't say for sure. I do know that the more often I repeat an idea, the more reasonable it starts to seem. Maybe that's all there is to it. I know it has helped me, at times, to remind myself of some situation that seems fearful or out of control that, "I do not see this situation as it is now in reality." I can reassure myself that what I am seeing, which seems to be causing my fear, is not the reality of things. I may not have any idea what the reality is, but it helps to know that what I am seeing ain't it! The idea is less reassuring when I apply it to something that I like: "I do not see this romantic relationship as it is now." Hmmm, not sure I like that. But if it does nothing more than begin to shake my faith in what I see, the lesson is doing its job even if I don't fully understand it or like it. From sue at circleofa.org Fri Jan 9 06:06:32 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 06:06:32 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 10 - January 10 Message-ID: Lesson 10 - January 10 "My thoughts do not mean anything." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: To show you that all of your current thoughts are meaningless and are, in fact, not real thoughts at all. Recognizing that you have been preoccupied with nonexistent thoughts will pave the way for uncovering your real thoughts. Exercise: 5 times, for 1 minute or so (no more; cut in half if you are uncomfortable) * Close your eyes and repeat the idea very slowly. Then add, "This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe." * Then search your mind for all available thoughts. Avoid selection or classification, seeing your thoughts as an odd procession which has no meaning to you. As each one crosses your mind say: "My thought about_____does not mean anything." Remarks: It is important to stand back from your thoughts and observe them with detachment. Do not think of them as different from one another in any real way. You might want to imagine you are watching a strange parade of disorganized, meaningless objects. Another helpful metaphor (not mentioned in the Course) might be to imagine that you are watching leaves float by on a stream. Response to temptation: optional-whenever you have a distressing thought Feel free to apply the idea to any upsetting thoughts you have throughout the day, using the form, "My thought about_____does not mean anything." COMMENTARY Lesson 4 was, "These thoughts do not mean anything," and it promised the exercise would be "repeated from time to time in somewhat different form." Here is the first repetition, a very close parallel to the earlier lesson. It explains that the reason the idea is true is that "all the thoughts of which you are aware...are not your real thoughts." That is particularly difficult to accept at first. How can my thoughts not be my real thoughts? It explains that we don't have any basis for comparison , but that when we do, "you will have no doubt that what you once believed were your thoughts did not mean anything." So once again the Workbook is asking us, to a certain degree, to take this idea by faith for the time being. A basis for comparison implies that before long we will experience our real thoughts, and when we do, we will know that what we believed to be our thoughts were not our real ones. It's like we've been eating carob all our lives thinking it was chocolate. Once we taste real chocolate, we know that what we've had until then was not chocolate; but until we have a basis for comparison, we can only take our teacher's word for it. The difference between Lesson 10 and Lesson 4 is in the first word: " thoughts" instead of "." In addition, the lesson does not go on to link the thoughts with things around us, as Lesson 4 did: "They are like the things I see in this room." So the emphasis in this lesson is on the thoughts themselves: "The emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think." The third paragraph points out the different aspects about our thoughts that have been emphasized so far: --they are meaningless --they are outside rather than within --they concern the past rather than the present "Now we are emphasizing that the presence of these 'thoughts' means that you are not thinking." This repeats the earlier concept that our mind is simply blank. Before we can have vision, we have to learn to recognize nothingness when we think we see it. The exercises given make it clear that what the Course is talking about closely resembles many Eastern meditation teachings. What is being cultivated is a kind of detachment from our "thoughts," becoming "the witness" or taking the position of an observer in regard to our thoughts. We watch the thoughts as if "you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning to you." One book on meditation I read (Stephen Levine's "Gradual Awakening," a wonderful little book) used the analogy of watching a train going by, each car containing a thought or set of thoughts. "Oh, there goes a thought of hatred! There goes some worry. There is a carload of sadness." It also used the picture of watching clouds floating by in the sky, with the expanse of sky being the mind itself. Levine emphasizes that we do not let ourselves cling to any of the thoughts or allow them to drag us along with them, but likewise we do not push them away or resist them. If they are "meaningless," as the lesson says, we need not respond to them at all. As you do this kind of mental exercise you become aware of your mind as something independent of the thoughts that appear to cross it. You dis-identify with the thoughts. They lose their emotional charge for you. The thoughts become less and less of a "big deal" to you. You begin to recognize the vast expanse of mind in which these thoughts come and go, and to realize that they have no effect on that "sky of mind" in which they float. Notice in the practice instructions that the pace is stepping up a bit. "Five practice periods are recommended" in addition to using the idea during the day for any thought that distresses us. The closing added thought can be helpful to reinforce our belief that what we are doing is really worthwhile. We may need such reinforcement, since the actual practice of the exercise may induce discomfort at times. It isn't comfortable to repeatedly tell oneself that, "My thoughts do not mean anything." It may seem demeaning. So reminding myself that, "This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe," can be needful to strengthen our motivation to do the exercises. The Workbook is cognizant of how entrenched the ego is in our minds, and works with us very gently in its attempts to dislodge us from our fixed position. From sue at circleofa.org Sat Jan 10 09:57:30 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:57:30 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 11 - January 11 Message-ID: Lesson 11 - January 11 "My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to reverse how you see cause and effect in your perception. You think that the outside world imprints itself on your mind, causing your perceptions, yet causation travels the other way: from the inside out. What you see outside you is the projection of your thoughts. This is the first lesson that deals with this major Workbook theme. Exercise: 3 times (4 or 5 if you find that comfortable and desirable), for 1 minute or so * With eyes closed repeat the idea slowly and casually, to reflect the peace and relaxation contained in the idea. * Then open your eyes and look about, up and down, near and fear, letting your eyes move rapidly from one thing to another. During this time repeat the idea leisurely and effortlessly. * To conclude, close your eyes and repeat the idea slowly. Remarks: Unlike most of the previous exercises, in this one you do not apply the idea specifically to the objects around you, naming them as you do. In fact, the repeating of the idea is not synchronized with the shifting of your glance. The two happen at different paces. The relative rapidity with which you look around is contrasted with the slowness with which you repeat the idea. COMMENTARY The lesson introduces "the concept that your thoughts determine the world you see." This is a major theme in the Course. It is the reason for the famous line, "Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world." The mind is primary and the world secondary. Our tendency is to believe that the world causes (or at least affects) how we think; the Course teaches that mind is the cause, and the world, effect. The idea, we are told, "contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry we are trying to achieve." "...in this idea is your release made sure. The key to forgiveness lies in it." Why is that? If what we see outside, the meaningless world, is being caused by my own meaningless thoughts, then there is nothing to "blame" in the outside world; all that is needed is to correct my thoughts. I can forgive what I see it is meaningless. I condemn and judge only when I think I see something that means something, something bad or evil or terrible. But if it is meaningless there is no ground for condemnation. And if my mind is at cause of what I see, then how can I judge it? All I can do is recognize that, as the Text says, "I am responsible for what I see" (T-21.II.2:3) and choose to change my own mind. From sue at circleofa.org Sun Jan 11 11:51:30 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:51:30 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 12 - January 12 Message-ID: Lesson 12 - January 12 "I am upset because I see a meaningless world." Practice Summary: Purpose: to realize that you are upset because you instinctively sense that the world is content-free, a blank slate. This makes you afraid that the truth will be written on it. This exercise will help you accept that the world truly is a blank slate, erase what you have written on it, and then see what God has written on it. Exercise: 3 or 4 times, for 1 minute or less (stop whenever you feel strain) * Look about slowly, shifting your glance at regular time intervals. As you look about, say, "I think I see a fearful world, a dangerous world, a hostile world," and so on, using whatever descriptive terms occur to you. This includes positive ones, which imply the possibility of their opposite. They imply a world in which both positive and negative are present and battle for supremacy. This is not the world God would have you see. * At the end add, "But I am upset because I see a meaningless world." Remarks: Shifting your glance at regular intervals reflects today's idea. By giving the same amount of time and attention to each thing, you teach yourself that the things you see are all equally meaningless. This is the same thing today's idea is trying to teach you. COMMENTARY What upsets us is an empty slate, a canvas without paint; we can't resist, we have to paint meaning on it, and when we do, what we see is frightening, sad, violent or insane. We can't simply accept the world as meaningless and "let the truth be written upon it for you;" instead, "you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be." We can't allow God to give the world, and ourselves, our meaning; we want to make our own. The result is an upsetting view of everything. The idea that what I think is upsetting me is not really the cause of my upset (see Lesson 5 again) is an incredibly useful one. And one that can work miracles in our experience. I recall the first time this really sunk in. I had just gone through a disappointing exchange with my girlfriend, one in which I realized that she didn't want to spend time with me as much as I did with her, and she had an interest in someone else. I was feeling shit upon, put down, a second-class citizen; I was angry at her for not realizing what a prize I was and for making me spend my Saturday evening alone. I was miserable. All of a sudden the thought came to me, "I'm doing this to myself; it isn't her." I thought of the song from "My Fair Lady" where Rex Harrison sings, "I was supremely independent and content before we met. Surely I could always be that way again...and yet...." I realized that I was to see her as the cause of my upset, but it was the way was thinking about the situation that was making me miserable. If I wanted to, I could still be happy. It was a major revelation to me! I wasn't sure I liked it, to be honest, but I could sense, somehow, that "This way lies real liberty." That was a big beginning for me. Let the world be meaningless to you today. Don't be so quick to impose your meaning on it. Just let what is be what it is, without any meaning, and let the Holy Spirit have a chance to write His meaning on it. "When your words have been erased, you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises." There is a Workbook-like saying given in the Text that runs along the same line. "When your peace is threatened or disturbed in any way, say to yourself: "I do not know what anything, including this , means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know [or to write your meaning on the blank slate], The Guide Whom God has given you will speak to you. He will take His rightful place in your awareness the instant you abandon it, and offer it to Him" (T-14.XI.6:6-11; T, p. 277. 1st ed). From sue at circleofa.org Mon Jan 12 06:17:50 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:17:50 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 13 - January 13 Message-ID: Lesson 13 - January 13 "A meaningless world engenders fear." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: the same as yesterday. Exercise: 3 of 4 times, for 1 minute or so (no more) * Close your eyes and repeat the idea. * Open your eyes and look slowly around you. While doing so repeat over and over, "I am looking at a meaningless world." * Close your eyes and say, "A meaningless world engenders fear, because I think I am in competition with God." Remarks: Do not worry if you do not believe the closing statement. You may think it is crazy and you may resist it. All of that is fine. Simply note your resistance, whatever forms it takes, and tell yourself that the real reason for it is that this statement awakens your underlying fear of God's vengeance. Deep inside you believe that by rushing in and writing your meaning on the world's blank slate you have temporarily defeated God. As a result, you believe you now face His wrath. To cope with this belief you have shoved it down in your unconscious, but today's concluding statement brings it back toward the surface. This is why you fear the statement and are eager to dismiss it. Because of all this, do not dwell on it or even think of it except during the exercises. COMMENTARY More specifically than upsetting us, the meaningless world we see sparks fear within us. After spending several days convincing us, so it seems, that the world is meaningless, the Course "reverses course:" "Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. Nothing without meaning exists" (1:2). The Introduction to the Text states that "nothing unreal exists," and now we are told nothing meaningless exists. The situation is not that meaningless things exist and we are afraid because we see them; what is happening is that we we perceive things without meaning, and rush to write our meaning on them. We see no meaning because we are unwilling to see the meaning already written on them by God. When we see the meaningless it arouses anxiety in us. "It represents a situation in which God and the ego 'challenge' each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space the meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own ideas there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own impotence and unreality. And on this alone it is correct" (2:2-4). If the ego did not rush in to give its meaning to things, the meaning established by God would, indeed, demonstrate the unreality of the ego. That is why the ego imagines it sees an empty space of meaninglessness to write in; it fears the meaning God has already given. We assign our own meaning to everything. The Course is insistent that if we did not rush in to write our own meaning, the message we would hear would be one of love and beauty. This is true no matter what the outside "situation" appears to be. For instance, a brother may be totally deceived in his own ego and verbally or even physically attacking us. The message we hear in his words or actions, no matter their form, is the message we to hear. We assign the meaning we think our brother is giving us. If our minds were attuned to the Holy Spirit, no matter what anyone did or said, we would hear a message that affirms the Christ in me and engenders my love. (For a long--and somewhat complex--section on this very topic, see Text, Chapter 9, Section II, "The Answer to Prayer," which says, in part, "The message your brother gives you is up to you. What does he say to you? What would you have him say? Your decision about him determines the message you receive.") The idea that we are in competition with God and fear His vengeance because of our competition may, as the lesson admits, seem preposterous. It asks us to practice the lesson anyhow. At this level we are mainly trying to become aware that we are afraid to leave anything without meaning, although we don't realize fully we are afraid of that. It is asking us to work at being willing to say, "I do not know what this means." We really are afraid of that! And the lesson asks us to note any form of fear carefully (5:4). Not to try to overcome it; just notice it. Notice that leaving something without an assigned meaning makes you anxious, and let yourself consider that maybe the reason is that somehow, somewhere deep down in the darkness of your unconscious, you are afraid of the meaning God might write there if you let Him. From sue at circleofa.org Tue Jan 13 06:03:21 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:03:21 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 14 - January 14 Message-ID: Lesson 14 - January 14 "God did not create a meaningless world." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: To erase the interpretations you have put on the world so that you can see God's interpretation (just as with the previous two lessons). This process will save you. In its early stages, however, you may often feel as if you are being led into terror. This is only temporary. You will be led through fear and then beyond it forever. Exercise: 3 times (unless you find more comfortable), for 1 minute at most * With eyes closed, think of all the horrors in the world that cross your mind, anything you are afraid might happen to you or anyone. For each one say, "God did not create that [specify the horror], and so it is not real." Be very specific in naming the horror or disaster. * Conclude by repeating the idea. Response to temptation: optional-when anything disturbs you Feel free to apply the idea to dispel your upsets during the day. A special form has been provided for this: "God did not create a meaningless world. He did not create [specify the situation which is disturbing you], and so it is not real." This is a very effective practice for regaining peace of mind. You may, in fact, want to give it a try now: Choose a situation that is weighing on you and apply the practice to it. See if at least some of the weight of it does not lift immediately. RESPONSE TO TEMPTATION: optional The idea can be applied to anything that disturbs you. Say: "God did not create a meaningless world. He did not create [specify the situation which is disturbing you], and so it is not real." COMMENTARY: Today's idea should come as a welcome relief after four days of being told our thoughts are meaningless and are showing us a meaningless world that is upsetting and frightening. The meaningless world we are seeing was not created by God, and, "What God did not create does not exist." In the book, "Awaken from the Dream," by Gloria and Kenneth Wapnick, Gloria wrote about how this idea first attracted her to the Course: "Hearing firsthand about the devastating effects World War II had on people personally, I concluded that if this world were the best that God could create, I wanted nothing more to do with Him... "As I read Jesus' words explain that God did not create the world, it was as if 'lightning bolts' crashed through my head. 'Why hadn't I thought of that?' I kept thinking to myself. 'It is so simple; that is the answer.' Finally, after twenty-three years the puzzle in my mind was solved. The Course had supplied the missing piece, and I no longer had to blame God for a world He did not create." To some the message that God did not create the meaningless world we see comes as salvation; to others, it may be "quite difficult and even quite painful." For recognizing that He did not create it entails a corollary truth: we made it up. We are responsible for the world we see. That can lead us "directly into fear." The Course faces up to this in many different places through all three volumes. The message it is giving to us, especially in the "early steps," can be difficult, painful, and fearful. Many people wonder if something is wrong because they have strong negative reactions to this line of thought in the Course. The answer is, not at all. Perhaps it is those among us who have any negative reactions who should be wondering if they are apprehending the Course's message correctly and realizing its implications. A negative reaction is far more common than a positive one; that I can say with confidence. Be glad, however, that the lesson goes on to say: "You will not be left there [in fear]. You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace." The Course calls our path a "journey through fear to love." The early distress is avoided by very few indeed, but the direction of the journey is towards a warmth and breadth of love that can barely be imagined as we start out. One word of caution about the particular form of practice today. Notice carefully that the lesson is asking you to say these thoughts about "your personal repertory of horrors." It is not advocating telling another person who is going through some tragedy that it isn't real; for instance, "Cheer up! God didn't create the death of your husband, so it isn't real." In most cases that is not a loving message but an attack, placing you in a "superior" spiritual position to the other person. The lesson is talking about giving this message to yourself. Note also the mention here that of our illusions, "Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell." Things such as famine and AIDS fall in the "shared illusion" category. There is clear support here for the idea that the illusion of the world is a shared responsibility, not just your personal creation, or mine. From sue at circleofa.org Wed Jan 14 06:00:26 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 06:00:26 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 15 - January 15 Message-ID: Lesson 15 - January 15 "My thoughts are images that I have made." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to introduce you to the process of image making, by which your inner thoughts appear as outer images. Exercise: 3 times (4 if comfortable), for 1 minute (less if you feel uneasy) * Repeat the idea to yourself. * Then look about and apply it randomly to whatever you see, saying quite slowly, "This [name of object] is an image that I have made." Let your eyes rest on the object the whole time you are repeating this. Response to temptation: optional-whenever you are upset You may want to use this form: "This [name of situation] is an image that I have made." This will remind you that the "upsetting" situation you are seeing is not objectively real, but is just your own thoughts appearing in image form. COMMENTARY Our perception is composed of images made from our thoughts. Because the thoughts appear as images, we do not recognize the thoughts as nothing. Physical sight is nothing more than this, and this is the purpose of physical sight. We gave our body's eyes the function of seeing these thought images, in order to validate the thoughts we think we are thinking. "It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions." The Course is quite consistent in its view of our physical sight. It says, for instance, "Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would give" (T-22.III.4:3). And, "The body's eyes see only form. They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. And they were made to look on error and not see past it" (T-22.III.5:3-5). What our eyes show us is a mistake. What our eyes show us is an image we have made, and does not portray the truth. They were "made to look on error and not see past it." Part of what we must begin to learn is to look past the bodily level, to begin to realize that what our eyes are showing us is not necessarily the truth. Our eyes are showing us only the errors of our own minds. There is something the physical that vision can show us. That is the meaning of the "edges of light" the lesson refers to. In a workshop I attended, Ken Wapnick mentioned that this mention of "light episodes" was included in part as an answer to a friend of Helen's who was seeing light around people and wondering if there was something wrong. The lesson explains that such experiences "merely symbolize true perception." The lesson is not trying to say that everyone should have such experiences; merely that, if such experiences do occur, we should not be disconcerted by them; they are a sign of progress. It is not the symbol of true perception we seek, however, but true perception itself. The meaning of "edges of light" is simply that there is something there to be seen that is beyond the physical. It is to this realization that the lesson is leading us. From sue at circleofa.org Thu Jan 15 05:41:07 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:41:07 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 16 - January 16 Message-ID: LESSON 16 - January 16 "I have no neutral thoughts." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: a beginning step in learning that every thought has effects and that each one produces either fear and war or love and peace. Exercise: 4 or 5 times (3 if there's strain); for 1 minute each (reduce if there's discomfort) * Close your eyes and repeat the idea. * Then search your mind for any thoughts present. Try to make no distinctions among them. Try especially not to overlook any "little" thought. As each thought crosses your mind, hold it in mind and say, "This thought about______is not a neutral thought." Response to temptation: whenever you are aware of an upsetting thought Apply the idea to it using this specific form: "This thought about______is not a neutral thought, because I have no neutral thoughts." The point is to make you realize that, by entertaining this thought, you are actively causing yourself fear. COMMENTARY That none of our thoughts are neutral could seem like a scary idea, but the main intent is for us to realize how effectual our thoughts are. This is an empowering idea, not a threatening one, unless we choose to see it that way. "Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact." Like many of the ideas the Course presents, this one is difficult to believe at first because we are so convinced that our thoughts have nothing to do with most of the things we see. Just in case we let the idea slip by, the lesson adds that there are no exceptions. True thoughts create true things; false thoughts make false things, or illusions. There is nothing to be afraid of here because only the true thoughts create realities; false thought only make illusions. No thought, however, is "idle." "What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle." Every thought in our mind is producing all the time, contributing to truth or to illusion. The Course is a mind-training course, aimed at making us aware of our thoughts and their effects, and getting us intimately involved in the process of choosing which thoughts we want to occupy our mind and produce their effects in the world around us. We are asked to recognize that no thought is neutral, no thought does nothing to affect the growth of truth or illusion. Every thought expresses either love or fear; there is no in between. If I look at the way I treat my own thoughts I can see the lesson is correct: I really do tend to sluff off certain thoughts as unimportant and not worth bothering about. Every thought is worth bothering about; all fear thoughts are equally destructive. so that we need not be guilty about them. Some students of the Course are quick to latch on to the "unreal" part but very slow to acknowledge the "destructive" side; the Course always maintains this balance. Just because something is unreal or illusory does not mean it is unimportant and can be ignored! For instance at once point the Text says that delay is impossible in eternity but is in time. The Course is not advocating an attitude of indifference to the world simply because it is an illusion. Remarks such as, "AIDS? It's only an illusion" or "What starving children; it isn't real" are not representative of the true spirit of the Course, although you may hear them in some circles. If AIDS and starvation are in our perception, the thoughts that manifest them must be in our minds, individually or collectively, and therefore we are responsible for healing those thoughts. But I digress from the lesson; time to step off the soap box. The lesson is pointing out that no thought can be dismissed as trivial, and no thought is neutral. As you practice the lesson there will be some thoughts that will easily be seen to be "not neutral." If someone steals your car it is fairly easy to acknowledge that your thoughts about it are not neutral. But if you are thinking of which breakfast cereal to eat it is a bit more of a stretch to believe that, "This thought about 'Wheaties' is not a neutral thought," that it is expressing either love or fear. Believe it; it is. As the instructions say, do not "make artificial distinctions." The mind is like a light bulb, which is either on or off and never in between; our minds are expressing fear or love, and never something in between, never both, and never nothing. From sue at circleofa.org Fri Jan 16 05:49:56 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:49:56 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 17 - January 17 Message-ID: Lesson 17 - January 17 "I see no neutral things." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to continue teaching you the real cause and effect relationship between what you think and what you see. You think that outer events cause your perceptions, but in fact your perceptions are caused by your thoughts. Exercise: 3 or 4 times (3 are required), for 1 minute (less if there's resistance) * With eyes open say, "I see no neutral things because I have no neutral thoughts." * Then look about you, resting your glance on each thing you see long enough to say, "I do not see a neutral [name of object], because my thoughts about [such objects] are not neutral." Remarks: As usual, it is crucial to treat whatever you see as the same. The carpet may be neutral in itself, but you do not see it that way, because your perception of it arises from thoughts that are inherently non-neutral. Even if the carpet is black-and-white, figuratively speaking, your thoughts always color it COMMENTARY True cause and effect in the world, according to the Course, is that thoughts are the cause and the world is the effect. "It is always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is the other way around." We have no neutral thoughts and therefore we see no neutral things. What is our usual tendency when we find ourselves having certain thoughts? We ask ourselves, "What made me feel this way? What made me depressed, or angry, or bored?" The thought always comes first. It was not anything outside of your mind that caused you to think in a certain way. Rather, your mind caused the world you see. The lesson becomes quite radical in its statements at times: "Regardless of what you may believe, you do not see anything that is really alive or really joyous. That is because you are unaware as yet of any thought that is really true, and therefore really happy." I've been studying the Course now for ten years and I still have trouble fully accepting the idea that I don't see anything really alive. I know that the Course states that the body (which is what I see with my eyes) does not die because it has never lived, and so I know intellectually that the Course defines "alive" quite differently than we normally do. By alive it obviously must mean something non-physical, because it writes off the physical body as not being alive at all. But I have to admit that I still need to practice with this lesson because my instinct is still to regard bodies as alive. I have to work at it to remember otherwise. I recall speaking with my friend, Lynne, a little over a year before her body "died." She was a student of the Course. Her body had deteriorated rapidly over the preceding year, and after several surgeries was only a shell of what it had been. She remarked to me that she was really learning the truth of what she really was. I said, "I guess you have a little more understanding of what the Course means when it says, 'I am not a body.'" "I damn well better not be!" she exclaimed, laughing. So although the ideas that nothing I see with my eyes is really alive, and nothing I see is neutral because my thoughts are not neutral, can be disconcerting, they also have their plus side. The lesson is the same for us all, although for some, like Lynne, it seems to be accelerated. But our bodies will wither and decay just as hers did, only a little more slowly. It is a welcome relief to realize that its only meaning is given it by my mind. The mind and spirit are what are alive and real; they are the cause, and the body and its world is only the effect of thoughts. From suelegal at gmail.com Sat Jan 17 05:00:47 2009 From: suelegal at gmail.com (Sue Roth) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:00:47 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 18 - January 18 Message-ID: Lesson 18 - January 18 "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: To continue to teach you that your thoughts are not without effect. The preceding lessons have emphasized that they always affect your mind. This lesson emphasizes that they always affect all minds. Exercise: 3 of 4 times, for 1 minute or so (perhaps less) * Look around you, randomly selecting subjects and resting your glance on each one long enough to say, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see______." * Conclude by repeating the idea. COMMENTARY The concept that "minds are joined" is easy to grasp, but literally far-reaching in its implications. How I see things affects other minds, not just my own. The Course teaches us not simply that mind-to-mind communication is possible; it says that minds in communication, constantly, whether or not we know it: "The minds joined, but you do not identify with them. You see yourself locked in a separate prison, removed and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached" (T-18.VI.7:4-5). "The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication that is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. Mind reaches to itself. It is made up of different parts, which reach each other" (T-18.VI.8:3-6). So communication is "an eternal property of mind." It is always going on. We only have the illusion of separate minds because any separation is an illusion. Therefore, what "I" think affect, not only you, but every single living thing. The miracles that the Course can bring into our lives will prove this to us time and time again. A shift in the way see things can bring about miraculous effects in people around me. This is why, in giving healing to another, it is necessary that the other person be in her or his right mind, only that be there, however briefly (see T-2.V.3:3-5). The shift in my mind has direct effect on the separate minds of those around me. "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" (T-1.I.45, Miracle Principle 45). The fact that how I see things affects more than just myself makes the thoughts that give rise to my seeing even more important. How I think and perceive things affects, quite literally, the entire world. By opening my mind to love I can be a conduit of love for the world. From suelegal at gmail.com Sun Jan 18 05:00:24 2009 From: suelegal at gmail.com (Sue Roth) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:00:24 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 19 - January 19 Message-ID: Lesson 19 - January 19 "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to teach you that all minds are joined. Despite being initially unwelcome, this idea must be true for salvation to be possible. Exercise: 3 or 4 (at least 3), for 1 minute or so (shorter if necessary) * Close your eyes and repeat the idea. * Search your mind carefully for the thoughts it contains now. As you consider each one in turn, hold it in your mind and say, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of this thought about [name central person or theme of thought]." Remarks: Today's lesson includes the last major mention of a theme that is quite familiar by now: the need to be indiscriminate and random in selecting practice subjects. These early lessons have drilled this into us (it has been mentioned in every lesson except 8, 13, and 14), and so in this lesson the author announces that he will no longer emphasize it. This is not because it is no longer relevant, but because he expects that we have internalized it by now. He now expects us to maintain this practice throughout the rest of the Workbook. He also mentions why it is so important. Being able to apply the idea just as easily to our partner's body as to a speck on the floor will ultimately enable us to heal cancer just as easily as a cold. Response to temptation: as needed Apply the idea in response to any unwanted thought. Just realizing that this thought affects everyone will help you let it go. COMMENTARY Yesterday it was about seeing; today about thinking. "Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate." Thinking is cause; seeing is effect, and they are simultaneous. A baseball flying through your window causes the glass to be broken. Which happens first? The baseball passing through the plane of the glass, or the glass breaking? Obviously both happen at once. So it is with thinking and seeing. When we think, we perceive. The simultaneity is part of what makes it so difficult for us to recognize thought as the cause. It is fairly easy for the ego to play the trick of reversing cause and effect, so that we believe that what we see is the cause of what we think. But that isn't the way it works at all. The idea that minds are joined is exciting but also, especially at first, quite threatening. There are thoughts I have that I do not want to have shared, but "There are no private thoughts." My "private" thoughts affect everyone and everything just as every thought does that engages my mind. The idea can be disconcerting. The lesson tells us that despite resistance, eventually we will all recognize that the idea--of joined minds in which no thought is private--is inevitable "if salvation is possible at all." It does not explain why it is inevitable, just says that we'll all see it that way before long. Let's think about it for a minute. If other minds are truly separate from mine, then different wills are also truly possible. That places me in competition with the world, alone against the universe. How can I then be free from fear, if outside forces can at any moment turn against me in vicious attack? If, however, minds are joined, and if what I think affects all of mind thus joined, then salvation is possible. Then one choice for peace can affect the entire joined mind towards peace. Salvation is possible; I am not at effect of the world, but the world is my effect. I am empowered to choose. I can choose peace for all of mind. This is how, in the Course's view of things, I can become a savior of the world. Let me then determine this day to choose for peace, for healing, and for forgiveness. As I begin to realize that I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts, I will begin to care about what I think, and as I begin to care, I will begin to heal myself and the world along with me. From sue at circleofa.org Mon Jan 19 10:43:38 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:43:38 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 20 - January 20 Message-ID: Lesson 20 - January 20 "I am determined to see." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to be determined to have vision and so to receive vision. Exercise: two per hour (preferably on the half hour) * Repeat the idea. How you repeat it makes all the difference. The lesson asks you to do so "slowly and positively" (5:1), remembering that you are determined to exchange your present state for one you really want. (In fact, you may want to try saying it this way just once right now, and see if that makes a difference.) * If you find at some point that you have forgotten to practice, "do not be distressed...but make a real effort to remember" (5:2) from then on. Remarks: This lesson marks a major shift in the Workbook. If the Workbook has seemed easy up until this point, that was intentional. It cannot stay that easy, however, and reach its goal of the total transformation of your thinking. So beginning now it will give you more of a structure within which to practice. This will include more frequent practice, set times in which to practice, and longer practice. Today's lesson includes the first two of those. How you respond to this structure is crucial. If you see it as an imposition, as an outside will forcing itself on you, you will either actively or passively rebel against it. Instead, try to see it as the expression of your true will. You want all the things the Course offers you. And you will only get them through having a trained mind, and you will only get that through doing the practice. Therefore, doing the practice today is your own true desire. Response to temptation: Whenever you become upset about a person, situation, or event Repeat the idea as an emotional remedy. You may want to specify it: "I am determined to see this situation." If you really want to see this situation differently, you will. COMMENTARY Today's lesson does not really ask all that much of us: Every half hour, remember to repeat the words, "I am determined to see." If we are studying the Course this is something we probably truly want. "You want salvation. You want to be happy. You want peace." Why then all the foofaraw about our feeling coerced, resentful and opposed to the instructions? Because, "This is our first attempt to introduce structure," and it will not be the last. Our undisciplined minds have a built-in resistance to structure. So what if its good for us? Actually something we want? If someone us to do it in a certain way, at certain times, we rebel. We drag our feet. We don't like being told what to do or how to do it. Our mind is "totally undisciplined" and wants to remain that way to protect the ego's vested interests. The practice asked is extremely simple. So try it. You'll probably be amazed at how often you forget, how the thought of doing it may flash into your mind only to be postponed because it isn't convenient at the moment, or because "It isn't really important," and then forgotten completely. This is why the Workbook approaches the whole idea of structure with great caution; it knows there will be resistance, and is trying to make us realize just how important this deceptively simple practice really is. This is why it says: "Do not be distressed if you forget to do so, but make a real effort to remember." "Your decision to see is all that vision requires." If we could really get this lesson, in other words, and truly mean what we are saying, the job would be done. Vision would be ours. "In your determination to see is vision given you." This is NOT a trivial lesson; it is the core of everything the Course is teaching. So let's put our heart into it today! Let's do this joyfully, even--dare I say?--religiously, every half hour. Let's repeat the idea "slowly and positively." Let's "make a real effort to remember." Let's apply it "to any situation, person or event that upsets" us. "You can see them differently, and you will. What you desire you will see. Such is the real law of cause and effect as it operates in the world." From sue at circleofa.org Tue Jan 20 06:10:42 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:10:42 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 21 - January 21 Message-ID: Lesson 21 - January 21 "I am determined to see things differently." PRACTICE SUMMARY Exercise: 5 times, for 1 full minute each * Repeat the idea. * Then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for any situation at any time that arouses anger in you, no matter how mild. Hold each one in mind and say, "I am determined to see [specify person or situation] differently." Give "little" and "big" thoughts of anger the same attention. Be very specific, even to the point of naming specific attributes in specific people that anger you: "I am determined to see [specify the attribute] in [name of person] differently." Remarks: In this practice, we are meant to avoid the fallacy that the degree of our anger matters. This fallacy takes two forms. The first is thinking that tiny bits of anger-for instance, mild irritation-are too small to bother including in the exercise. The second is emphasizing certain "obvious" sources of anger, which implies that in these particular cases our anger is truly justified. The truth is that all anger is maximal and none of it is justified. A second fallacy is mentioned as well. This is the belief that our anger is confined to a particular personality trait in someone: "I basically love Jim. I am not angry at him across the board, just at this one particularly annoying trait of his." This lesson is implying that our anger toward this person is not safely confined in this way; it is across the board. With this fallacy, rather than not letting it influence our practice (as with the previous fallacy), we are supposed to use it in our practice. We are supposed to apply the idea specifically to that trait (see 5:4). Response to temptation: whenever a situation arouses anger Repeat the idea, specifying the perceived source of the anger: "I am determined to see [specify person or situation] differently." COMMENTARY In this lesson we apply the idea of being determined to see to specific situations that arouse anger, with an emphasis on seeing these situations differently. The meaning of these exercises in connection with transforming our perceptions is quite obvious. One thought from this lesson is particularly striking. It is a thought that makes more and more sense to me the longer I work with the Course, studying the Text and practicing the mental disciplines it teaches us. "You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury." The very first "miracle principle" presented in Chapter 1 of the Text said, "There is no order of difficulty in miracles." The idea expressed in this lesson closely parallels that concept. There is no order of severity in anger, either; a slight twinge of annoyance is the same as intense fury, and in fact disguised rage. All forms of anger stem from the same source. Some schools of psychology have long maintained that everyone carries around a deeply suppressed, primal anger. It may be tempered by a veneer of civilization, but underneath, in the subconscious, lies a violent fury. Many have attributed this to our animalistic origins in evolution, but the Course sees the anger in a metaphysical sense. Within us we carry a blinding anger at ourselves because we believe we have attacked reality and succeeded; we have somehow managed to separate ourselves from God and have destroyed the unity of Heaven. We think that in a childish fit of pique over not receiving special treatment and special love, we have ruined our own home and can never go back. We are enraged at ourselves, but, unable to endure the guilt of our own self-hatred, we broadcast it outward and deflect our anger onto other objects we believe to be separate from ourselves. The term used for this displacement of anger is "projection." The ego within us is constantly "cruising," looking for situations onto which anger can be projected with seeming justification, in order to convince our minds that the cause of the anger is without, and not within. Every flash of anger, ranging from mild irritation up to rage, are all symptoms of this same, deep, primal self-hatred, projected onto the world. They are all the same thing. This is why the Course is advising us not to believe that some forms of attack are more justified than others, and not to overlook the "little" thoughts of anger. By making no distinction between "degrees" of anger we are helping ourselves learn that they are, in reality, all the same, and all equally unjustified. From sue at circleofa.org Wed Jan 21 06:05:32 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:05:32 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 22 - January 22 Message-ID: Lesson 22 - January 22 "What I see is a form of vengeance." PRACTICE SUMMARY Exercise: 5 times (at least), for 1 minute (at least) * Look about you. As your eyes move slowly from one thing to another say, "I see only the perishable. I see nothing that will last. What I see is not real. What I see is a form of vengeance." * Conclude by asking yourself, "Is this the world I really want to see?" Remarks: The four lines that we are asked to repeat do not seem to logically follow from each other, even though it seems like they are meant to. Based on paragraph 2, I would say they do follow from each other, only in reverse order-meaning, the conclusion comes first and the argument's foundation comes last. The logic all rests on the idea (mentioned in paragraph 1) that we see the world through angry eyes. As a result, we are convinced that the world must want to get revenge on us for the daggers that came out of our eyes, so to speak. This (unconscious) conviction on our part makes us perceive ourselves surrounded by a world thirsting for vengeance on us. (That explains the fourth line.) The vengeful world we see, therefore, is our own projection. It exists only in our imagination. It is not a real world. (That explains the third line.) And, because it is not real, it does not have the attributes of reality; in this case, permanence. (That explains the first and second lines.) To make this fully clear, let me place the original lines and my explanation side by side: ORIGINAL LINE: I see only the perishable. I see nothing that will last. EXPLANATION: I see a world that has no permanence. ORIGINAL LINE: What I see is not real. EXPLANATION: It has no permanence because permanence is an attribute of reality, and the world I see is not real. It is only a picture in my imagination. ORIGINAL LINE: What I see is a form of vengeance. EXPLANATION: This picture is painted by my attack thoughts. They cause me to imagine a world poised to get revenge on me for my attack on it.COMMENTARY This is a lesson that I simply did not understand the first few times I went through the Workbook. I'm not entirely sure I understand it now, but it makes a certain sense to me, and to the degree that I do understand it, I'd like to share that understanding with you all. Notice one thing, however, as you read through the lesson. What you are asked to actually practice with is simply the thought that heads the lesson, but quite a bit more, ending with the question, "Is this the world I really want to see?" So understanding the lead thought isn't really the purpose of this lesson; rather, the purpose is to help us realize that we do not really want what we are seeing. We are seeing it, however, because in some part of our mind, a part we have hidden from consciousness, we do want it. We always see what we want to see, and we are seeing what we are seeing because we want to see it. "You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there. Perception has no other law than this" (T-25.III.1:3, 4). If we are seeing what we are seeing because we want to see it, then if this lesson can help us learn we don't want it--that we really want something else--it will help us change what we see. Change what we want, and our perception changes with it. If we hold attack thoughts in our mind we must see the world as a vicious place, a dangerous place. It is a world of pain, and "Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed" (W-pI.190.2:3, 4). As I said yesterday, we are angry at ourselves over what we think we have done, and as a result we are having "a dream of fierce retaliation" for our crimes. As egos we are also angry at reality for not being what we want it to be, for not supporting our wish for separation and specialness. We cannot face our own anger at ourselves, and we cannot support the guilt of our insane rage at reality, so we project it: "Having projected his anger onto the world, he sees vengeance about to strike at him." The anger and attack we see in the world is only the reflection of the intensity of our inner rage, the rage we cannot see in ourselves we have denied it and projected it outward. The world I see thus shows me what I am thinking. "The world I see is a form of vengeance" because vengeance is what fills my own mind, although I am unaware of it. That I see vengeance in the world is the proof it is in my mind, because that is the law of perception. "He will attack, because what he beholds is his own fear external to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with him again. Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him" (W-pI.161.8:2-4). "It is from this savage fantasy that you want to escape" (W-pI.22.2:1). The words the Course uses--"savage fantasy," "a dream of fierce retaliation"--are so evocative! If the world looks like this--and surely it does, quite often at least--what must be the state of our minds that spawn it? "This becomes an increasingly vicious circle until he is willing to change how he sees." We do want to escape from this savage fantasy. That is the goal of today's lesson, to help us become willing to change how we see. None of what we are seeing exists, and if we are willing to change how we see, we will no longer see it. The Course's definition of "real" is "eternal, everlasting, changeless." What does not last is not real. By definition. And "I see nothing that will last." Therefore none of it is real, by this definition. If it is not real, what is it? "A form of vengeance." Ken Wapnick said once that the world is simply crystallized guilt. This lesson is saying that the world is crystallized attack thoughts, vengeance solidified into a world of attack and counterattack. "Is this the world I really want to see? "The answer is surely obvious." Bear in mind that this lesson is working at the level of motivation. It is not telling us we can see something different. It knows that if it can get us to something different the battle is over, because what we want, we will see. So if this lesson leaves you feeling, "God! No, I don't want to see the world like this any more, but what can I do about it?" then the lesson has been successful. The question will be answered as the lessons progress. From sue at circleofa.org Thu Jan 22 05:58:01 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:58:01 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 23 - January 23 Message-ID: Lesson 23 - January 23 "I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts." Practice Summary Purpose: to learn "that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed" (5:1). Exercise: 5 times, for about 1 minute * Repeat the idea slowly as you look about you. * Then close your eyes and search your mind for thoughts of attack and being attacked. Hold each one in mind and say: "I can escape the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about______." Remarks: It is important to include thoughts of attack coming from you and thoughts of attack coming at you. The lesson says that these are just two different forms of the same thought. In fact, if you look closely, you will notice that every attack thought contains both aspects. When you are angry with someone, there is always an element of, "He caused me pain in some way (which means he somehow attacked me) and that's why I am angry." And whenever you see someone attacking you, there is an accompanying anger, displeasure, or frustration directed at him. Thus, it is all the same, and it is all attack. Seeing this can motivate us to let it all go. Response to temptation: whenever you notice yourself having attack thoughts Repeat the idea as a way of dispelling those thoughts. You might want to make it specific by using the same form as above:"I can escape the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about______." COMMENTARY This is one example of a statement that sums up the message of ACIM for us. We do not escape from the world by controlling it, manipulating it, fixing it, or trying to make it better. We escape by an act of mind, by giving up attack thoughts. The world I see is the effect of attack thoughts in my mind, and therefore I can "escape" from it by changing my mind. This is "the only way out of fear that will ever succeed. Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless" (1:1-2). "It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work" (1:5). The Text puts it like this: "You must change your mind, not your behavior, and this a matter of willingness. You do not need guidance except at the mind level. Correction belongs only at the level where change is possible. Change does not mean anything at the symptom level, where it cannot work" (T-2.VI.3:4-7). The world is the symptom level; the mind is the level of causation. It is very hard for most people to accept this dictum of the Course: "There is no point in trying to change the world" (2:3). As often as I have read this I keep running my head up against it. I find myself trying to change some outward factor, something in the world around me, thinking that such a change will somehow make things better. All this accomplishes is to alleviate some symptoms, like taking a cough drop when I have a cold. It cures nothing. Or, as Marianne Williamson has said, it is like trying to solve the problems on the Titanic by rearranging the deck chairs. What works is changing my thoughts about the world, because my attack thoughts are the cause of the world I see. "You see the world that you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image maker" (4:1). We don't recognize the power of our mind; we use the very images made by the mind to mask the mind's power. We resist being tagged as the image maker. We want it to be someone else's fault, even God's. "Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them, even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone" (4:4-5). Every single thing we made out of our hate, our attack, and our rage can be transformed if we join with the Holy Spirit to let His light shine on them. Every special relationship, whether of hate or of special love, can become a source of blessing to the world. Every act of vengeance can be turned into salvation. This is what a miracle does. "The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love" (T-26.IX.6:1). We are not trapped in the world "because its cause can be changed" (5:1). And there follows a wonderfully brief summary of the process, which Ken Wapnick has labelled the three steps of forgiveness: 1) "This change requires, first, that the cause be identified" (5:2). We must recognize mind as the cause. We must become aware that we are constantly "making" the ego every moment within our own minds, by our thoughts. We must become aware that we are responsible for what we see. 2) "and then let go..." (5:2). Having recognized the mind as cause, we must choose to change our mind about the world. We must realize that the thoughts we have been thinking are not the thoughts we want because, as the lesson said yesterday, we have realized this is not the world we want to see. It does not say anything here about coming up with new thoughts; it merely says we let go of the old ones. All that is needed is a willingness for change, a recognition that, "I no longer want this." 3) "so that it can be replaced" (5:2). The third step is the replacement of attack thoughts with holy thoughts, thoughts of love and peace. The next sentences are extremely important here: "The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not" (5:3-4). The replacement step is not our job! We cooperate in identifying the cause, uncovering the ego within our minds, and we cooperate in letting go of those ego thoughts, but the replacement with God's thoughts is not our job. That just happens. When something happens to upset me, this is all I need to remember. 1) The cause is not outside but my own thoughts. 2) I do not want these thoughts. Step 3 takes care of itself, for if I take the first two steps, I will see that my false images have been replaced. The "true thoughts" spoken of earlier are already in my mind, but they are masked by the false ones. Remove the false, and the true is seen to be already there. Within the practice instructions there is one other idea worth singling out: "Be sure to include both your thoughts of attacking and being attacked. Their effects are exactly the same because they are exactly the same" (7:1-2). An 'attack thought' is not just a thought I have about attacking another; it is also a thought of attacked. If everything I see is a reflection of my thoughts, then what seems to be attack coming at me from outside is really my own thought of attack bouncing back at me. Fears of all kinds are attack thoughts. Uneasiness when a highway patrol car cruises by is an attack thought. Worry about competition at work, or in a relationship, is an attack thought. Cheering when the Death Star blows up is an attack thought. Watch your mind on Super Bowl Sunday! We have a lot of giving up to do. The result is worth it. From sue at circleofa.org Fri Jan 23 05:49:33 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:49:33 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 24 - January 24 Message-ID: Lesson 24 - January 24 "I do not perceive my own best interests." Practice Summary: Exercise: five times, for two minutes * Repeat the idea. * With eyes closed, search your mind for unresolved situations that you've been concerned about. When you find one, name all the goals you hope this situation will end up meeting for you, all the outcomes you are desiring, at least all that you can find. Say, "In the situation involving______, I would like______to happen, and______to happen...." Once you cannot find any more, say, "I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation." This line should simply articulate what you have already observed in uncovering your goals. You should see that many of them cannot be met together, by the same situation, and that others cannot be met by this situation. * After saying that line, repeat the whole procedure with a new situation, and so on until the time is up. Remarks: The important thing in these exercises is to be honest with yourself. It can be humiliating to admit just how many impossible and contradictory hopes you have crammed into a single situation. But admitting that is the whole point of this exercise. That is what will show you that today's idea really is true for you. So be unusually honest, as well as careful and patient, in uncovering all the goals you have stuffed into the pockets of this situation. COMMENTARY Our actions in any situation are determined by our perception of the situation, and as we have been seeing for the last 23 lessons, our perceptions are, to put it mildly, unreliable. The lesson says it more bluntly: our perceptions are "wrong." There is no way, then, that we can possibly know what our own best interests are in any situation. The exercises for today are designed to bring four things to our attention (paragraph 6): - we are making a large number of demands on the situation that have nothing to do with it - many of our goals are contradictory - we have no unified outcome in mind - we must be disappointed in regard to some of our goals no matter what the outcome is. We have all experienced this, particularly in making major decisions. Suppose I receive a fabulous job offer that pays me more money than I ever dreamed of and involves doing something I like. Sounds good at first. Then I realize I will have to relocate to a part of the country I don't like; I'll have to be willing for extensive travel; and I will frequently be required to work long hours and weekends. My mind suddenly becomes filled with all the conflicting goals. I may find I am expecting the job to make me happy, somehow. Perhaps I am thinking the job should provide me with spiritual companions. I'll have to leave my friends behind. And so on and on. The more I have worked with the Course the more I realize that this is not just a beginning lesson; it is something that applies to nearly every situation I get into. I am constantly reminding myself that I don't know what my own best interests are in one situation after another. I find it most important to do so when things seem to be relatively clear, when I think I know what I want and need. If I think I know my best interests, I cannot be taught what they really are. The best mental state I can maintain, then, is, "I don't know." I can acknowledge my preferences, I can admit that I think I would like certain things to happen, but I need to learn to add, "I'm not certain this is the best." If I pray for something, I can add, "Let X happen, or something better." I remain open-minded, ready to accept that what I think about the situation may not cover all the bases, and probably does not. That is the intent behind today's idea: to open our minds to the possibility that we may not know, and may need assistance. From sue at circleofa.org Sat Jan 24 07:50:16 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:50:16 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 25 - January 25 Message-ID: Lesson 25 - January 25 "I do not know what anything is for." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: to begin to learn that the purposes you assign things are totally meaningless. This will help you give up those purposes. Exercise: 6 times, for 2 minutes * Repeat the idea slowly. * Then look about you and let your glance rest on each thing that catches your eye. Keep looking at it long enough to say quite slowly: "I do not know what this______is for." Then move on to the next thing. Make no distinctions between things near or far, important or unimportant, human or nonhuman. Remarks: As you look at an object and repeat the idea, you may become aware of just how much you see that object as existing to serve your personal interests. This includes inanimate objects as well as animate ones, such as human bodies. We see everything in our environment as having the purpose of serving this separate self. That simply cannot be what its true purpose is. COMMENTARY Have you noticed how the pace of recommended practice is accelerating? Yesterday we moved from five one-minute periods to five two-minute periods; today we increase to six two-minute periods. How many of us are making a serious effort to follow these instructions? (That's a rhetorical question; I don't want hundreds of answers!) Remember how the Introduction said that we aren't asked to believe the ideas, accept them, or welcome them; even active resistance is OK. All that is asked is that we "use them," to "apply the ideas as you are directed to do." Nothing but that is required to make them effective. But applying them IS required, if we want them to have effect in our lives. We don't know what anything is for. The obvious question is, "What is it for? "This lesson answers the question. "Everything is for your own best interests" (1:5). Obviously that relates to yesterday's lesson, "I do not perceive my own best interests." What is for my best interests? Everything. We don't know that and we certainly don't believe it. We evaluate everything "in terms of ego goals" (2:1), and since "the ego is not you" (2:2), that cannot give us any idea of what our best intersts are. We are picking and choosing the things that support our ego, which is not our Self, and therefore, clearly, we are actually undermining our true Self. (The statement that "the ego is not you" is particularly important; it isn't something we would realize without being told.) We look at the world from the ego perspective and we literally "assign" purposes to things, purposes that will support our ego. When things don't live up to our expectations, we get upset. All our goals involve "personal" interests. "Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing" (3:2). We don't really have personal interests because the "person" we think of when we say those words isn't real. We have no real goals that we do not share in common with all living things, because all living things are connected, and the sharing is what makes the goals real. Shared goals recognize the reality of who we are. Ego goals do not. This is why we are extremely confused about what things are for. The lesson points out that, on a superficial level, we do know what things are for; we know a telephone is for talking to someone not physically present. "Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels" (4:3). For instance, we don't understand why we want to reach someone by phone. We may think we understand. You might be calling the store to order a book. But why do you want the book? Why call now, at precisely this moment? There is a deeper purpose in everything that we do not understand, nor can we understand it as long as we think our conscious goals are the real ones. We have "to be willing to give up the goals [we] have established for everything" (5:1). The entire foundation of our judgment is rotten because it rests on the idea that there are "things" outside of us that differ from us. There is nothing outside of us; everything is part of us. As long as we are coming from that false premise, our goals will be skewed and our judgments will be faulty. I find it very helpful to remember that I don't know what anything means and I don't know what it is for. A phone call may bring "bad news," but I can say, "I do not know what this phone call is for; I do not know what this situation is for, and therefore I cannot judge it." The Course insists on our total ignorance. "The confusion between your real creation and what you have made of yourself is so profound that it has become literally impossible for you to know anything" (T-3.V.3:2). That's pretty definite, isn't it? "Literally impossible." This isn't any figure of speech. Obviously, if you literally know nothing, judgment is impossible. Because we've confused ourselves with our egos, we can't know anything. Our belief in our identity as separate beings, located in bodies, has become an unquestioned core belief behind our every thought. We evaluate everything in terms of ego goals (W-pI.25.2:1). Before we even begin to evaluate what anything means we have presupposed that, whatever it is and whatever it means, it is not us; it is other. From that premise it is literally impossible to know or understand anything because it is not other. It is part of us. A very young baby in its crib goes through a process of learning that its foot or hand is part of itself. To begin with the baby does not know that. You can watch the baby, sometimes, treating the foot as if it were a foreign object. We are all still infants in this sense because we don't recognize parts of ourselves when we see them; we think they are something else. Because we think they are something else, we are unable to form judgments that make any sense. Our judgments are not simply exaggerated or inaccurate, they are so wide of the mark they're ludicrous. "Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know" (T-31.I.12:2, 3). If we don't know what anything is for, we can't judge it! We can't evaluate whether or not it is fulfilling its purpose because we don't know what its purpose is. We aren't being asked to acquire all this knowledge we lack; we are asked to become still and to remember how much we don't know (T-31.II.6:4). The Text tells us that there is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this: "I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself." (T-31.V.17:7) It goes on to say that learning this is the birth of salvation. This is where learning starts: admitting how incapable of judging we are. All of these things we don't know, and recognizing our ignorance is the birth of salvation because until we admit we don't know, we won't ask for help. As long as we think we know, we block true knowing. "Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ask what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you....Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him. "You do not know the meaning of anything you perceive. Not one thought you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm beginning." (T-11.VIII.2:1-2, 5; 3:1-3). From sue at circleofa.org Sun Jan 25 09:42:49 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:42:49 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 26 - January 26 Message-ID: Lesson 26 - January 26 "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability." PRACTICE SUMMARY: Purpose: to realize that how vulnerable you feel is due, not to how the world treats you, but strictly to your own thoughts; specifically, to your attack thoughts. Relinquishing these thoughts is the road to feeling truly invulnerable. Exercise: 6 times, for 2 minutes (cut in half if you become uncomfortable) * Repeat the idea. * Close your eyes and pick a situation that has been concerning you, that has been on your mind. First name the situation: "I am concerned about_____." Then go over each potential outcome (ideally, about five or six) that you have been afraid might happen. For each one say, "I am afraid_____will happen," and then yourself, "That thought is an attack upon myself." This is the punchline. This is the whole point of the exercise. What is attacking you is not the external outcome, but your thought that you are vulnerable to that outcome. * When you run out of outcomes for that situation, repeat this procedure with other situations until the time is up. * Repeat the idea to close. Remarks: Try to be both honest and thorough. If you only go through two or three situations, that is all right. We do not like to admit to ourselves just how many fearful possibilities we see facing us. Consequently, the outcomes you are really frightened of may only occur to you after you think you have completely exhausted your list. However, as this lesson advises, try to treat the frightening outcomes the same as the mildly worrisome ones. All of them are just different permutations of your belief that you are vulnerable. COMMENTARY The American Heritage dictionary defines "invulnerable" as "immune to attack." So to believe I can be attacked means, by definition, that I believe I am not invulnerable. That much is obvious. There is a little bit of logic in the first paragraph that might slip by without careful reading: "You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack" (1:2-3). It is my belief that am capable of attack that makes me fear attack from without; if I can attack, so can everyone else. My fear of attack, therefore, comes from the projection of my own belief about myself! It comes from my belief that I am not a wholly loving being, but rather I am malicious, malign and wicked. That is what the second paragraph is all about. "What would have effects through you must also have effects on you" (1:4). This is why, as Lesson 23 said in the last paragraph, thoughts of attacking and thoughts of being attacked are exactly the same. My belief in attack within myself, acting through me, will also have effects me. "It is this law that will ultimately save you." What that is referring to is the truth, much emphasized in the Course, that the way I find forgiveness is by giving it; the way I receive healing is to heal others. But we are "misusing" that law now, projecting guilt instead of extending love. So we need to learn how to use it for our own best interests, rather than against them (a reference to Lesson 24). Attack thoughts weaken me in my own eyes, whether they are fearful thoughts of assault from without, or agressive thoughts of attack on another. "The strong do not have enemies," as it says elsewhere (T-23.In.1:5). If I can let go of attack thoughts I will perceive my invulnerability; my "vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of [my] own thoughts" (4:1). "Nothing except your thoughts can attack you" (4:2). That is a thought I have meditated on for years, and have proved valid in my own experience. It is particularly difficult to believe at first; that's OK. Work with it. It is an empowering thought. (In this light you might want to read over Chapter 10's Introduction in the Text.) The instructions for today's lesson are longer and quite detailed. Read them carefully. This is a real mental process we are to engage in. In thinking of a situation we are to "go over every possible outcome," referring to it very specifically. The lesson emphasizes being thorough, and taking time with each situation. From sue at circleofa.org Mon Jan 26 06:01:11 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:01:11 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 27 - January 27 Message-ID: Lesson 27 - January 27 "Above all else I want to see." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to bring closer the day when you want vision more than everything else. Exercise: at least every half hour (3 or 4 times an hour is suggested) Simply repeat the idea. You can do this even in the middle of conversation. Don't worry if you don't fully mean the idea. Repeat it to bring closer the day when you will mean it. If repeating it arouses fear of having to give up something, add, "Vision has no cost to anyone," and, if still afraid, say, "It can only bless." Remarks: This is a very important lesson, the second lesson in frequent practice (the first was Lesson 20). It is clearly serious about this frequency. At the beginning of the day you are supposed to set the interval you will use (e.g., every twenty minutes, every thirty minutes). If you have not done that yet, it would be good to do so now. Then, for the rest of the day, you are asked to do your best to stick to the frequency you yourself chose. The Course realizes that, in all likelihood, you will not do this perfectly. When you forget a practice period, do not get angry with yourself. This eventually makes you feel like giving up (and is, in fact, an ego ploy to engineer just this outcome; see 95.7:3-5, 10:1-2). Just get back to your practicing as if nothing happened. What is important is not lamenting past failures to practice, but doing the practice in the present and future. The benefits of this can be enormous. Just one truly sincere repetition can put you forward years in your development. COMMENTARY This is reminiscent of Lesson 20, "I am determined to see," to which a subtle reference is made in the first line: "Today's idea expresses something stronger than mere determination." It puts the desire to see into first place, "above all else." I want to see more than I want anything else. If we mean this, we will choose the path that leads to vision every time, no matter what other lesser goal might be tempting us. The lesson recognizes that the idea may not be wholly true for us yet. Since desire determines vision, if it were now wholly true you would see, and therefore would not need the lesson! So working with a lesson like this is not hypocritical; it is an exercise intended specifically for people for whom the idea is not yet wholly accepted, designed to move us closer to the day when it will be. The phrase "above all else" may tempt us to think we are being asked to sacrifice. "Vision at any cost!" Therefore the lesson suggests that if we feel uneasy about unreservedly committing ourselves to vision, we should add this thought: "Vision has no cost to anyone." If that isn't enough, add, "It can only bless." Put them all together: "Above all else I want to see, and vision has no cost for anyone. I can only bless." This hints at an idea stated clearly many times in the Course: this path does not believe in sacrifice. It says we are asked only to sacrifice illusions, and that this is in reality only an illusion of sacrifice. "Nothing real can be threatened." Still, the lesson is leading us towards this kind of single-minded, unreserved determination to have true vision. We need to be willing to put vision above anything that seems to compete with it. It may at times that we are being asked to give things up, and we may actually have to give them up, but when we do, we will realize we have given up nothing we truly wanted. The entire process is perfectly safe, and entails no real loss of any kind. The practice requirements suddenly leap into high gear in this lesson: repeat the idea "at least every half hour." That's "...and more if possible. You might try for every fifteen or twenty minutes." (Things will ease up again tomorrow.) Specific structure, with a set time schedule, is recommended. All we are asked to do each of these times is to repeat the one sentence to ourselves, "Above all else I want to see." This is not a big deal. There isn't any reason we can't do it, even in the middle of a conversation--if we want to, if we are willing. "The real question is, how often will you remember? How much do you want today's idea to be true? Answer one of these questions and you have answered the other" (4:1-3). How often we remember will be the measure of how much we really want to see above all else. This will be a very revealing day! Notice carefully how we are supposed to deal with the fact that we probably will forget and come nowhere near the ideal of every fifteen minutes. It says a lot about how the Workbook views this whole matter of "practice." Basically it says, "Don't let your 'failure' bother you; just get back on track immediately." All that it takes to save "many years of effort" (4:6) is to, just once during the day, repeat the idea with perfect sincerity. To achieve that one time, many repetitions are needed. Simply do the best you can--but let it be the you can do. From sue at circleofa.org Tue Jan 27 05:44:48 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:44:48 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 28 - January 28 Message-ID: Lesson 28 - January 28 "Above all else I want to see things differently." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to commit to really seeing, to commit to withdrawing your preconceptions about things and opening your mind to seeing them with true vision. You will make this commitment one object at a time. By committing to seeing one thing truly, you are really committing to seeing everything truly. Exercise: 6 times, for 2 minutes * Repeat the idea. * Then apply it randomly to whatever you see about you, giving each subject equal sincerity. Let your eyes rest on each one long enough to say, slowly and thoughtfully, "Above all else I want to see this______differently." Realize that in saying this you are making a request, a request to withdraw the purpose you have laid on this object, and to see the purpose that God has given it, "the purpose it shares with all the universe" (5:3). By seeing this one object truly, then, you could see the purpose of everything. You could gain total vision. Remarks: Each application of the idea (to the table, to the chair, to the foot) is the making of a commitment. So try to practice in this spirit. With each repetition, try to mean what you are saying. Do not rush through the words thoughtlessly. Try to say them with sincerity. Say them thoughtfully. Do not worry about whether you will follow through with these commitments, for that inhibits you from making them. And you will never keep them unless you first make them. COMMENTARY The thought that I could gain vision from just a table, or any random thing for that matter, if I could look on it with a completely open mind, is staggering. It means that I have been surrounded all my life by people and things any one of which could have brought me enlightenment, and I have not responded. The computer screen I look at as I write, if seen without any of my own ideas, could open up and show me "something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope." I still find that hard to believe. Oh, I don't doubt it, in one sense. Somehow it makes sense to believe that an enlightened being, like Jesus for instance, would see, as the poet put it, "the universe in a grain of sand." But I guess what I doubt is that could see that. I've looked at so many tables in my life and none of them ever spoke to . I look at my desk now and I see--a desk. "Hidden under all your ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with all the universe." Ah! A clue as to what this lesson is getting at; we're talking about a shared purpose. We're asking to see a common purpose that binds everything as one. I think a desk is for writing on, a table is for eating on, a fork is for spearing my food, a computer is for sending messages to folks on the Internet. I see a whole bunch of different purposes, each thing with its own, separate purpose. But they all share a purpose. As does my body, the sky, the moon, everything I can see. What is that purpose? That is what I am asking to see. That is something worth asking for. "Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see the light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you. In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it" (T-23.Int.6). From sue at circleofa.org Wed Jan 28 06:01:50 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:01:50 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 29 - January 29 Message-ID: Lesson 29 - January 29 "God is in everything I see." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: "to begin to learn how to look on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness" (3:1). To see the holy purpose that resides in everything. Longer: 6 times, for 2 minutes * Repeat the idea. * Then apply it to randomly-chosen objects in your visual field, naming each one. Say, "God is in this [magazine, finger]" or "God is in that [body, door]." Realize that you are not claiming that God is somehow physically in that object, but that God has assigned His purpose to it, a purpose which is part of Him. Remember your training in this practice. Start near to you and then extend further out. Keep looking at each object until you are done repeating the sentence. And make sure you avoid "self-directed selection" (4:2), something that might be more challenging with this idea. Frequent reminders: at least once an hour Repeat the idea slowly while looking slowly about you. COMMENTARY "The idea for today explains why you can see all purpose in everything. It explains why nothing is separate, by itself or in itself. And it explains why nothing you see means anything. In fact, it explains every idea we have used thus far, and all subsequent ones as well. Today's idea is the whole basis for vision" (1:1-5). Clearly, today's idea is pivotal in the Course's thought system, and not simply a nice, sentimental idea. Nor is it mere pantheism, which teaches that nature and God are the same. Elsewhere the Course clearly teaches that "There is no world" (W-pI.132.6:2-3), so this is not saying that nature and God are identical. "Certainly God is not in a table...as you see it" (2:3). As I see things, nothing means anything. A table is merely a table, a flat surface to eat on or play poker on. It has no eternal purpose; its purposes are all ephemeral. Seen like this, the table does not reveal God, but helps hide Him. God is not in the physical table, but He can be seen through or by means of the table. If the table shares the purpose of the universe, it must share the purpose of the Creator of the universe. That purpose is our happiness, our joy, our completion, which is necessary to His. "Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means" (W-pI.25:15, 6). "Purpose" is the key word in this and the last lesson. God is in everything I see because everything shares God's purpose. My sight is a veil across the truth that shines in everything, but vision can shine through that veil if I allow it. The way I perceive, God is not in everything; in fact, He is in nothing. If mere physical sight were enough we would all have seen God long ago. We made our sight to obscure Him, but seen with the vision of Christ, everything can reveal Him. "Nothing is as it appears to you. Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range" (3:4-5). As I first read this lesson I was puzzled by the statement that the idea for the day, "God is in everything I see," explained the earlier idea that nothing we see means anything. On the face of it, if God is in everything I see, it ought to give those things profound meaning; I would see them as sharing the purpose of the universe, the purpose of the Creator. How can I logically proceed from "God is in everything I see" to "Nothing I see means anything?" Finally I noticed a distinction that should have been obvious from the beginning: the distinction made between "seeing" or "sight" and "vision." The Course makes this distinction quite consistently throughout, but because my mind still tends to think of sight and vision as the same thing, I failed to notice it here. "Sight" refers to our normal mode of seeing, our belief that what our physical eyes show us is real, instead of the result of a desire within the mind and the projection of meaning from the mind, imposed on what is seen. "Vision," on the other hand, is another kind of sense altogether, virtually unrelated to the physical eyes. Notice that the lesson says, "Today's idea is the whole basis of " (1:5). "When has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today's idea perfectly" (3:6). It is vision that reveals God in everything; mere sight does not reveal Him. God is in everything I see, but sight does not show Him to me; that is why nothing I see means anything. "You do not see them (with vision) now" (3:2). God is there, but sight does not see Him; sight is overlooking the very thing that gives everything the meaning it has. We could therefore revise the earlier statement to say: "Nothing I see means anything, " Meaning is there but I am blind to it. "The world you see must be denied, for of it is costing you a different kind of You cannot see both worlds, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish" (T-13.VII.2:1, 2, my emphasis). The idea that God is in everything is "the whole basis for vision." It is the foundation for a "different kind of seeing." In order to see with vision I have to be willing to deny, or disregard, my current mode of seeing, which is limited to the physical and reports back to me only what my ego wants to see. If I recognize that God is in everything, yet I do not see Him with my eyes, there must be a different kind of seeing, and I will be led to desire it. I will ask for vision. The lesson speaks of the "little range" of our kind of seeing. "Nothing is as it appears to you. Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range" (3:4-5). Imagine, as an analogy, that God is only visible in the infrared (of course He is not visible in any physical manner at all). Our eyes simply do not see infrared radiation, so even if it is present we see nothing. The range of physical sight is very narrow; there are all kinds of "light" we cannot see: infrared, ultraviolet, heat, radiation, radio waves, microwaves, and so on. God is in everything, but He is outside the range of our physical sight; we need a different kind of vision. I think that in a sense the lesson is trying to arouse a certain discontent within us. It provokes the feeling, "If God is in everything, how come I don't see Him?" It make us aware of the limitations of what we have believed to be "sight." It makes us aware of its limited range, and evokes within us the desire for a new kind of vision that sees beyond this limited range, and sees the purpose of the universe in everything. Tomorrow's lesson will continue to instruct us in finding vision. From sue at circleofa.org Thu Jan 29 06:00:43 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:00:43 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 30 - January 30 Message-ID: Lesson 30 - January 30 "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to learn a new way of seeing. In this kind of seeing, what you see does not come in from the external world, through your body's eyes, or from you projecting your illusions onto the world. Rather, it comes from you "projecting" the truth that is in your mind onto everything you see. Exercise: as often as possible throughout the day, for 1 minute Look about you and apply the idea to your visual field and even to what lies beyond that field, out of sight. Make sure that, for several of the exercises, you close your eyes and apply the idea to your inner world. COMMENTARY As yesterday's lesson was the "whole basis" (W-pI.29.1:5) for vision, today's idea is "the springboard" (1:1). That God is in everything I see forms the foundation; that the reason behind all that is that "God is in my mind" is what can propel us from mere sight into vision. "From this idea will the world open up before you, and you will look upon it and see in it what you have never seen before. Nor will what you saw before be even faintly visible to you" (1:2-3). Fundamental to understanding what the Course is talking about is the fact that what we see is quite directly by what is in our mind. The common sense idea of perception is that something outside causes an impression, through my senses, on my mind. The reality is the reverse, according to the Course. The thoughts of my mind are projected outward and cause my perceptions. "Projection makes perception," says the Text in two different places (T-13.V.3:5; T-21.Int.1:1; cmp. T-10.Int.2:7). What this lesson attempts to teach us is "a new kind of 'projection'" (2:1). We might call it "positive projection." Instead of using projection to get rid of thoughts we are uncomfortable with, we are attempting to see in the world What I want to see, for one thing, is my own innocence. Therefore I am attempting to see the world as innocent. I am choosing my thoughts and deliberately "projecting" them onto the world. I want to see myself as having God in my mind, and so I choose to see everything as having God in it. If all things contain God, and I contain God, then we are joined. "Thus, we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see" (2:4-5). Our kind of seeing emphasizes differences and distinctions; vision emphasizes sameness. "Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all" (5:1). It is becoming clearer with each lesson that the vision being talked about has nothing at all to do with our physical sight. In the Course's thought system, our eyes do not see at all; they are merely the means for deception. We can include in our vision things beyond the range of physical sight. This is a seeing done with our minds, not with eyes. "The mind is its only source" (5:2). Now I recall our earlier lesson, "Above all else I want to see" (Lesson 28) with a stronger sense of purpose. I want vision; I want this other kind of seeing that sees God everywhere. I want it because somehow I instinctively know that if I can see things that way, I will also be able to see myself that way. If I can see you as a holy child of God, innocent and blameless, I will know that I am seeing a reflection of myself. I want to see myself that way, so I want to see you that way. God is in my mind. The world mirrors what is in my mind. How, then, do I want to see the world? Am I willing to see the world with God in it? If not, it only reflects the fact that I am unwilling and afraid to see His presence in my mind. From sue at circleofa.org Fri Jan 30 06:05:39 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:05:39 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 31 - January 31 Message-ID: Lesson 31 - January 31 "I am not the victim of the world I see." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: to begin declaring your release. Longer: 2 times, morning and evening, for 3-5 minutes * Repeat the idea two or three times while looking slowly about you. * Then close your eyes and apply the idea to your inner world, the level of cause. Let whatever thoughts that want to come arise, be noted, and then allowed to pass by. As with Lesson 10, it is important to stay detached from your stream of thoughts. Try seeing it as either a strange parade of disorganized, meaningless objects or as a series of leaves floating by on a stream. Let the stream keep moving; don't stop it to dwell on a particular thought. As you watch it move by, repeat the idea as often as you want, with no hurry. Frequent reminders: as often as possible (suggestion: several times per hour) Repeat idea. While doing so, consciously remember that you are declaring your freedom from all outer causation, and freeing other minds in the process. Try a repetition now in that spirit-it will take you five seconds. Response to temptation: when you feel like anything in the world is victimizing you Repeat the idea. You will get more from it if you say it as a declaration that you refuse to be slave to outer events and to your ego's reactions. Remarks: Today's lesson marks an important development. The daily practice now begins to separate out into two levels: longer practice periods, which will generally be done morning and evening, and shorter, frequent practice throughout the day (this includes both frequent reminders and response to temptation). This is a major step toward the eventual four-fold structure of morning and evening practice periods, hourly remembrance, frequent reminders, and response to temptation. COMMENTARY As you must have noticed when you read today's lesson, there isn't a lot of metaphysical thought in it. In fact there is almost none, except in the lead thought quoted above. The rest of the lesson is practice instructions. So I'll weight my comments in approximately the same way. The one sentence that heads the lesson is plenty in itself, however. If you think about it, it is amazing how many ways we see ourselves as victims of the world. We go through life feeling like victims--of the weather; of the jerk who cuts you off in traffic or swerves into the parking space you were aiming for; of your computer disk when "it" loses your file; of your house mate who uses the last of the hot water just before your shower; of the slow service in the restaurant; the traffic that makes you late for your appointment. To say nothing of the people who may deliberately and malevolently terrorize you in our cities (or perhaps in your home). To assert that "I am not the victim of the world I see" can be liberating and empowering. It is remarkable how these simple words can cause feelings of weakness and helplessness to wash away. Try it! You'll like it. We also feel victimized by unseen enemies and even our own thoughts, oddly enough. Ever have an anxiety attack? Or find yourself feeling gouged by the IRS? A victim of an unfair "system?" Plagued by self-doubt? You are not the victim of your inner world any more than of your outer world. "You will escape from both together, for the inner is cause of the outer." This lesson introduces what will become the basic practice outline for most of the Workbook, and for on-going practice for Workbook graduates. 1) Two longer practice periods, morning and evening, in which you apply the idea of the day on a sustained basis. 2) Frequent repetitions through the day, as often as possible (a study of other references to this indicate that four or five times per hour is intended). 3) Using the idea as a "response to temptation" whenever it arises. The only element of Workbook practice not present in this lesson is specific hourly or half-hourly periods of shorter practice, in length somewhere in between #1 and #2 above. That appears as the Workbook goes along to build a habit of practice on the structure of the clock, and then is gradually phased out as the habit (presumably) has been established. The three elements presented here in Lesson 31 are retained in recommendations for post-Workbook practice given in the Manual for Teachers (see Chapter 16, "How should the teacher of God spend his day?"). Make a point of taking those longer, 3 to 5 minute, periods morning and evening. This is the first time for them. You wouldn't practice the piano by playing only half the scales, so don't stint here, either. From this point on in the Workbook the practice is going to intensify; like me, I'm sure you'll find it more difficult to maintain and to actually carry out. Remember: "You are merely asked to apply the ideas You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true" (Introduction to the Workbook). From sue at circleofa.org Sat Jan 31 06:47:37 2009 From: sue at circleofa.org (Sue Roth) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 06:47:37 -0500 Subject: [acimlessons_list] Lesson 32 - February 1 Message-ID: Lesson 32 - February 1 "I have invented the world I see." PRACTICE SUMMARY Purpose: To teach you that you are not the effect of the world; it is the effect of you. Longer: 2 times, morning and evening, for at least 3-5 minutes As with yesterday's lesson, repeat the idea a few times while looking around you slowly. Then close your eyes and apply it to the images that arises in your inner world. Remain detached by reminding yourself that both worlds are equally imaginary. Remarks: The counsel in 4:3 about when to practice is repeated in different forms several times in the Workbook. For a discussion, see "When Should You Take Your Morning Quiet Time?" Following the Workbook's counsel in this regard will enhance the quality of your practice, so that, as with today's lesson, you may find yourself wanting to go longer than five minutes. Frequent reminders: as often as possible Repeat idea while looking about either your outer or inner world. Response to temptation: whenever a situation upsets you Immediately respond with: "I have invented this situation as I see it." COMMENTARY If I'm not the victim of the world, what is my relationship to it? I've invented it. If I've invented it, if I made it up, how can I possibly be its victim? Now, saying that I've invented the world is a pretty heavy statement. Saying that I can give it up as easily as I made it seems even more improbable. Yet that is what the practice of the Workbook is setting out to prove to us, not by rigorous logic but through experiences that demonstrate that it is true. That's what miracles are. Miracles demonstrate that "the world you see outside you" and "the world you see in your mind" are "both...in your own imagination" (2:2-3). This lesson is simply introducing the idea, not trying to prove it. The Text discusses the same thought in several places (T-21.II.11:1; 20.III.5:1-5), the most telling of them being: "What if you recognized this world is an hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up?" (T-20.VIII.7:4) It isn't a concept you can easily avoid if you study the Course; the Course insists on it. All that is really being asked here is that we open our minds to the idea that we have invented the world we see. It is a concept that can throw our minds into turmoil because it flies in the face of our fundamental beliefs about the world. The world has a few nice things about it, but a lot of crap. And being told I am responsible for it, I made it up, doesn't sit easily with my mind. If it raises all kinds of questions in my mind, fine; let the questions bubble up. For today, for the practice periods, just apply the idea as given. It's OK if part of your mind is kibitzing in the background saying, "This is nuts! I don't really believe this." The Introduction warned us we might even actively resist the ideas. It said, "Whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required." It may be difficult to see at first, but we really only have two options. Either I made up the world, or I am its victim. Either I am the cause, or the effect. There aren't any other choices; think about it. Either I am the dreamer, inventing the whole mess, or I am part of someone else's dream (maybe God's). If I am not the cause, I am at the world's mercy. But if I the cause--there is hope! I can change the dream, and perhaps, eventually, stop dreaming altogether.