A Course In Miracles from My Perspective

April 28th 2014  Lesson 1

Nothing I see in this room [on this street, form this window, in this place] means anything.

Thus begins the lessons of the Workbook for A Course In Miracles.  The only general rules to be observed throughout, are:  First, that the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated.  This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it.  Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are inapplicable.  This will interfere with the transfer of training.  The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits.  It is the opposite of the way you see now.

• Intention:  To look at ordinary, everyday things differently and extend this new vision to include everyone and everything, without exception.
       
• Practice:  Twice daily, morning and evening, and only for a minute or so, comfortably and leisurely, slowly look around you and apply today's lesson randomly to whatever you see around you, for example:
  
  This table does not mean anything.
  This chair does not mean anything.
  This hand does not mean anything, ... etc.
    
  Then looking further away from your immediate area and apply the idea to a wider range:
  
  This door does not mean anything.
  That body does not mean anything.
  That sign does not mean anything, ...  etc..
           
•  Application:  Notice how the simple application of today's idea subtly changes how we feel towards the things we apply it to.  Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic.  Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded.

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Insights/comments:

• This is the beginning of our mindful practice to see all things as they are, and not as what we think they are based on our past experience with them.  We recognize a table as a table only because our past experience has defined for us what constitutes "tableness," and this prevents us form truly experiencing and appreciating the current object as is now.  Our automatic labeling diminishes our experience of the object because we think we already know what it is and therefore need not give it any more attention.  By removing the meaning our past experience automatically gave the table, we are now more open to appreciating it for all it is, which is more than just a table.
   
• The same applies for how we experience other people.  We and everything in creation is constantly changing, which means that in every moment, everything is new.  Certainly we are basically the same, but this is exactly the point of the exercise, to recognize the differences so that we can respond to who or what is actually there, as opposed to what what was there in the past.  We devalue each other if we don't take the time to appreciate who and what we are in the present moment.

I and my Creator are One.