10 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 10 – My thoughts do not mean anything.

Lesson 10 – My thoughts do not mean anything.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

Some of the intriguing sentences in this lesson are, “The emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think.” and

“To recognize this [that your mind is a blank] is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it.”

New students to the Course may find this scary and disorienting — trust that this is a good kind of scary and disorientation.

Let’s practice together.  Here goes:

My thought about not being a good Course student does not mean anything (ha ha). This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.

My thought about pest control poisoning my front lawn, not to mention the entire planet, does not mean anything.  This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.

My thought about … practicing this exercise is very relaxing … I’m having trouble stringing words together … again “little me” asks: Is this the return to a wonderfully un-thought-filled state?  Or is the ego lulling me to sleep?

My thought about the ego lulling me to sleep does not mean anything, tee hee.  This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.

My thought about how mischievously adorable the cats are does not mean anything.  This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.

This lesson helps me to recognize that what I call thinking is really not-thinking.  It is increasing understanding that each of “my thoughts” is just another brick in the ego wall which keeps me Mindless.

In this world of opposites, thinking is not-thinking and thoughts are blockages to language-free real Thought (which is Unified Love).  My thoughts are an “oddly assorted procession” which seem to have great personal meaning to “me” but who am I really?  Lol.  Five practice periods, one minute each.

There is a powerful shift stirring in the mind.  I love how I don’t need to try to understand it.  And even if I think I understand it, that doesn’t matter.  All that matters is practicing.

LESSON 10

My thoughts do not mean anything.

This idea applies to all the thoughts of which you are aware, or become aware in the practice periods.  The reason the idea is applicable to all of them is that they are not your real thoughts.  We have made this distinction before, and will do so again.  You have no basis for comparison as yet.  When you do, you will have no doubt that what you once believed were your thoughts did not mean anything.

This is the second time we have used this kind of idea.  The form is only slightly different.  This time the idea is introduced with “My thoughts” instead of  “These thoughts,” and no link is made overtly with the things around you.  The emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think.

This aspect of the correction process began with the idea that the thoughts of which you are aware are meaningless, outside rather than within; and then stressed their past rather than their present status.  Now we are emphasizing that the presence of these “thoughts” means that you are not thinking.  This is merely another way of repeating our earlier statement that your mind is really a blank.  To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it.  As such, it is the prerequisite for vision.

Close your eyes for these exercises, and introduce them by repeating the idea for today quite slowly to yourself.  Then add:

This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.

The exercises consist, as before, in searching your mind for all the thoughts that are available to you, without selection or judgment.  Try to avoid classification of any kind.  In fact, if you find it helpful to do so, you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which as little if any personal meaning to you.  As each one crosses your mind, say:

My thought about _______________ does not mean anything.
My thought about _______________ does not mean anything.

Today’s thought can obviously serve for any thought that distresses you at any time.  In addition, five practice periods are recommended, each involving no more than a minute or so of mind searching.  It is not recommended that this time period be extended, and it should be reduced to half a minute or less if you experience discomfort.  Remember, however, to repeat the idea slowly before applying it specifically, and also to add:

This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe.

Let’s practice together!  Watch and listen to me reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube.  Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.

 

by Amy Torres in Spiritual Psychotherapy, Thoughts on A Course in Miracles, Today's ACIM Lesson, Undoing the Ego, Unlearning Classroom, Workin' the Workbook Tags:

09 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 9 – I see nothing as it is now.

Lesson 9 – I see nothing as it is now.

“It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there.” ~Lesson 9

Eyesight is not True Sight – True Sight is the Holy Spirit’s Vision. The ego out-pictures an inward condition, imagining and believing it is separate from God, and eyesight testifies to what very much seems to be reality.

Intellect can comprehend this. But more important than intellectual comprehension is the recognition that we do not understand anything we see. With this recognition comes the possibility of undoing our false ideas, with Help.

Jesus empathizes with us, “It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there.” That’s for sure 🙂

Then he encourages us to apply the practice because if we do, “Each small step will clear a little of the darkness away, and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind that has been cleared of the debris that darkens it.” Your mind becomes receptive to Messages from the Holy Spirit.

The words came to me years ago, when I did Lesson 9, and they are with me now, “I see only what is not there.”

As I do the practice and let my eyes wander near and then farther, noting that “I do not see this lamp as it is now. I do not see the liquid paper as it is now. I do not see that window sill as it is now” my heart beats knowingly with, “I am seeing only what is not there” and something within opens wide and sighs with relief!

The ego is projecting collective and personal hallucinations … but that is not, ultimately, what I AM. A work-in-progress, yes, as the psychological debris clears little by little and a line from Chapter 11 comes to mind:

“We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it…”

Try for yourself 🙂

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

08 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 8 – My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

Lesson 8 – My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

In Chapter 13 of A Course in Miracles, we are told, “Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet spread along the past behind you, and will disappear.”

The ego mind is fixated on an imaginary story based in the concept of time and space. The ACIM Workbook practice is undoing this fixation. As we look out towards the horizon, so to speak, instead of down at the ground, a vast new view reveals itself.

We accomplish this by mentally choosing Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, as our guide and teacher. It is greatly comforting to realize that we are not alone — Jesus, all of Christ Mind and the Holy Spirit are our holy companions.

Chapter 13 says, “As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there is no journey, but only an awakening.”

Lesson 8 begins to train our mind to recognize when it is not thinking at all. What the ego calls “thinking” is actually blankness — virtual reality via the five senses.

Chapter 21 tells us, “The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. … It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition.”

“My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts” makes more sense as I gain awareness that eyesight produces imaginary pictures and what I see is just an ego game of make-believe. Intellectual understanding is useful, but without practical application, we remain stuck in our heads.

Try the exercises for yourself and see what happens. And make sure to pay attention to how Jesus structures the sentences with the word “seem” — facilitates powerful shifts in perception.

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

07 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 7 – I see only the past.

Lesson 7 – I see only the past.

In Lesson 7, Jesus explains that everything we believe is rooted in time and that the ego depends on us not learning new ideas about time.

He clarifies that all our associations regarding objects are based on past experience. We are not having a fresh, unbiased experience right now.

This holds true for our relationships with people and creatures, as well as all our thoughts. All our thoughts are simply a review of the past. Now hold onto your hat …

The future is also the past because the entire ego thought system is based on an idea that arose, bloomed and concluded in an unholy instant. We are actually fixated on a bygone idea. So when we interact with the external or internal world, we are reviewing a story which is over. You could also say we are watching and re-watching a mental movie which we could release in any given moment.

Jesus is giving us the opportunity to become aware of our ego obsession and showing us a way out. Hence, the workbook exercises.

Today, when I practiced Lesson 7, allowing my mind to view objects without assigning meaning, there was an experience of bouncing atoms and molecules, of pixelated light being the substratum of each object upon which my eyes alit. Along with this some precious moments of no-thinking and a sense of being the breath, ebbing and flowing independently of a body.

Try it yourself. Let me know how it goes.

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

06 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 6 – I am upset because I see something that is not there.

Lesson 6 – I am upset because I see something that is not there.

What I see is a deception. This idea that I am upset because I see something that is not there brings the realized master, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj to mind.

The yogi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, followed his teacher’s instructions on pure faith. He simply trusted.

Nisargadatta said, “My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense ‘I am’ and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense ‘I am’. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!”*

We can do the same with A Course in Miracles. Because it rings true to me, I am inclined to try everything it suggests. In the trying, comes an experience which reinforces the spark in me which recognizes what is True.

It once made no sense that, “There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” But now it does. The first miracle principle in the Text tells us that “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.” From that we can extrapolate that there are no big or small upsets. When you find this comforting, rather than infuriating, you are on your way.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

05 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 5 – I am never upset for the reason I think.

Lesson 5 – I am never upset for the reason I think.

At first it surely seems like we have many problems, issues and challenges that result in an array of emotions that are justified, given the circumstances. It appears that real situations and people are causing your pain and fear.

For the Course in Miracles student, Lesson 5 is the ultimate confrontation. The exercise begins with specifics and ends with one generalization:

I am never upset for the reason I think.

To the ego, this is absurd and far-fetched. To the awakening Spirit within, it is an arising truth leading to liberation. Notice the reactions and responses within your body. Give all fear (any emotion that is not Love falls into the category of fear) to the Holy Spirit. Savor all uplifting experience — bring your attention to where it is located within the body … and perhaps the sensation will expand beyond the body showing you another perspective entirely.

Here’s a little ditty to reinforce the lesson: That’s Not the Reason Why

Enjoy 🙂

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

04 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 4 – These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see.

Lesson 4 – These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see.

Arrange your body for optimal breathing. Lengthen up so your lungs and heart are free to function. Settle your butt into what you’re sitting on, and if you’re in a chair, meet the ground solidly with the soles of your feet, spreading them like peanut butter on a piece of warm bread. You are plugging yourself into a spiritual socket and tapping into the God-current.

Become aware of your thoughts. Let them roll by and notice what they are without becoming involved in them. Just for a minute or two.

Now — use Lesson 4: These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room, from this window, in this place.

Breathe … allow the meaningless to separate from the meaningful. The Course in Miracles mind training reveals to you, sooner or later, that underneath good thoughts (shadows) and bad thoughts (blockages) is Real Thought.

Some of us are very attuned to our bodies and feel every twitch and flutter. Some of us prefer to disregard bodily gurgles and pains and pressures. In order to become spiritually embodied, which may sound oxymoronic, but is actually crucial to recognizing you are not the body, breathing and muscle relaxation is key. Breathing and relaxing muscles unlock psychological barriers. All humans develop brilliant creative adjustments (defense mechanisms) beginning in early childhood and continue to accrue some more throughout adulthood when jarring and traumatic events occur.

Lesson 4 offers a shift in perception regarding thoughts. We learn that thoughts are internal objects. This can be a powerful, and perhaps disorienting, insight. Jesus tells us, “This is a major exercise…” Even though it is major, that doesn’t mean it has to be deadly serious. In my experience, a playful attitude is the easiest way to navigate our way through A Course in Miracles.

For those of you who are longterm ACIM practitioners: This morning I asked Jesus what a veteran Course in Miracles student, who has done the Workbook more than once, is to make of the following statements in Lesson 4: “When the lesson says it is ‘a first attempt’ and it is ‘…the beginning of training your mind’ and ‘You are too inexperienced…’ and ‘…these exercises are the first of their kind…’

The reply came, “Those statements do not dismiss the work you’ve done before. That past work has, seemingly, led to this moment.* Do not interpret anything I say as criticism or chastisement, but instead, become present to your current experience as if you are a patch of blue sky emerging from clouds.”

* Read Coming Apart at the Seems

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson Tags: , ,

03 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 3 – I do not understand anything I see.

Lesson 3 – I do not understand anything I see.

I do not understand anything I see. I look around the room, as Lesson 3 instructs, at objects nearer and then farther away, and I marinate in the thought Jesus has offered me:

I do not understand anything I see.

The impulse to label objects with words abates. I go from, “I do not understand that hand, that bookcase, that tree” to “I do not understand …” Something like a telescopic zoom-out occurs where the entire world becomes a completed jigsaw puzzle. Then, arriving back in the body, my brain is seen as a object floating in a head.

How relieving to see without understanding. I am without responsibilities, worries and cares. I am experiencing without filters … breath is breath. Sight is sight. The mind is quiet.

As a person whose life has been devoted to understanding myself and others, it’s amusing to allow the possibility that I’ve never understood anything from a Higher Perspective.

How has this exercise from Lesson 3 been for you? Email me: miracles@amytorresacim.com

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

02 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 2 – I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me.

Lesson 2 – I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me.

I swivel on my bottom, as if sitting on a bar stool, to practice glancing around at objects with the insight that I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me.

The effect is similar to dancing the Sufi turn — the eyes de-focus and objects blend in a soft, slow blur of shape, texture and color. It is very pleasant. The brain is relieved of all interpretation.

The eyes grow sleepy and roll back into the brain, lids half-closed, as I continue to survey the surroundings, near and then farther out. Again, it is very pleasant. My breath deepens and becomes fuller. My hips, pelvis and bottom sink, with a reassuring weightiness, into the chair. The soles of my bare feet are grounded and my toes explore and enjoy the soft carpeting to an uncharacteristic degree. Who needs drugs when meditative endorphins are so easily accessible? Wink.

As you do Lesson 2, what is your experience? Share it with me: miracles@amytorresacim.com

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

01 Jan 2022 Comments Off on Lesson 1 – Nothing I see means anything.

Lesson 1 – Nothing I see means anything.

Read this lesson with a sponge-like mind. Let the mind be open and receptive. You do not need to know how. Just allow. Keep breathing throughout the lesson. The lessons can feel scary but your feelings are not Fact.

In Chapter 6 of A Course in Miracles we are told, “You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. That is both where you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief, but a Fact.” (T-6.II.6:2-8)

Let us align with Fact. How? Choose Jesus as your guide and teacher. Then breathe in the lesson. Breathe out fear. Breathe in Love. Breathe out fear. You do not need anything other than a tiny willingness.

Make sure to read the Introduction to the workbook lessons. The Introduction offers priceless wisdom and orientation. Our minds are being trained. This means we are being un-brain-washed from the ego thought system. This undoing cleans the lens of the mind so that we perceive truly rather than falsely. Joining with the Holy Spirit affords us this beautiful new view.

As the mind is trained, transfer of training (which results in true perception) expands your heart, lets your breath come easily and fully, and shifts your relationship to everyone and everything everywhere. This is good.

by Amy Torres in Today's ACIM Lesson

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