June 29th 2015 Review I
Lesson 52
Review of Lessons 6 - 10
- Intention: Begin the day by reading the five ideas, with the comments included. Thereafter, it is not necessary to follow any particular order in considering them, though each one should be practiced at least once. Devote two minutes or more to each practice period, thinking about the idea and the related comments after reading them over. Do this as often as possible during the day. If any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the other, concentrate on that one. At the end of the day, however, be sure to review all of them once more.
- Practice: It
is not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea either
literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather,
to emphasize the central point of each comment and how it relates to
its associated idea. After reading each idea and its related comments,
the exercise should be done with your eyes closed and if possible, when
you are alone in a quiet place.
- Application: The
purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you,
and to heal distress and turmoil. This is not done by avoiding them and
seeking a haven of isolation for yourself. You will yet learn that
peace is part of you, and requires only that you be there to embrace any
situation in which you are. And finally you will learn that there is
no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.
You will note that, for review purposes, some of the ideas are not given in quite their original form. Use them as they are given here. It is not necessary to return to the original statements, nor to apply the ideas as was suggested then. We are now emphasizing the relationships among the first fifty of the ideas we have covered, and the cohesiveness of the thought system to which they are leading you.
(6) I am upset because I see what is not there.
Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God's creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing.
(7) I see only the past.
As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. I hold the past against everyone and everything making them my enemies. When I have forgiven myself and remember Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.
(8) My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. I hold the past against everyone and everything making them my enemies. When I have forgiven myself and remember Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.
I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. What, then, can I see as it is? Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.
(9) I see nothing as it is now.
If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. I can see only what is now. The choice is not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would choose again, that I may see.
(10) My thoughts do not mean anything.
I have no private thoughts. Yet it is only private thoughts of which I am aware. What can these thoughts mean? They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless "private" thoughts?
Insights/comments:
- Again, the ideas we review today bring home the important distinction between the world that God created and the world that we made-up. God's world can only bring peace and joy. God's world is real and "reality is never frightening." Therefore, if I feel afraid, lost, without peace or joy, then I must be in my make-believe world of illusions and dreams, and all that I think I see in that world, I see amiss. This means that all my perceived fears and worries are illusions, as are too my apparent joys. This is a great insight for it allows us now the means to recognize what is truly real, for now we have a criteria, a way to identify and evaluate unreality from reality. The criteria is simply the recognition that any awareness of even the slightest negativity, sadness, pain, or loss, is proof that we are in the world of illusions. Now we can give up our perceived "unreality" because we recognize it as nothing but a dream, and awaken to God's unchanging reality where all is shared because all is one.
No comments:
Post a Comment