Lesson 55. Today's review includes the following:
1. 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 witnesses
to the truth in me, rather than those which show me an illusion of myself.
2.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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(1:1) (21) "I am determined to see things differently."
*Jesus is now appealing directly to the power of our minds to choose.*
(1:2.) "What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death."
*In deference to Helen, I like to point out alliteration when it appears. Note
the three d's. <disease, disaster and death>. Again, it is important we perceive
disease, disaster and death all around us, not love, hope, and joy, for there is
none. Indeed, the world was made <not> to be a place of love, hope, or joy. If
we do not recognize this, we will have no motivation for changing our mind. We
will believe in our arrogance that we have already changed it by virtue of our
having perceived light instead of death. We believe what our egos have
programmed us to believe, which is why we need to question the value of having
chosen the ego as our teacher.*
(1:3-5) "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."
*This at least is a good initial step, because if we think we are looking on a
world of light, peace, and joy, we will believe we understand God, Jesus, and,
unfortunately, his course. Acknowledging that what we see "are the signs of
disease, disaster and death" is the beginning of the humility that reaches to
Wisdom. We begin by denying the ego's thought system of denial, and gradually,
step by step, we are led by Jesus to understand that spirit and ego are mutually
exclusive states, and so are love and hate, life and death, joy and pain. To
make one real is to deny the other.*
(1:6-7) "What I see tells me that I do not know who I am. I am determined to see
the witnesses to the truth in me, rather than those which show me an illusion of
myself."
*Once having learned to tell the difference between <form> and <content>, we
call upon our new Teacher to help us see truly, the vision of Christ that
reminds us who we are -- along with our brothers -- as God's one Son.*
(2:1) (22) "What I see is a form of vengeance."
(2:2-3) "The world I see is hardly the representation of loving thoughts. It is
a picture of attack on everything by everything."
*This is the same point Jesus was making earlier, saying the world we see
represents an attack on "everything by everyone." There are no exceptions. If we
think we see a loving world, we will believe there are only loving thoughts
within and so we will not look at the <unloving> ones. By not looking, the
unloving thoughts remain buried in our minds, and whatever is buried has the
terrible habit of finding its way out -- the dynamic of projection -- and
attacking everyone else. Because we are not aware that the source of our attack
is our mind's unloving thoughts, we will not be aware that we are the ones who
did this. We will actually think that because we think we have only loving
thoughts, our attacks and judgments of others are loving, too. That is why it is
important to see the world for what it is and recognize its source. Only when we
look with Jesus at the <un>loving thoughts in our minds and forgive them, will
we realize that underneath the unloving thoughts and concealed by them are the
loving ones we have always had.*
(2:4-6) "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."
*The unloving nature of the world is again unmistakably depicted in Jesus'
words: "It is anything but a reflection of the Love of God and the love of His
Son." The last sentence is carefully phrased: "My loving thoughts will save me
from this perception of the world." The problem is the <perception>. It is not
the world. Disease, disaster, and death do not exist out there, because <there
is no out there.> They exist in a mind that is filled with guilt, hatred, and
terror. Therefore it is the <perception> that has to be changed, not the world:
"Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world"
(T-21.in.1:7). Our perception is changed by first bringing it back from its
projected form to its source, the <mind>. Only then, as we have already seen,
can we exercise the mind's power of decision and choosing the loving thought of
the Atonement instead of the unloving thought of separation.*
(3:1) (23) "I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts."
(3:2-5) "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."
*One could not ask for a more explicit statement of salvation. We are not saved
from the world or from some abstract sense of sin, but from our own thoughts. To
escape the horrors of the world -- Hamlet's "slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune" -- one need only look with Jesus at our horrifying thoughts. Joined
with his gentle laughter at the silliness of the ego's thought system of attack,
we watch its thoughts slowly dissolve into their own nothingness. Looking out,
we perceive only "peace and safety and joy," the world of forgiveness given
form.*
(4:1) (24) "I do not perceive my own best interests."
(4:2-3) "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 do not know who I am because I think "<I> am," with the emphasis on the <I>.
I actually think there is an "I" here, therefore I do not know who I am. How,
then, could I possibly know what is best for me? What we think is best is always
some glorification, gratification, or anything that will preserve our illusory
identity as an individual "I".*
(4:4) "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."
*That we cannot do this without help is an extremely important theme throughout
A Course in Miracles. There is no way we can do this without the Holy Spirit's
or Jesus' help. Humility says: "I do not know, I do not understand, but thank
God there is Someone in me who does, and thank God He is right and I am wrong."
That is why Jesus says that he needs us as much as we need him (T-8.V.6:10): he
cannot help us <unless> we ask him to. We see this "collaborative venture"
(T-4.VI.8:2) expressed in the statement we have already seen in its full
context: "Together we have the lamp that will dispel it [the ego's thought
system]" (T-11.V.1:3). Jesus cannot accomplish it without us, and we certainly
cannot accomplish it without him!
The next set emphasizes the important theme of purpose, which, to state it
again, is not emphasized as much here as it is in many other places in A Course
in Miracles.*
(5:1) (25) "I do not know what anything is for."
(5:2-3) "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."
*Everything we think, and everything we see in the world has the purpose of
proving we are right. That is the reason for having made the world in the first
place. What God did we can do even better. There are no exceptions in the
<either-or> thought system. Just as holiness and love do not make exceptions on
the side of love, specialness does not make any exceptions, either. We either
love or hate, forgive or attack, but there is no in between: If my self is real,
then my Self is not; and, to the ego's dismay, <vice versa.> As a much later
lesson puts it: "Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all."
(W-pII.358.1:7).*
(5:4-6) "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."
*I have used the world to fulfill my purpose of proving I am right; i.e., that
the illusion about my individuality is the truth. This means I killed God so I
could exist. However, in my right mind I understand how I have used the world to
fulfill the purpose of making attack real and justified. If I am to exist,
everyone has to be sacrificed to my selfish desire. If I am trying to do it to
you -- since everyone out there is a part of the dream I made up -- I know you
are trying to do the same thing to me. This inevitably produces a world of fear,
not safety, for our guilt can only cause a world of perceived punishment and
death. But now I gladly choose otherwise.*
(5:7) "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."
*Here, too, it is clear that Jesus and A Course in Miracles cannot do it for us,
but can only remind us we have to withdraw our beliefs about the world. We need
to open our minds by withdrawing the purpose we gave to the world. In other
words, again, we have to say (and mean!) that we were wrong. Only then can we
recognize the world's true purpose of forgiveness, the pathway that leads us
home through the power of our mind to decide <for> God instead of <against>
Him.*
