[acimlessons_list] Lesson 304 Extra - Seeing Beyond the Good Illusions

[Sue Roth]

Seeing Beyond the Good Illusions

Extra Thoughts on Lesson 304


This is an "extra" for Lesson 304, some thoughts I wrote some time ago when
reading this lesson. They branch off from the lesson itself to comment on
related portions of the Text. As with all my commentaries, some parts are
purely my own opinion, reflections on the Course rather than an
interpretation of it; if you do not agree with all I say, just disregard the
parts you don't like!


     "Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ."

"Perception is a mirror, not a fact" (1:3). We never see the truth, we
always perceive symbols of the truth, and it is our mind that gives those
symbols meaning. The signals reach our brain and a mental filter is applied,
based on fear or based on love, and whatever is in my mind, that is what I
perceive. This is why "what I look upon is my state of mind, reflected
outward" (1:4).

The function of a teacher of God is just to go around reminding everyone, in
every way possible, of who they really are. He reminds them of God, and of
their Self as God created it. When his brother is deceived and operating
from an illusion of himself, he does not attack the illusion or seek to
change the behavior, but rather he acts in whatever way he can to deny his
brother's denial of his Self, and to remind him of who he really is.

Seeing the real world is not difficult. We already have the vision of
Christ. The problem is, we obscure it, overlaying it with our own ego
interpretations. We superimpose our filter of fear on perception and block
out the vision of Christ, replacing it with our view of the world. To see
the real world, what we need to do is to withdraw our support from the ego's
perceptions. We need to stop thinking that perception is a fact, and realize
it is only the projection of our own thoughts. The world is not really the
way we think it is.

This is why, in the Text, we are told this:

     Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: 
     "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no 
     streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where

     people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit 
     with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day
that 
     brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines,
and shines forever.

     The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a
different 
     kind of vision. <You cannot see both worlds>, for each of them involves

     a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. 
     The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other.
(T-13.VII.1:1-2:3)

This is more than just a different way of looking at the physical world. It
is looking beyond the physical world entirely. It is literally denying that
the physical world exists at all! No buildings. No streets. No stores. No
day. No night. This is pretty far-reaching denial!

The Course is saying that the entire physical world is like a vast hologram
that we have superimposed over what is really there. We see the physical
world because we have denied the real world. Therefore, to see the real
world, we must deny the physical. "The sight of it is costing you a
different kind of vision."

A woman in our study group in New Jersey said she had trouble with the idea
of not seeing the physical world. "There are wonderful things in it that I
value: the fall foliage, the mountains, the music of Bach. I don't want to
lose those."

I would say that, yes, indeed, you have to let those go as well, and deny
their reality. The thing to see is that it is not the colored leaves you
value, nor the sound of music. The real value is in the experience you have
when you see or hear them, the sense of oneness, the peacefulness, the joy,
the appreciation of beauty. That value lies not in the things, but in you.
We have learned to associate our experiences of love and joy with certain
things and certain people. The association is wholly within our own mind. In
the real world, everything is associated with that experience! "Nothing is
there but shines, and shines forever" (T-13.VII.1:7).

We don't really want more fall foliage, more good music, more trips to the
mountains. We want God, we want the experience of Him that we have
associated with those things. We want the feeling of wholeness, of
well-being, of self-completion that we have falsely learned to associate
with certain things in our lives. That is always what we really want, and
the only thing we truly want.

On the way to fully understanding that, it becomes necessary to deny the
reality of even the good things of life. As the phrase from earlier in the
Workbook has it, "This is not a part of what I want" (W-pI.130.11:5). The
fall foliage is not a part of what I want. This romantic special
relationship is not a part of what I want. It is a breaking of the mental
associations that we have made, undoing the linking of the experience of God
to the physical context in which we had the experience. The physical did not
give us that experience; it came about wholly in our mind.

I am not saying that while we are in the world we should deny ourselves
these physical pleasures. What I am saying is that we can learn that the
experiences of God we have had are not limited to those things! Everything
and everyone offers us the same experience. By saying that certain things
have the power to give us that experience, and others do not, we are forming
a special relationship with those things, with those people.

Even as we settle back to listen to a good symphony, we can remind ourselves
that what we are doing is a form of magic thought. The symphony has no power
to give us the experience; it has no more power than anything else. It is
our thoughts that give us the experience as we listen. What we experience is
not limited to the music; it is something inherent in our being. "God is in
everything I see because God is in my mind" (W-pI.30.Heading). We are the
source of the beauty, not the physical thing we have chosen as a doorway to
that experience of beauty. The beauty I think I see in the world is really
something in my Self, "my state of mind, reflected outward" (1:4).