A Course In Miracles from My Perspective

July 2nd 2015  Review I 

Lesson 55
Review of Lessons 21 - 25 

• 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.

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(21)  I am determined to see things differently.
What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death.  This cannot be what God created for His beloved Son.  The very fact that I see such things is proof that I do not understand God.  Therefore I also do not understand His Son.  What I see tells me that I do not know who I am.  I am determined to see the witness to the truth in me, rather than those which show me an illusion of myself.
  

(22)  What I see is a form of vengeance.
The world I see is hardly the representation of loving thoughts.  It is a picture of attack on everything by everything.  It is anything but a reflection of the Love of God and the Love of His Son.  It is my own attack thoughts that give rise to this picture.  My loving thoughts will save me from this perception of the world, and give me the peace God intended me to have..
     

(23)  I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts.
Herein lies salvation, and nowhere else.  Without attack thoughts I could not see a world of attack.  As forgiveness allows love to return to my awareness, I will see a world of peace and safety and joy.  And it is this I choose to see, in place of what I look on now.  
  
(24)  I do not perceive my own best interests.
How could I recognize my own best interests when I do not know who I am?  What I think are my best interests would merely bind me closer to the world of illusions.  I am willing to follow the Guide God has given me to find out what my own best interests are, recognizing that I cannot perceive them by myself.
     
(25)  I do not know what anything is for.
To me, the purpose of everything is to prove that my illusions about myself are real.  It is for this purpose that I attempt to use everyone and everything.  It is for this that I believe the world is for.  Therefore I do not recognize its real purpose.  The purpose I have given the world has led to a frightening picture of it.  Let me open my mind to the world's real purpose by withdrawing the one I have given it, and learning the truth about it.
     

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Insights/comments:

• The  theme of today's ideas is the recognition of the fact that we do not understand God or the world we see, but we also do recognize that the world we see is affected by our thoughts and is therefore illusory.  This recognition gives us pause to step back and reconsider what we think we know about God, ourselves and the world.  We can now begin to rethink our beliefs, give up thoughts of attack and see forgiveness as the means to open our minds to a more complete understanding of who God is and who we are.  

I and my Creator are One.