What is it that makes us weep? We have been told over and over in this Course that there is nothing in the world that can cause us pain and suffering even though to us it does not seem that way. We are learning that the only cause of our pain is our own thoughts. The world is not real. What brings us pain is the belief that we are guilty. We project this guilt on the world and now see our own guilt looking back at us. It is our judgments, our interpretations, the meaning that we put on situations and events that bring suffering, pain and tears. Events are just neutral. As Jesus clearly reminds us, "Father, unless I judge I cannot weep. Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned or unneeded in the world." (W.301.1.1-2)
 
Only my unhealed perceptions bring me suffering and tears. I think that if a body leaves me then I will suffer. I think that if another body does not accept me, then I will be hurt. I think that if a body dies, I will feel abandoned. In other words, I am the one that gives meaning to these events. I then feel like a victim of what others/the world seem to do to me. There seem to be those who are the victimizers. Yet those are just my thoughts about what others do. Events in themselves are neutral. Jesus reminds us not that we shouldn't give meaning and our interpretation to anything but that indeed we can't. We have no idea what anything is for. We simply can't judge. We are incapable of it. Why? Because we can't see the end from the beginning. When we are in an experience, we don't know of its contribution to our lives.How can we judge it? When we do, we will always suffer.

There are no problems. The only problem is in our own minds. The world is not unfair, unjust, or unfriendly with us as if we are hapless victims. As the often repeated lines in Chapter 21 say, "I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked." (T.21.II.2.3-5) (ACIM OE T.21.III.3.15) We are asked to deceive ourselves no longer that we are helpless in the face of what has been done to us. All we have to do is admit that we have been mistaken and then "all effects of your mistakes will disappear." (T.21.II.2.7)(ACIM OE T.21.III.3.16)  Sounds simple doesn't it? Yet in practice it is indeed challenging. But it is also empowering to realize that we have set up our lives and our experiences perfectly for our learning and undoing and now we can choose to see everything differently according to our choice. The choice is always between judgment or forgiveness. 
Jesus tells us that "It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident nor chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing." (T.21.II.3.1-4)(ACIM OE T.21.III.3.17)

Outside of what God created, which is the eternal, the world we made is nothing. That is why, when we look from above the battleground, when we are able to put some distance between our thoughts about something and become the observer of them, we can smile in amusement at our perceptions. Of course, the way that we experience this battleground, where we think we are, is not amusing to us when we believe in its reality. In fact, it can feel painful and tragic to us and generally does, but whenever we choose to take a moment to look at our thoughts about the situation and are truly willing to have them healed, we have taken another step. We step out of this seeming battleground and the pain and misery that is felt here. We are called to look at our thoughts with courage and honesty because that is what it takes. Don't try to dismiss them as unimportant, as insignificant, or as inconsequential. Don't try to talk yourself out of them or tell yourself you shouldn't be feeling this way, or that you need to be more positive. The only way to truth is through the darkness, not by denying it but by looking at it. We go through the fear to love. It does not matter how long that takes you to do. Time is given us for healing and when we use it for that purpose then everything that happens is not good or bad but all is purposeful.

If we look honestly at what is coming up for us, we may notice thoughts of envy over someone's success, fear over some financial losses, anger as a result of some miscommunication, distress about the pile of 'to do' things around us, resentment at obligations we feel toward a family member, sadness at being disappointed or betrayed by a friend, and so it goes. In every moment, with every thought, we are perceiving what is seemingly happening to us and judging it. Unless we look at our thoughts about it, we can't bring the awareness and willingness that is required for the healing of our minds. We need to recognize that all our suffering is coming from our own thoughts projected out and bouncing back at us. It does appear as though things are happening to us with no responsibility on our part. Yet we have set it all up. It all starts with the thoughts that are in our own minds, but we have the power to choose another way.

For example, if someone betrays me, my thoughts are about what they did and I make it real in my mind, justifying my feelings of anger and sadness. I have given meaning to what someone seems to have done to me. I have given my thoughts power and believe that the betrayal is a fact that can't be denied. If I insist on my version of reality then I will experience it and see it as outside of myself. To forgive this, I must start with acknowledging that perhaps I am wrong about the way I see this situation, and the reality is that we are always wrong in the way we see events. The reality is that we can't judge anything. We just don't know. While we believe that our experiences prove us right, all that they do is give proof to what we are believing. The belief we are holding is that we can be betrayed. Forgiveness allows the belief to be undone when we see that our investment in it is to prove that we are separate from our brother.

The truth is that I have set up the betrayal. I did it by setting up certain rules in my mind about friendship. If those rules are 'betrayed' then I have a grievance, but my friend is the Christ, regardless of his behavior, just the same as me. He has the freedom to be himself, just as I have that same freedom. Forgiveness allows me to stop insisting that my thoughts, beliefs and rules for relationships, with all the expectations that go with them, are true. We must be totally willing to have the meaning that we have given the situation undone. We must recognize that the world is simply a world of our own thoughts. It is truth that will correct all errors in our minds. (W.PI.107) We are not the ones that do the correction. We just bring our willingness for healing. We are not the doers.

Lesson 93 reminds us that we have a horribly negative self-concept that we harbor within our minds. It is deeply hidden and far beneath the surface yet we are convinced of the truth of it. That is why we try to cover it up with 'niceness' and don't want to look at our thoughts. We don't want to see this darkness in us, but the darkness is not the truth. It is the ego telling us not to look there because underneath it all is the love that is what we are and the ego does not want us to discover that because that would be its demise. The ego is like a parasite on our holy minds. It is the part of the mind that we have come to identify with, but as we learn to become the watcher of our thoughts, rather than identify with them, we distance ourselves from this false identity.

With the Holy Spirit, we discover that we are truly innocent. It is the dark thoughts we hold about ourselves that are hiding the truth about who we really are. We must first observe the ego, and only then can we choose to deny that it has any power to affect our reality. This world is the manifestation of a choice within our minds to attack and reject the Love of God. Thus we now hold the thought system that the attack on God makes us the winner. What have we won? Our separate, unique, individual self. Now we project this thought system on everyone else, believing that our victory comes at the defeat of others. Thus it would be impossible not to see expressions of hatred, specialness, selfishness and fear because that is what we are projecting out there. As we bring all of these perceptions, judgments and condemnations to the Holy Spirit, and ask His help to look at them with Him, they will be released, Again and again, we are reminded to look honestly at how attracted we are to seeing differences and judging others for their faults. This is second nature to us, but it is not a sin. We are just mistaken. We thought we could gain as a result of our attacks, but we have been wrong. Once we admit this we can be taught.

When we learn that beneath all of our fears, our unworthiness, anger, hatred, comparisons and neediness is just a call for Love, a call to learn that there truly is a better way, that we have been wrong about ourselves, then we will learn to approach everyone who is in the same boat with much more compassion and kindness. We will recognize that everyone is just calling to be seen for who they really are, just as we have the same calling in us. We can't do this when we deny how we are feeling or what we are believing. Our reactions and observations are our call to bring our awareness to them and learn through them the judgments we are making in every moment.

Paying attention to what we think and say is good practice for the kind of mind training that Jesus is reminding us of. Our thoughts point to the beliefs and judgments we hold about everything. Now we have a choice available to us. We are no longer on automatic pilot, responding to what the ego demands. We can instead bring our thoughts to the Holy Spirit and ask to see the situation differently. We have dissociated ourselves from the power of choice in our minds. We simply have been reacting to circumstances. "In order to heal, it thus becomes essential for the teacher of God to let all his own mistakes be corrected. If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realize that he has made an interpretation that is not true. Then let him turn within to his eternal Guide, and let Him judge what the response should be." (M.18.4.1-3)
 
We will become much more willing to do this work when we fully see the pain and distress that our ego thought system brings us. Then we will be much more willing to surrender our way and choose the Holy Spirit's correction. "Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven's help. And all mistakes in judgment that the mind had made before are open to correction, as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized." (W.P.I.138.9)

Our choices are what have caused us distress, but now we can choose again. That is the good news. All we need to do is to take full responsibility for our choices and the predicaments in which we find ourselves, and we will see the results of our decisions. Indeed, as this lesson says "God's world is happy. Those who look on it can only add their joy to it, and bless it as a cause of further joy in them." (W.301.2.1-2) Our tears are only due to our lack of understanding. We did not realize it was caused by our own mistaken perceptions, and we have the choice to have these perceptions changed. The Course lays out a path for this incredible undoing and healing of all of our wrong minded perceptions, but it takes as much dedication and commitment as we can muster. It takes great willingness. Jesus invites us to lay aside our own thoughts and come with wholly empty hands to our God, but first we must see just how committed we are to being right about our own thoughts.

Recently we were at a silent retreat and I was walking down a path with my partner on a beautiful warm sunny day. We walked together in silence and then I increasingly became uncomfortable that he was wearing a jacket on such a warm day. I tugged on his arm and motioned for him to take it off. He did not. After a couple more tries over the course of the next half hour, I looked within and asked myself why it was important that he take off his coat? Why did I feel that he needed to do that in order for me to be at peace? As I looked more deeply at my thoughts I recognized my need to control based on my fear of love. The belief that I was holding in my mind was that if someone loves me they will do as I request, but Jesus shows us that to love is to allow freedom. That thought seems frightening. What would it look like for me to give my partner complete freedom without any control? This thought seemed frightening to me, but I asked Jesus, as the symbol of the truth in my mind, to help me release this control. In that moment, I was completely willing to heal this belief that my brother had to do what I wanted in order for me to feel OK. As I held that thought in my mind, my partner quietly took off his coat. I looked on in amusement at how the release that happened in my own mind allowed him to choose to do as he wished. This may seem like a small incident but there are no small incidents. Behind every thought is an unexamined belief. With each situation, where there is a loss of peace, we are invited to look at what we are thinking. Since this experience, I have been watching my thoughts more vigilantly, where control comes up, and have been more willing to step back. If I want to know the love that I am then I must allow freedom for my brother. Love does not control.

This is all within the context of the section on "What is the Second Coming", which will guide the next ten lessons. The simple answer to this question is in the first line of this section, which tells us that the Second Coming "is merely the correction of mistakes, and the return of sanity." (W.PII.Q9.1.1) All it does is establish what is true about us. The First Coming was creation. The Second Coming is the undoing of what never happened, which is the separation. We are still connected to our Source.
 
I love the lines in this lesson that remind us that God's world is happy, and if we are not happy, then we are in our made-up world of our thoughts, interpretations and demands. "Those who look on it [God's world], can only add their joy to it, and bless it as a cause of further joy in them. We wept because we did not understand. But we have learned the world we saw was false, and we will look upon God's world today." (W.301.2.2-4)
Think about what brings you grief, sadness, distress of any kind and remind yourself that in this situation it is only your judgments that are causing you grief. All of our pain comes from judgment. First we judge ourselves in our guilt and then everyone else. Realize that this is a mistake that will not bring you happiness. With every grievance we are choosing against our own happiness. In giving up our judgments we can see the real world of joy and peace instead of the one we made.