DAILY LESSON

 

L e s s o n  13

 <AUDIO><VIDEO> 

¹Today's idea is really another form of the preceding one, except that it is more specific as to the emotion aroused. Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. Nothing without meaning exists. However, it does not follow that you will not think you perceive something that has no meaning. On the contrary, you will be particularly likely to think you do perceive it. 

²Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. 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 which 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 unreality. And on this alone it is correct. 

³It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess and crowd it with images that do not exist. To the ego, illusions are safety devices, as they must also be to you who equate yourself with the ego. 

⁴The exercises for today, which should be done about three or four times for not more than a minute or so at most each time, are to be practiced in a somewhat different way from the preceding ones. With eyes closed, repeat today's idea to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about you slowly, saying: 

⁵I am looking at a meaningless world. 

⁶Repeat this statement to yourself as you look about. Then close your eyes and conclude with: 

I think I am in competition with God.

⁸You may find it difficult to avoid resistance in one form or another to this concluding statement. Whatever form such resistance may take, remind yourself that you are really afraid of such a thought because of the "vengeance" of the "enemy." You are not expected to believe the statement at this point and will probably try to dismiss it as preposterous. Note carefully, however, any signs of overt or covert fear which it may arouse. This is our first attempt at stating an explicit cause and effect relationship of a kind which you are very inexperienced in recognizing. Do not dwell on the concluding statement, and try not even to think of it except during the exercise periods. That will suffice at present.   

ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

 LESSON 13    

Yesterday the focus of the lesson was on the upset we experience when we see that the world is meaningless. Today Jesus tells us not only that we are upset by this experience of seeing a meaningless world but that it brings up fear in us.  Our fear is that the thought, that gave rise to the world which comes from our own minds, has no meaning either.  It terrifies us because it threatens our very existence. Why is that? Because if we are our thoughts, and those thoughts mean nothing, then we are meaningless and we don't exist. That is why we put our meaning on everything. Our meaning is projected on everything we see in order to affirm our existence. We are terrified of a clean slate because  "the memory of God comes to the quiet mind." (T.23.I.1.1). So if our minds are constantly chewing on thoughts it is because we are not ready for the truth. We are still hanging onto our belief in what we have made which is the body and the world. We value the concepts that we hold, our individuality, and our specialness as a separate, unique self. So when Jesus says that meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety it is because "God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space meaninglessness provides" (2.3) And thus we compete with God and try to establish, that we are what we say we are.

Of course God does not compete with the ego which is why the word challenge is in quotations. But we do compete with God as long as we identify with the ego, which we all do. Yet while we feel to challenge God, simply is. He does not know of our challenge.  When we made the decision to go off on our own, we established our separate existence. If we are to exist then God can't exist. But if, in fact, God is all there is, then we don't exist.  It is a case of one or the other, God or me. Our existence has come at the expense of Oneness.  Both God and I can't exist. This is the mindset that we bring to everything in the world which is one of separation and competition. This is the thought in the mind that is projected out on everything in the world which is why it is a world of competition. Thus if I gain, you must lose.  We project this thought of win and lose on others. Now we see others as trying to take from us.  We see them as the ones that hurt us, abandon us, betray us, destroy us, disappoint us and want to gain at our expense. Can you see how this thought system started in your own mind but now we see it as if it is outside of our minds with others doing to us what we accuse ourselves of doing? 

In the previous we were being convinced of the meaninglessness of everything we see. This lesson goes further to say that meaninglessness does not actually exist. So, in fact, it is the same idea that is in the introduction to the Course which says that "nothing unreal exists."  So what we see, which is made by the ego, is actually unreal. It is nothing. It does not exist. It is all just a projection of our fear thoughts. So, we can conclude that the world of form really does not exist which does not mean that "you will not think you perceive something that has no meaning." (1.4)We simply don't want to accept that what we see has no meaning. Again, if it is not there and yet I see it, then I would have to admit that I am wrong about everything.

Behind these thoughts, God's meaning exists. God's meaning is Truth. It is love, peace, and joy. So as an example, today I experienced what felt to me like an attack. I saw something that was not there. I gave meaning to the communication and determined that it was an attack. If I was really open to see God's meaning, then I could see beyond the attack and only see the call for love that was there. However, I allowed myself to believe that my interpretation and my judgment of the situation was correct and as a result, I saw only the attack. I was seeing my own projected thoughts of attack. As Jesus reminds us, "You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours and therefore meriting a "just" attack." (T.31.III.1:5-6)  

 Rather than taking responsibility for my own attacking thoughts I chose to be right in my assessment of the situation and what others were doing to me. And when I say I am right in how I see this person, I am basically saying to God that He is wrong. This comes from  the original competition that we set up with God telling Him that He is wrong about us and we are right about who we are.

Of course we are not aware of this competition. We have buried this idea deep in our minds. We have used the world to cover over our fear of God. If I realize that the world is nothing and thus totally meaningless, then I have to admit that I am wrong. If that is the case, then I feel that I lose and God wins because that is the end of my identification with my separate, limited self. While I say I want to know my eternal Self, there is fear in this thought. It is the fear that if I give God total reign over my life then I will no longer be in control and I don't trust what He will do with what I put value on. Through our practice here we are undoing this fear.  It is the beliefs and values that we hold that keep  us in a state of suffering, attack, anger and only fleeting experiences of peace. To heal is to question everything we currently believe and value. 

We cover over our fear of God and thus of Love, with the thoughts that we hold which affirm our reality. And now we "endow it (the world) with attributes that it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist."  (3.2) This is our defense against the truth. We protect our illusions and believe that they keep us safe.

We also keep ourselves safe by undertaking many trivial things always filling up any empty space with many busy doings and distractions. We get preoccupied with problems that can't be solved. We spend our lives on trivial pursuits. We become spiritual seekers. We make judgments about everything and everyone we see. Why? Because we fear that when we withdraw our meaning, God's meaning will be revealed. Of course this is not conscious.  But it is there, nevertheless.  And we can see the dynamic of busyness and competition with everyone, in our own lives always justifying how we see everything. 

One friend we have who is in his eighties has spent the last forty years of his life recording the daily temperature for every day of those forty years with a note of what he did that day. We all do some version of this filling up our time reading the news; going to movies; watching sports; memorizing insignificant data; texting messages; researching our family tree; playing games;  all perhaps interesting, but have you asked yourself what is it for? And have you considered that you might just be trying to beat God to the punch by inserting your own meaning in this empty space? It does not make any of these and other activities in which we engage, wrong. It is only that when we use these activities as distractions, then we keep our focus away from looking at our own minds. It is not about making us guilty because we get involved in meaningless distractions. But when we see the purpose they have in our lives, keeping us invested in the illusion, then we can choose again.

  Jesus tells us that we believe that there is some emptiness or lack in us that we need to fill "with your own ideas instead of the truth." (2.I.1.7) Our own ideas are what keep God's truth away from us. As we rush in to put our meaning on everything and fill every void with that meaning we are beating God to the punch.

Our "I know" mind puts meaning on everything, rather than staying open and allowing the truth to be revealed to us. Think about what happens when you make first impressions of someone. It is all about making a judgment and thus beating God to the punch. Thus we don't ask what is the meaning of this brother that I behold? We think we know and we think we are right. We think that if we are right then we have more power. It makes us important.

Notice too, that Jesus says that we may "find it difficult to avoid resistance in one form or another."  What might that resistance look like? Well we may feel uncomfortable with the statement; we may feel anger; we may avoid doing the lesson; we may 'forget' the lesson; we may get a headache or feel sick; or any number of ways that resistance shows up. These are all fear thoughts and can be traced back to our fear of God. Clearly this is not conscious but it is the origin of all of our fear. Our competition with God shows up when we give our meaning to the world and in essence saying that our meaning is correct. While we hold our views, we have temporarily defeated God.  But in that defeat, we are now fearful, believing that we will experience His wrath.  We fear that it is a competition of survival of God or me. While we actually believe that our fear comes from events and situations in the world, the cause is actually held within our own minds. Thus mind is the cause of what we experience, not events in the world.

So, we are asked to practice this lesson three or four times today for one minute or so with eyes closed, repeating the idea, then opening our eyes and looking slowly around while affirming "I am looking at a meaningless world." (4.4) Then we close our eyes and say "A meaningless world engenders fear, because I am in competition with God."  (4.7) You will not necessarily believe what you are saying and may in fact, resist the idea. Just note the resistance and ask for help so that you can look at the ego without fear. By looking at your thoughts without any judgment or condemnation you are realizing that these thoughts are nothing. When you just look at them without judgment you are actually looking with the Holy Spirit because that is how He looks, entirely with no judgment no matter what the thoughts are. 

Love and blessings, Sarah 

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Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php    

A Course in Miracles   
TEXT 

Chapter One

Introduction to Miracles

II. Distortions of Miracle Impulses  

¹⁰²  You are involved in unconscious distortions which are producing a dense cover over miracle impulses and which make it hard for them to reach consciousness. The nature of any interpersonal relationship is limited or defined by what you want it to do. Relating is a way of achieving an outcome. The danger of defenses lies in their propensity for holding misperceptions rigidly in place. All actions which stem from reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those who know not what they do. A rigid orientation can be extremely reliable, even if it is upside-down. In fact, the more consistently upside-down it is, the more reliable it is.

¹⁰³  However, validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only serve. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all kinds of expressions of lack of love are often very clearly seen in the fantasies which accompany them. But it is a profound error to imagine that because these fantasies are so frequent or occur so reliably that this implies validity. Remember that while validity implies reliability, the relationship is not reversible. You can be wholly reliable and entirely wrong. While a reliable instrument does measure something, what use is it unless you discover what the "something" is? This course, then, will concentrate on validity and let reliability fall naturally into place.

¹⁰⁴  The confusion of miracle impulses with physical impulses is a major source of perceptual distortion because it induces, rather than straightens out, the basic level confusion which underlies the perception of all those who seek happiness with the instruments of this world. Inappropriate physical impulses (or misdirected miracle impulses) result in conscious guilt if expressed and depression if denied. All real pleasure comes from doing God's will. This is because not doing it is a denial of self. Denial of error results in projection. Correction of error brings release. "Lead us not into temptation" means "do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or to our brothers with anything external."

¹⁰⁵  Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this. The love of God for a little while must still be expressed through one body to another because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception so he can see the real vision. This vision is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation.

¹⁰⁶  Fantasies of any kind are distorted forms of thinking because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of vision. Vision and revelation are closely related, while fantasy and projection are more closely associated because both attempt to control external reality according to false internal needs. Twist reality in any way, and you are perceiving destructively. Reality was lost through usurpation, which in turn produced tyranny. I told you that you are now restored to your former role in the plan of Atonement, but you must still choose freely to devote yourselves to the greater restoration. As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only true goal of the miracle-minded.

¹⁰⁷  No fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception by definition. They are a means of making false associations and obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because he is creative. But, although he can perceive false associations, he can never make them real except to himself. Man believes in what he creates. If he creates miracles, he will be equally strong in his belief in them. The strength of his conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver. And fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent to both.

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