Today’s ACIM Lesson

Lesson 16: I have no neutral thoughts.

In Lesson 16 we find out that thoughts are never neutral. Neither are thoughts big or little, powerful or weak. “They are merely true or false.”

The idea of “idle thoughts” is an oxymoron: thoughts “give rise to the perception of a whole world” and are therefore capable of either churning out countless illusions or extending God’s Truth.

Photo by Ian Dyball

The world is a neutral thing, and the body is a neutral thing. But thoughts are what activates the darkness or light within the world and the body. This is why it is important to pay attention to fear thoughts: so that you can nip them in the bud.

Essentially, we come to realize that we can think with the delusional ego thought system, which never makes us happy. Or we can change teachers and think with the Holy Spirit, Who guides us out of the hell and insanity of the ego by shining an illuminated path back Home.

Lesson 15: My thoughts are images that I have made.

What we think of as seeing is not what Jesus would call seeing. He says the function we have given the body’s eyes is “image making.” True seeing, from Jesus’ point of view, is Vision. Holy Spirit Vision. And it has nothing to do with perceiving external objects.

Jesus says we do not understand “image making” now but we will begin to understand it when we “have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now.” That will be the beginning of real vision.

It turns out that we may “have many ‘light episodes’.” They may be unexpected, and take different forms, and we are not to be afraid of them. They “symbolize true perception” and prepare the way to Knowledge.

I can attest to experiencing light episodes in the form of what doctors call “ocular migraines.” The first time my eyesight was assaulted with strident flashing lights, I was afraid I was having a stroke. It turns out what looks like a visual event is actually a little brain spasm. It happened another time or two before I remembered what Jesus told us in Lesson 15: “Do not be afraid of them.”

I consciously relaxed and allowed the ocular migraine (there was no painful headache, just flashing lights so I’ll just call them “oculars” from now on) to unfold. It resolves in about 30 minutes and I was no more the worse for wear. But I was still anxious, just less so.  However, as years went by and oculars came and went, I really did let go of fear and trusted there was no danger.

The visuals became prism-like, reflecting beautiful colors. A kaleidoscopic light show to be enjoyed. When I mentioned this to doctors, ophthalmologists and neurologists, they knew nothing of this kind of ocular. For them, oculars were in black and white and maintained the lightning flash formation at the periphery of eyesight.

It would be easy to overlook my oculars as a health concern and not connect them to spirituality. Except spiritual awakening is the consuming interest of my life and so I managed to remember Lesson 15 and apply it. That is what’s important. The ego is a master of forgetting. The Holy Spirit helps us have selective remembering. When we make a habit of remembering our workbook lessons, and the principles within them, we are well on our way to recognizing the Truth that abides within us, even when we’re oblivious to it.

Lesson 14: God did not create a meaningless world.

Being told that God did not create a meaningless world can seem harshly critical or genuinely liberating depending on where you are at when you encounter this lesson.

It is easy to misunderstand the title of this lesson and interpret it as since God created the world, it must have meaning even when it seems bleak and terrifying, unjust and unrewarding.

To be perfectly clear, Jesus is explaining that this world is meaningless, and because it is meaningless, we can be sure it is not God-created. Therefore, it must be man-made; dreamed up by ego.

Jesus tells us that we will, “…let go the thoughts we have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place.” Imagine our words are darkness and as we allow them to be erased, the Light beneath them is revealed. But Jesus warns us that this process, even though it truly is salvation, can be experienced as “quite difficult and even quite painful.”

In the text, Jesus says, “Undermining the ego’s thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true.” T-4.11.5:1

Now comes the reassurance on which we must rely:

“Some of them [the early steps towards salvation] will lead you directly into fear. You will not be left there. You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace.“

The purpose of Lesson 14 is to experience a thought reversal–a shift in perception as to who the maker of the world is. God creates an ongoing, infinite, eternal, loving state of Mind … not planet earth. This is not meant to minimize or deny what we experience as worldly problems–it is meant to awaken us to the face that we are dreaming a bad dream about a world that does not exist.

Lesson 13: A meaningless world engenders fear.

The reason meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety is us, the “separated ones,” is that it is actually symbolic of the ego’s story that we are in a power struggle with God.

The ego knows that if it does not seduce us with its ideas about the world, there will be an opening in which its unreality and powerlessness is clearly seen. Jesus says, “And on this alone it is correct.” BUT we need to “learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear.”

Having studied and absorbed the Course for over 25 years, recognizing the meaningless has become less and less fearful and more and more inviting. The statement, “A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God.” is a relief because it boils all the world’s problems down to one existential mistake. A huge mistake, but a correctable mistake. And that is compelling. That is where I am more than willing to switch teachers from defaulting to ego to free-willingly choosing another way. A better way. The Light of Truth, Love and Life.

Lesson 12: I am upset because I see a meaningless world.

Speaking for myself, I feel afraid seeing a meaningless world because that means random violence, cruelty and chaos to me. But what Jesus is telling us is that the world only has the meaning we assign to it. The ego set the world up to embody and symbolize separation from God. The world, in and of itself, is a neutral thing. When used by the Holy Spirit, the world symbolizes Union and reflects God’s Love.

Lesson 12 gives us a “correction for a major perceptual distortion.” We have believed, unconsciously, what the ego has told us about the world. Jesus gives us exercises that challenge, what has until now, been absolute to us: that, as yesterday’s lesson illustrated, our thoughts, not external objects and events, determine the world we see.

If we can accept the world as meaningless, or neutral, and let God’s Truth be written upon it for us, it would make us indescribably happy, says Jesus. We have “written” meaning upon the world to make sense of it but that hasn’t worked. If we can trust Jesus, we will see that “Beneath your words is written the Word of God.” How beautiful!

Jesus goes on to tell us, “the ultimate purpose of these exercises” is to allow our words to be erased so that we can see God’s Word. As I open myself to this, something Loving slowly moves through my heart and brings tears to my eyes. Healing is in process. Miracles are swirling within like gentle snowflakes, pure and purifying.

Lesson 11: My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.

The key to forgiveness lies in today’s idea (My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world) because it leads to a reversal of the thinking of the world.

Instead of assuming that the external world is happening to us, Jesus introduces a new idea: our thoughts determine the world we see.

Today’s idea, we are told, “contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve” and “in this idea is your release made sure.”

Lesson 10: My thoughts do not mean anything.

Jesus tells us that What we believe and take for granted as our real thoughts are not real thoughts.

The first nine lessons have been offering a new way of experiencing ourselves, if we are open to it. We began with “the thoughts of which you are aware are meaningless, outside rather than within; and then stressed their past rather than their present status.”

Jesus is trying to get through to us that what we have taken for thoughts “means you are not thinking.” As we get better at recognizing “not thinking” this prepares us for true vision, the Holy Spirit’s way of thinking.

We are to introduce the central theme of today’s lesson by telling ourselves:

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

Then we do the exercise, willing to surrender everything we thought we thought to a new way of thinking.

Lesson 9: I see nothing as it is now.

According to Jesus, the recognition that we do not understand anything is the key to spiritual awakening. When the idea that we really do not know anything becomes appealing, the heart lifts knowing it is on its way Home.

“There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:

I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.” T-31.V.17:6-7

Resistance to this idea is to be expected and Jesus’ mind training is showing us how to be undeterred by resistance. Resistance is experienced as becoming distracted, tolerating interruptions to your practice, boredom, feeling angry, self-critical, etc. Anything that regularly steers you away from doing the Course exercises is resistance.

Application is everything: “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.” This is the purification practice mentioned in Miracle Principle #7: Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.

The willingness to practice with Workbook lessons, despite resistance, is all that is needed.

Lesson 8: My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

This is what stands out:

Preoccupied – My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts, that is, pre-set to be occupied with thoughts about the past to keep me from grasping the present, which is the only “time” there really is.

Projection – I am only seeing my thoughts (which is not real thought) projected outward.

Purpose – Mind training.  Jesus is helping us see how we have been sabotaging ourselves by obsessively thinking about the past and the future.  And he is showing us how to search so we can begin to discern between what seems to be and Reality.

The three Ps 🙂

Lesson 7: I see only the past.

Everything we believe is rooted in time …

We take time for granted. The sun rises, the sun sets. A day has gone by. Time is before our eyes. Why should we doubt it?

Yet, Jesus, in his Course, says that we “need new ideas about time.”

New ideas about time is going to change our minds about everything. And that is good.

This is not a pipe by Rene Magritte