Lesson 31. I am not the victim of the world I see.
Today's idea is the introduction to your declaration of release. Again, the idea
should be applied to both the world you see without and the world you see
within. In applying the idea, we will use a form of practice which will be used
more and more, with changes as indicated. Generally speaking, the form includes
two aspects, one in which you apply the idea on a more sustained basis, and the
other consisting of frequent applications of the idea throughout the day.
Two longer periods of practice with the idea for today are needed, one in the
morning and one at night. Three to five minutes for each of these are
recommended. During that time, look about you slowly while repeating the idea
two or three times. Then close your eyes, and apply the same idea to your inner
world. You will escape from both together, for the inner is the cause of the
outer.
As you survey your inner world, merely let whatever thoughts cross your mind
come into your awareness, each to be considered for a moment, and then replaced
by the next. Try not to establish any kind of hierarchy among them. Watch them
come and go as dispassionately as possible. Do not dwell on any one in
particular, but try to let the stream move on evenly and calmly, without any
special investment on your part. As you sit and quietly watch your thoughts,
repeat today's idea to yourself as often as you care to, but with no sense of
hurry.
In addition, repeat the idea for today as often as possible during the day.
Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of
your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world.
The idea for today is also a particularly useful one to use as a response to any
form of temptation that may arise. It is a declaration that you will not yield
to it, and put yourself in bondage.
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The commentary on this lesson (below) is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles,"
which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesson 31. "I am not the victim of the world I see."
*This is many people's favorite lesson, or else their most <un>favorite one. As
I said in the preceding lesson, everyone's life has developed as a defense
against the pain of childhood victimization, which our society holds as
sacrosanct. Therefore, to take this lesson seriously undermines everyone's
physical and psychological existence. If you are not the victim of the world you
see, then you do not need any defenses. Imagine your life without defenses! In
traditional psychology, if you are without defenses you are thought to be
psychotic, which is true from the world's point of view. To be identified with
the Love of God is indeed a form of psychosis as the world sees it, because it
goes against everything judged to be reality, beginning with the other-worldly
selflessness that <is> our Self. Thus, if the statement "I am not the victim of
the world I see" is true, your life is a lie -- meaningless and purposeless,
which has been a major theme of these early lessons. You can therefore
understand why A Course in Miracles must engender anxiety, and why you would
always have to attack it in one way or another, or attack those who represent it
to you. These teachings undermine everything you believe about yourself, beliefs
which have given your life its meaning.*
(1:1-3) "Today's idea is the introduction to your declaration of release. Again,
the idea should be applied to both the world you see without and the world you
see within. In applying the idea, we will use a form of practice which will be
used more and more, with changes as indicated."
*Obviously, this is not release as the world sees it. This is a declaration of
release from your ego, from the prison of your life of guilt and projection.
The next few lines describe a new form of exercise, encompassing both a more
sustained meditation of the day's ideas as well as frequent applications
throughout the day that will characterize our daily experience with the
workbook. Without these "frequent applications," one's work could easily lapse
into mere intellectual practice. Jesus is asking us to cultivate the discipline
of becoming increasingly vigilant for our ego's temptation of illusory thoughts
of attack, so we may bring them to the truth-filled presence of the Holy Spirit
in our minds, the process we are coming to recognize as forgiveness*
(1:4) "Generally speaking, the form includes two aspects, one in which you apply
the idea on a more sustained basis, and the other consisting of frequent
applications of the idea throughout the day."
*When we read Lesson 95 we shall see the discussion of the need to forgive
ourselves for forgetting the exercises throughout the day. It is important to
recognize our resistance; otherwise it is impossible to let it go and move
beyond the defense to the truth of God's Love.*
(2) "Two longer periods of practice with the idea for today are needed, one in
the morning and one at night. Three to five minutes for each of these are
recommended. During that time, look about you slowly while repeating the idea
two or three times. Then close your eyes, and apply the same idea to your inner
world. You will escape from both together, for the inner is the cause of the
outer."
*Here, again, Jesus is making it clear that the inner and the outer are one and
the same. The exercises then, have to do with applying the idea both to what you
perceive outside you as well as to what you think within your own mind. We
continue to be reminded that the inner is the <cause> of the outer. This
cause-effect theme acquires more and more significance as the teaching proceeds
and our understanding deepens.
If, contrary to what Jesus has been saying, we believe that the way we feel is a
result of the way people have treated us, we are saying the cause is outside us
-- the outer is the cause of the inner. This approach makes us absolutely
helpless in the world, because even though we may have the illusion of being
able to control some things, there is very little we can do to control
everything in the world that affects us. After all, our bodies were made to be
fragile and vulnerable, and indeed they are.
If, on the other hand, we invert this and see that the cause is inside, it does
not matter what happens outside, because now we are in control of what we feel:
our <reactions> to external happenings. We have learned that what we feel and
experience comes from a choice we have made. Much later in the workbook Jesus
says we are in control of the universe (e.g., Lesson 253). As we have already
discussed, if we choose the ego as our teacher, we perceive and experience the
world in one way. If we take Jesus as our teacher, we perceive and experience it
in another. <We>, therefore, are the determiners of our experiences. That is the
importance of this lesson, an importance not to be underestimated, since it
contains the core of Jesus' teachings of A Course in Miracles.*
(3) "As you survey your inner world, merely let whatever thoughts cross your
mind come into your awareness, each to be considered for a moment, and then
replaced by the next. Try not to establish any kind of hierarchy among them.
Watch them come and go as dispassionately as possible. Do not dwell on any one
in particular, but try to let the stream move on evenly and calmly, without any
special investment on your part. As you sit and quietly watch your thoughts,
repeat today's idea to yourself as often as you care to, but with no sense of
hurry."
*This is similar to many Buddhist mind-training exercises. The idea is merely to
watch the thoughts in your mind. If your watching them, who is the <you> who are
watching? That is the key. You will end up realizing that the <you> who are
watching the thoughts in your mind, as well as watching your perceptions outside
is the <decision maker>, the part of your mind that chooses between the ego and
the Holy Spirit, illusions and the truth. It is not the <you> that you normally
think of, because some of the thoughts you will be watching will be thoughts
about yourself. Jesus is thus beginning the process of training us to
dissociate, in the positive sense of the word, from the ego identification that
we have made real. If I watch my thoughts -- and what I am watching is my ego in
action, whether in a positive or a negative form -- the *I* that watches is not
the *I* that I think I am. It is, again, the < decision maker >.*
(4) "In addition, repeat the idea for today as often as possible during the day.
Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of
your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world."
*We see here again the instructions about frequent repetitions, hopefully
leading to frequent applications of the lesson's wisdom in helping us bring our
foolish illusions to the wise truth held for us in our minds by the Holy Spirit.
In my freedom "lies the freedom of the world" because the world is part of me. I
made up this world, which is a product of my thoughts. If these change, my world
has to change. Jesus is not speaking of liberating the world, or freeing it from
its suffering; nor does he mean doing anything with the world outside. He is
speaking only of our <perception> of the world; the only world there truly is.
The language of A Course in Miracles, especially in the workbook, would strongly
suggest that Jesus is actually talking about saving an external world.
Christians have always spoken like this. First it was Jesus who is going to be
the world's savior, and now we, as his disciples, are going to save it, too. In
the Course Jesus uses the same terms that have been used in traditional
Christianity, but has given them a totally different meaning. These lessons
explain this difference in meaning. For example, Lesson 186 is entitled
"Salvation of the world depends on me"; it is <my> world alone that has to be
saved. As I change my mind and free myself from the ego's tyranny, the world I
perceive and experience will be saved as well. Once again, Jesus is not talking
about anything external. It should be noted here, though we shall return to this
important point later, that this is not to be taken as an excuse not to do
anything in the world. Rather, we are asked to be <passive> to the ego, but
quite <active> to the Holy Spirit, Whose Love automatically guides our thoughts,
words, and actions.
That is why these passages must be read very carefully and kept in context of
what Jesus has been teaching. If there is no outer world, how could there be a
world out there to be saved? It is when students of A Course in Miracles want to
make their ego's real that they take sentences out of context without
understanding their metaphysical background, and then make the Course seem to
say the exact opposite of what it actually is saying.
The next lesson makes this point even clearer, but before we proceed to it, the
final paragraph of this lesson encourages us to begin making the "frequent
applications" that Jesus mentioned near the beginning of the lesson. Once again,
without these applications the workbook will not have succeeded in its purpose.
One more thing before moving to the end of the lesson -- note the explicit
reference above to the American Declaration of Independence. Students recall a
similar reference in the text (T-4.III.1:12-2:2), the message of which is echoed
in this final paragraph:*
(5) "The idea for today is also a particularly useful one to use as a response
to any form of temptation that may arise. It is a declaration that you will not
yield to it, and put yourself in bondage."
*At the end of the text Jesus describes temptations as believing we are a body,
victimized by forces beyond our control:
"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it
occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must
die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel."
(T-31.VIII.1:1-2).
Choosing the Holy Spirit and His thought system shifts our identification from
the body to the mind, which is the cause of everything the body does and feels.
Thus are we freed at last from the ego's bondage.*
