DAILY LESSON

 

L e s s o n  32

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¹Today we are continuing to develop the theme of cause and effect. You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up. You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it, you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see. 

²The idea for today, like the preceding ones, applies to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the same. However, since you see them as different, the practice periods for today will again include two phases, one involving the world you see outside you and the other the world you see in your mind. In today's exercises, try to introduce the thought that both are in your own imagination. 

³Again we will begin the practice periods for the morning and evening by repeating the idea for today two or three times while looking around at the world you see as outside yourself. Then close your eyes and look around your inner world. Try to treat them both as equally as possible. Repeat the idea for today unhurriedly as often as you wish as you watch the images your imagination presents to your awareness. 

⁴For the two longer practice periods, three to five minutes are recommended, with not less than three required. More than five can be utilized if you find the exercises restful. To facilitate this, select a time when few distractions are anticipated and when you yourself feel reasonably ready. 

⁵These exercises are also to be continued during the day as often as possible. The shorter applications consist of repeating the idea slowly as you survey either your inner or outer world. It does not matter which you choose. 

⁶The idea for today should also be applied immediately to any situation which may distress you. Apply the idea by telling yourself: 

ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

 LESSON 32

Yesterday we practiced the thought that "I am not a victim of the world I see."  This lesson tells us why that is. It is because we invented this world that we see. So if we invented it then how can we be its victim? It is our own story, our dream, our script that we have written. But we are not aware that we have done so. Why? Because the story was written by the part of the mind that made the choice for the ego. It is the wrong mind which is also called the split mind. Between the wrong mind and the right mind is the decision maker, a term used by Ken Wapnick for this part of the mind that chooses, although this term does not show up in the Course. The decision making part of the mind is who we are as the Son of God that chose for the ego. As a result we became unaware of the right mind where the truth resides.

It is here in our right minds that the Holy Spirit resides and reminds us that we have entered a world of dreams. It is a world that does not exist except in our thoughts. It is all an invention in our minds that we made up in order to maintain our separate identity and our separate existence. Now Jesus speaks to us in this dream, that he knows is not real, but he knows that we are still attached to it, so he must reach us where we think we are. We still want to be right about our seeming reality but Jesus reminds us that this has not made us happy and that we can now make a different choice and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, reverse our thinking. If we are the source of our own difficulties then we have the power to choose again. The question is how willing are we? It depends on how much we have suffered. When the pain reaches a threshold of sufficient discomfort then it seems our motivation increases to find a better way. We will not be very motivated to do this work unless there is some kind of discomfort. The level of discomfort is different for each of us.

That we are the authors of our own story from birth to death and on, may still seem preposterous to us.   It is helpful to recall in the introduction to the lessons that Jesus knows that we will have a lot of resistance so he tells us to "Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter or decrease their efficacy." (W.PI.IN.9.1-2) So if we find that we are motivated to find a way to true peace and joy then we will be more willing to practice the lessons in spite of our resistance. And when we start to experience the results of this practice in our lives, then our motivation increases significantly.  

Through this lesson we can see that we are either a character in this dream or that we are the one that is the dreamer of this story. If we are the dream figure or character in the dream, then we truly are the victim of the playwright who cast us in a role with all these crazy characters playing their parts. One of those crazy characters is the god that the ego made who also has a mighty role given him by the ego. Some of these characters we think we love, some we hate, some we thought we loved but now we don't, some aggravate us, some challenge us, some make us laugh and some we fear. We participate in this play with our own strategies on how to survive and thrive in this dream, based on our interpretations, but always feeling at the mercy of others. But now we might consider the possibility that we are the dreamer. We are the ones who created the play!! Our entire lives from birth to death are the dream that we wrote. I am thus the victim only of my own scriptwriting. Other characters in the dream are simply reading the lines that I wrote for them! We can change the dream anytime we choose!! "You can give it up as easily as you made it up." (1.3) "When you no longer want it , it will no longer be there for you to see." (1.5) And we will give it up when we no longer want to see a world that victimizes us. It seems simple on an intellectual level but it is anything but easy as our attachment to our way of seeing is very strong.

It is a huge transition in our current thinking and so it is revisited often in the course. If we look ahead to Lesson 132, the same theme is discussed. Again, the idea that the world we see is the effect of our thoughts is affirmed. Then Jesus tells us that "Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther or perhaps step back a while and then return again." (W. P.I.132.6.4) So it is all about our level of readiness to accept this thought into our minds. Jesus recognizes our level of resistance but again he is very gentle with us telling us that even though we may step back a while from our spiritual discipline, we will return again. He knows us better than we know ourselves.

The question here is, why would we want to choose to be victims of the world? "While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see." (1.5) It is interesting to reflect on this question.  We would naturally think that we would actually prefer the idea that our thoughts are the source of everything we feel and experience, because if that is the case then we have the power to change our experience in the world from one where we constantly feel victimized. The world can then become  a classroom where the Holy Spirit  shows us the way to the happy dream. The answer as to why we don't want to take responsibility for inventing the world we see, and in fact want to be the victims of this world is clearly enunciated in Chapter 27. VIII. "The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did to them.  But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of what they do, because you want the guilt to rest on them.  How childish is the petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside yourself, but never letting go!" (T. 27.VIII.8).

In other words, we want to keep our individual separated self but we want the guilt we feel to rest on others who we declare to be the victimizers while we remain innocent at their expense. The sin is now in them and not in us. Think about how we see our parents responsible for what we have become. "I didn't ask to be born!" we insist. "If it wasn't for how I was treated as a child I would not have these issues in my life!"  And so the story continues with teachers, preachers, bosses, store clerks...none of it matters as long as someone else is responsible. No! The reality is, says Jesus, that you are the one that invented the world you see. You are not a victim. It is only your thoughts projected out but now you can give them up. Why does that bring so much fear? Because our existence requires that we defend against it. We justify our own pain by seeing someone else causing it and now that gives us the right, in our own minds, to counter attack. So we bounce back and forth between victim and victimizer.

The idea for today, like the preceding ones, applies to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the same.  However, since you see them as different, the practice periods for today will again include two phases, one involving the world you see outside you, and the other the world you see in your mind.  In today's exercises, try to introduce the thought that both are in your own imagination. (2.1-3) Again the point is made in this paragraph that the outer world is just a reflection of our thoughts. And the inner world is what is reflected in the world we see. It all starts with our own thoughts. But we don't see it that way so it appears as if the inner and the outer are different. We still believe that the world is the cause of what we think and feel. We have not yet accepted that the mind is the cause.

Watch the images that your imagination presents to your awareness.  The world we see outside and the other world we see in our minds are both in our imagination. So our seeing is all image making. "Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not and they are gone. And all you need to do is recognize that YOU did this. Once you accept this simple fact and take unto yourself the power you gave them, you are released from them. One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that purpose is no longer held they disappear." (T.20.VIII.8.1-6) Later he goes on to explain that there are only two purposes. One is sin and the other is holiness. One is of the ego and the other is of the Holy Spirit. Which guide to seeing will I choose?

So if I made this dream up in order to protect my individuality, my specialness and my image then I can also change it. But why would I want to? Because to keep this individuality and specialness which I still think I want, comes with a cost to our peace. It comes with guilt and fear which we don't want. So the ego counsels that we project the guilt on the world and then the characters in our dream can now be the guilty ones. They become the victimizers and now I don't have to be responsible for what is happening but see myself as a victim of it all.   The hard part of changing it, is that I have to then admit I have been wrong about everything. Our need to be right about the way we have set it all up is prevalent. Yet Jesus is constantly working to motivate us to choose again. He is showing us our way to happiness and telling us that if we want to be happy, then we need to take responsibility for this play. And it is not difficult to see what we are projecting as it shows up all the time on the screen that seems to be outside of us but it is our own thoughts reflected back at us.

So today we practice this lesson in order to help us to see that we are not the effect of the world but that the world is the effect of our thoughts (images your imagination presents to your awareness). We repeat the idea a few times while looking around slowly, then closing our eyes and applying the lesson to the images that arise in our inner world reminding ourselves that both are imaginary. Then use the lesson as often as possible during the day, as well, in response to any temptation to be upset or disturbed about anything.  We bring any disturbing situation, and our judgments about it, back to our own minds as we remind ourselves that "I have invented the world I see."  I have invented this situation as I see it.

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 Three

Retraining the Mind

VI. Conflict and the Ego  

³⁸ The abilities man now possesses are only shadows of his real strengths. All of his functions are equivocal and open to question or doubt. This is because he is not certain how he will use them. He is therefore incapable of knowledge, being uncertain. He is also incapable of knowledge because he can perceive lovelessly. He cannot create surely because his perception deceives. Perception did not exist until the separation had introduced degrees, aspects, and intervals. The Soul has no levels, and all conflict arises from the concept of levels. Only the levels of the Trinity are capable of unity. The levels which man created by the separation cannot but conflict. This is because they are essentially meaningless to each other.

³⁹ Freud realized this perfectly and that is why he conceived the different levels in his view of the psyche as forever irreconcilable. They were conflict-prone by definition because they wanted different things and obeyed different principles. In our picture of the psyche, there is an unconscious level which properly consists only of the miracle ability and which should be under my direction. There is also a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from both the unconscious and the superconscious. Consciousness is thus the level of perception but not of knowledge. Again, to perceive is not to know.

⁴⁰ Consciousness was the first split that man introduced into himself. He became a perceiver rather than a creator in the true sense. Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego. The ego is a man-made attempt to perceive himself as he wished to be rather than as he is. This is an example of the created-creator confusion we have spoken of before. Yet man can only know himself as he is because that is all he can be sure of. Everything else is open to question.

⁴¹ The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-separation psyche which man created for himself. It is capable of asking valid questions but not of perceiving valid answers because these are cognitive and cannot be perceived. The endless speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion because the mind is confused. Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separated or divided mind must be confused; it is uncertain by definition. It has to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself.

⁴² Intrapersonal conflict arises from the same basis as interpersonal conflict. One part of the psyche perceives another part as on a different level and does not understand it. This makes the parts strangers to each other, without recognition. This is the essence of the fear-prone condition in which attack is always possible. Man has every reason to feel afraid as he perceives himself. This is why he cannot escape from fear until he knows that he did not and could not create himself. He can never make his misperceptions valid. His creation is beyond his own error, and that is why he must eventually choose to heal the separation.

⁴³ Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the knowing mind because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be right-minded or wrong-minded, and even this is subject to degrees, a fact which clearly demonstrates a lack of association with knowledge. The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for "wrong-mindedness," and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals misperception, and this is indeed a miracle in view of how man perceives himself.

⁴⁴ Perception always involves some misuse of will because it involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active because it has will-power. When it willed the separation, it willed to perceive. Until then, it willed only to know. Afterwards it willed ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity is clear perception. The mind returns to its proper function only when it wills to know. This places it in the Soul's service, where perception is meaningless. The superconscious is the level of the mind which wills this.

⁴⁵ The mind chose to divide itself when it willed to create both its own levels and the ability to perceive, but it could not entirely separate itself from the Soul because it is from the Soul that it derives its whole power to create. Even in miscreation will is affirming its Source or it would merely cease to be. This is impossible because it is part of the Soul which God created and which is therefore eternal.

⁴⁶ The ability to perceive made the body possible because you must perceive something and with something. This is why perception involves an exchange or translation, which knowledge does not need. The interpretive function of perception, actually a distorted form of creation, then permitted man to interpret the body as himself, which, though depressing, was an attempt to escape from the conflict he had induced. The superconscious, which knows, could not be reconciled with this loss of power because it is incapable of darkness. This is why it became almost inaccessible to the mind and entirely inaccessible to the body.

⁴⁷ Thereafter, the superconscious was perceived as a threat because light does abolish darkness merely by establishing the fact that it is not there. The truth will always overcome error in this sense. This is not an active process of destruction at all. We have already emphasized that knowledge does not do anything. It can be perceived as an attacker, but it cannot attack. What man perceives as its attack is merely his own vague recognition of the fact that it can always be remembered, never having been destroyed.

⁴⁸ God and the Souls He created remain in surety, and therefore know that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal with unwilling error because it does not will to be blocked out. I was a man who remembered the Soul and its knowledge, and as a man I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge so much as to correct error from the bottom up. I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of the mind. By uniting my will with that of my Creator, I naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose.

⁴⁹ I cannot unite your will with God's for you, but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your own way. Without them your choice is certain. Sane perception induces sane choosing. The Atonement was an act based on true perception. I cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right choice. "Many are called, but few are chosen" should read, "All are called, but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose right."

⁵⁰ The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right sooner. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up. Strong wills can do this now, and you will find rest for your Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this is your reality.

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