A Course In Miracles from My Perspective

May 14th 2014  Lesson 15

My thoughts are images that I have made.

This introductory idea to the process of image making that we call seeing will not have much meaning currently, but we will begin to understand it when we begin seeing little edges of light around the same familiar objects which we now see.  That is the beginning of real vision.  They will not last, but as we go along, we may have many "light episodes," some of them quite unexpected.  Do not be alarmed by them, for they merely symbolize true perception, and are signs that we are opening our eyes at last.
          
It is because the thoughts we think we think appear as images that we do not recognize them as nothing.  We think we think them, and so we think we see them.  This is how our "seeing" was made.  This is the function we have given the body's eyes.  It is not seeing, but rather image making that takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.

• Intention:  Three or four practice periods are recommended, according to your comfort level, with each lasting a minute or so.
     
• Practice:  In practicing today's idea, repeat it first to yourself, then apply it to whatever you see around you, using its name and letting your eyes rest on it as you say:
    
  This _______ is an image that I have made.
  That _______ is an image that I have made.
         
• Application:    Do not have more than three application periods for today's idea unless you feel completely comfortable with it, and do not exceed four.  However, the idea can be applied as needed throughout the day.  

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Insights/comments:

• Seeing, or more generically, perceiving, is subject to error because it depends on many variables:  On how much light is available, my level of alertness, whether I have my glasses on right, my degree of hydration, my state of mind, etc.  Knowledge, however is  knowing what is true; it is unequivocal certainty (like I know that I exist) and results in vision, which is reality.  We can perceive dreams and illusions, but what is real and stable comes only from knowledge.  When knowledge is present, perception is not needed.  Perception is therefore a poor substitute for knowledge. 
           
  Our thoughts conjure up images which we think we see, but these are just illusions, dreams, and fantasy; they exists only in our own mind, apart form the reality of God's world.  All that we perceive around us are but the illusions created by projecting our thoughts outside ourselves, and these projections are therefore twice removed from their source, the ego-mind complex, and therefore twice as illusory.  Our images seem real to us only because our senses testify to their reality, but the senses themselves are questionable witnesses for their testimony is biased in favor of the illusion.  Unfortunately, we cannot truly recognize our thoughts as illusions until we awake to a higher reality, just as we cannot truly recognize that we are dreaming until we wake up from our dreaming.  The exercises for today allow us to practice recognizing the images we see as the illusions they really are.
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I and my Creator are One.