Lesson 4: These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place.]

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

This lesson asks us to look at our thoughts–watch them parade by, and then, apply today’s idea, “These thoughts do not mean anything” to some of the specific thoughts I am having.  It explains that what I consider “good” and “bad” thoughts are really neither, since they are often contradictory, which is why they don’t mean anything.  Ramana Maharshi just said the same thing in Regina Dawn Aker’s new book, The Teachings of Inner Ramana, “If all of the concerns for one day are written down, it may be seen that concerns and imagined solutions conflict with one another, so that no true peace can be found with the mind.”

Lesson 4 goes on to say that good thoughts are “but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult.  The ‘bad’ ones are blocks to sight, and make seeing impossible.  You do not want either.”  After reading this, Bowl of Saki arrived in my email box and Hazrat Inayat Khan had this to say, “When you stand with your back to the sun, your shadow is before you; but when you turn and face the sun, then your shadow falls behind you.”Synchronicity.  Reinforcements of The Message I’ve often thought that good thoughts are the way the ego keeps us tempted to stick with it and bad thoughts are the way the ego keeps us narrowly consumed with a problem, therefore endlessly distracted from our True Nature.

Towards the end Jesus says, “Do not, however, examine your mind for more than a minute or so.  You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied.”  This makes me bust out laughing.  I have a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied with nonsense all day long … I guess I feel understood, lol.

LESSON 4

These thoughts do not mean anything.  They are like the things I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].

Unlike the preceding ones, these exercises do not begin with the idea for the day.  In these practice periods, begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minute.  Then apply the idea to them.  If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts, use them as subjects for the idea.  Do not, however, select only the thoughts you think are “bad.”  You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called “good” or “bad.”  This is why they do not mean anything.

In selecting the subjects for the application of today’s idea, the usual specificity is required.  Do not be afraid to use “good” thoughts as well as “bad.”  None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them.  The “good” ones are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult.  The “bad” ones are blocks to sight, and make seeing impossible.  You do not want either.

This is a major exercise, and will be repeated from time to time in somewhat different form.  The aim here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful.  It is a first attempt in the long-range purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within.  It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different.

In using your thoughts for application of the idea for today, identify each thought by the central figure or event it contains, for example:

This thought about ______________ does not mean anything.  It is like the things I see in this room [on this street, and so on].

You can also use the idea for a particular thought that you recognize as harmful.  This practice is useful, but is not a substitute for the more random procedures to be followed for the exercises.  Do not, however, examine your mind for more than a minute or so.  You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied.

Further, since these exercises are the first of their kind, you may find the suspension of judgment in connection with thoughts particularly difficult.  Do not repeat these exercises more than three or four times during the day.  We will return to them later.

Lesson 3: I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

The instructions state, “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.”  We are asked to keep an open mind and suspend judgment.  In the world, if I keep an open mind and suspend all judgment, couldn’t I get into trouble?  But when Jesus firmly suggests that I follow his instructions and have my own experience, how can I refuse?  I gaze around the room and find that my mind softens … I, who love precision, have no desire to even assign words to what I’m seeing … there is a blur of familiar objects devoid of names or relevance.  My heart eases in my chest as some internal pressure I live with daily abates.  Something widens expansively, moving through the heart, the lungs, the arms, and radiates beyond the body.  Here is the love, peace and joy the Course promises.

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 the 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 these 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.

Lesson 2: I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

In Lesson 2 we are held accountable for assigning meaning to what we see.  Years ago, I was distressed and aggravated when Louise Hay told me I was responsible for choosing my parents in You Can Heal Your Life. Now Jesus is telling me I’m responsible for the meaning of everything!   The ego experiences this as an accusation and a burden of responsibility.  But then there is a glimmer within of … being pulled back in time, sliding backward along some continuum, so there is a telescopic view of how “little me” thinks.  From this long view comprehension comes that the collective ego “I” has assigned meaning to everything “seen”–everything I hurl out of me so that I don’t have to feel the terror of being separate and alone.  Lesson 2 suddenly makes sense, and there is a sense of promise that forgiveness, salvation and Atonement are what’s truly True.

LESSON 2

I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.

The exercises with this idea are the same as those for the first one.  Begin with the things that are near you, and apply the idea to whatever your glance rests on.  Then increase the range outward.  Turn your head so that you include whatever is on either side.  If possible, turn around and apply the idea to what was behind you.  Remain as indiscriminate as possible in selecting subjects for its application, do not concentrate on anything in particular, and do not attempt to include everything you see in a given area, or you will introduce strain.

Merely glance easily and fairly quickly around you, trying to avoid selection by size, brightness, color, material, or relative importance to you.  Take the subjects simply as you see them.  Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, a or a floor, an arm or an apple.  The sole criterion for applying the idea to anything is merely that your eyes have lighted on it.  Make no attempt to include anything particular, but be sure that nothing is specifically excluded.

Lesson 1: Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

The first time I did the A Course in Miracles Workbook, this lesson was disorienting and a little scary.  But as I practiced, I felt a child-like sense of wonder and a good not-knowing.  Now when I review Lesson 1, it’s amusing, relaxing, and freeing.  To be told that nothing I see anywhere means anything, is to be offered a whole new experience of life.  An experience which is free of pain, loneliness, inadequacy, guilt, sin, fear, and death.  To absorb this lesson is to begin to know that everything I have held as meaningful is meaningless.  This is not a mockery of me–it is a clarification of how I’ve been thinking.  “Jesus can be snippy,” someone said to me the other day with pleasure, and I agree.  What a relief to have Jesus be a bit impatient with a thought process which is driving all of us crazy, and for no reason!

The purpose of this exercise, we are told, is to be indiscriminate, and to begin to experience everything as equally the same.  “A comfortable sense of leisure” we are told, “is essential” to doing this lesson successfully.  I get a kick out of this because one of my bigger challenges is to slow down and relax, and my spiritual teacher, Jesus, knows me so well.

We are advised, “Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see for these exercises should not become ritualistic.”  We might think that if we apply “That [object] does not mean anything” to absolutely everything we see that we could erase our entire thought system right then and there.  But that is a fear-based approach, superstitious (similar to avoiding stepping on every crack in the sidewalk) and compulsive, (in order to this exercise well, I will overdo it, that is, do it totally and completely and double check myself afterwards), as well as perfectionistic (God doesn’t really know what the instructions for this exercise should be–I’ll show Him how to really do it well).  Ha ha ha!  Do it for yourself and find out that He really does know what He’s doing 😉   Click here to watch video reading of Lesson 1

LESSON 1

Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.

Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:

This table does not mean anything.
This chair does not mean anything.
This hand does not mean anything.
This foot does not mean anything.
This pen does not mean anything.

Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:

That door does not mean anything.
That body does not mean anything.
That lamp does not mean anything.
That sign does not mean anything.
That shadow does not mean anything.

Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied.  That is the purpose of the exercise.  The statement should merely be applied to anything you see.  As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately.  Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic.  Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded.  One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.

Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening.  Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry.  A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.