Lesson 23: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.
This lesson has a huge impact on me. Let’s break it down:
Title: If attack thoughts are given up (released to the Holy Spirit), “I,” the dreamer of the worldly-human dream, can escape from the seen world, the world eyesight proffers.
Paragraph 1: Today’s idea contains the only way out of fear that will ever succeed. This way cannot fail. But it is not our seeing that needs changing — it is our thoughts. Why?
Paragraph 2: Cause and effect. One of my favorite lines in A Course in Miracles is, “There is no point in lamenting the world.” Or as Jesus puts it in Chapter 21, “Seek not to change the world. Choose to change your mind about the world.” In other words, the world is an effect of a thought; an attack thought that, believed in, has the power to make us insane and delusional. So, if we change the source of our thoughts, we address the cause of the world we see.
Paragraph 3: The first sentence references yesterday’s lesson: What I see is a form of vengeance. It expands upon this idea by explaining that what we see outside ourselves, the world and all its inhabitants, is a “pictorial representation” of our hostile, hateful, frightened thoughts. Jesus poses the question: “Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result?” He is using our terms for mental illness. Could it be that we are all mentally ill and hallucinating?
Paragraph 4: Jesus tells us that our eyesight has us seeing the external world without us seeing ourselves as the image maker. We have been introduced to this idea in Lesson 15: My thoughts are images that I have made. He reprises his statement, “There is no point in lamenting the world,” by reiterating, “You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause.” Cause and effect are crucial because once we comprehend that we have caused the world we seem to be the victim of, we will be able to choose true salvation, and not the ego’s self-serving view of salvation. Then, “loveliness can light your images…” and we will no longer feel abandoned and alone.
Paragraph 5: Now that we are aware that the cause of the world can be changed, we need to know how. Jesus explains (1) we must identify the cause of the world, (2) we must use our free will to let go of our belief in the ego, and (3) we must allow God to work through us via the Holy Spirit. In paragraphs 6 and 7, he gives us the practice details. These three steps are the forgiveness practice! To restate: (1) Identify cause, (2) Let go of cause, and (3) Let God.
This lesson is huge for me, and deserving of more than one day spent on its practice. Not obsessively nor perfectionistically, just enough to digest this meta spiritual pointing.
