Lesson 3. I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].
Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it. Some of the things you see may have emotionally charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else.
The point of the exercises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them. It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied. For this purpose one thing is like another; equally suitable and therefore equally useful.
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Below, is from Kenneth Wapnick's commentaries on this lesson, from "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
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Lesson 3. "I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place]."
*Nothing in this room means anything because I have given it all the meaning it has. Therefore, since I have given it its meaning, how could I, a self separated <from> meaning, possibly understand it? I can understand it from my ego's point of view because it serves the purpose of making the world and my experience of it real. But I cannot truly understand it, because the purpose of the world, as I discussed in the Prelude to these volumes, is to prevent me from understanding. <True> understanding would have me realize the purpose I have given to everything and everyone in my life. Again, these early lessons have as one of their important goals to humble us, so that we realize we do not understand anything. This is what underlies Jesus' important (if not outrageous!) statement in the text: "You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is" (T-18.IV.!7:5). ... This lesson begins with the emphasis on indiscriminateness we have already seen.*
(1:1) "Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind."
*This means I do not understand anything. I think I understand what the pen or cup is for, yet do not understand that their <ultimate> purpose is to keep me rooted in the illusion and out of Heaven. My ego would tell me the pen is for writing, the cup for drinking, and clothes for covering the body, but I do not understand the ego's underlying purpose for these and all other aspects of the material world.*
(1:2-5) "Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it."
*Unconsciously, we certainly do question the suitability of some things. Again, no one believes that their arm is less important than an apple or a button. We believe there is an extremely important difference between them.
"Anything is suitable if you see it," because if I see it, it cannot be real. That is because we "see" with our eyes, and our eyes, as indeed all our sensory organs, were specifically made not to see. In other words, they were made by the ego to look <outside> the mind, while true vision is only <within> the mind. It is that fundamental unreality that unites everything in this world.*
(1:6-7) "Some of the things you see may have emotionally charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else."
*What is helpful about these lessons -- if you pay careful attention to them -- is that they will bring to the surface all our unconscious and hidden values, similar to the projective tests used by psychologists to help understand the underlying dynamics of a person's psychological disorder. We shall see this theme reflected in the lessons to come.*
(2) "The point of the exercises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them. It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied. For this purpose one thing is like another; equally suitable and therefore equally useful."
*This is the deepest statement made so far, and its meaning should be abundantly clear. Jesus is trying to help us let go of the past, for as long as it remains hidden from our awareness we cannot undo it. Left buried, therefore, the past continues to rear its guilt-ridden and judgment-laden head time and time again. The key to this undoing lies in the principle underlying these exercises: the inherent sameness of all illusions.*
