A Course In Miracles from My Perspective

May 1st 2014  Lesson 4

These thoughts do not mean anything.  They are like the things I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].

Having established that nothing outside means anything other than the meaning we give it, we can now examine our thoughts.  Even a brief examination shows that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense none of them can be called "good" or "bad," and this is why they do not mean anything.

• Intention:  To train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful.  It is a first attempt in the long-range purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within.  It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different.
       
• Practice:  Repeat the following exercise no more than three or four times during the day.  Begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minute only.  Then apply them to today's idea by identifying the central figure or event each thought contains; for example: 
    
  This thought about ________does not mean anything.
  It is like the things I see in this room [on this street, and so on].
              
• Application:  You can also use today's idea for a particular thought that you recognize as harmful.  Do not, however, select only the thoughts you think are "bad" and do not examine your mind for more than a minute or so.  You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied.  These random thoughts, both "good" and "bad" are the smoke screen that covers our real thoughts and today's exercise is our first steps towards rediscovering them.

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Insights/comments:

• Much of our thinking is random, with the mind jumping from one thought to another aimlessly brooding over what happened in the past or what may happen in the future.  This keeps us needlessly distracted from understanding and appreciating what is happening in the present moment because we are preoccupied with giving meaning to what is inherently meaningless.  Today's exercise reminds us that these thoughts about past and future are meaningless and by laying them aside we can use our time and energy more effectively to address what is actually happening in our present.
       

I and my Creator are One.