Ask Amy: Is This Planet An Illusion?

Q:  Jesus has taught us throughout the Course that there is no world and then, in Lesson 184, he states: “Think not that you made the world, illusions yes!”  I understand that everything that we have made and named is meaningless, but is this the world that Jesus is referring to, or is the planet an illusion, as well?

A:  Sometimes the Shakespearean prose with which Jesus speaks in A Course in Miracles can throw us for a loop!  As if the concepts weren’t staggering enough, a turn of phrase can further confuse us.  But Jesus knows what he’s doing, and, in this case, it brings to light something important: there is no world.

ACIM is very definite when it teaches that there is no world.  “No world” includes planet earth, and the entire cosmos.  It includes anything and everything material, dualistic, and sensory.  If we can see it, taste it, smell it, hear it, touch it, feel it, or sense it in any way, it does not exist and is not real.

Mighty Lesson 132, “I loose the world from all I thought it was,” is a great review of this principle.  It states, “There is no world!  This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.  Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth.  He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.”

This is another way of reinforcing that there are no exceptions, a core teaching in the Course.  When we are willing to take Jesus’ hand and awaken to our Unified Oneness, there is no reaching back with the “other” hand and holding on to something we value in the world. 

At first, the awakening process threatens to deprive us of our “life,” but as we do the ACIM practices we learn to discern between the ego’s beliefs and the Truth.  And the truth is, Eternal Reality has nothing to do with an illusory world.

This Q&A appears in the Ask Amy column from the Sept-Oct 2013 issue of Miracles magazine.  Miracles is a well-loved  staple in the ACIM community.  To get a subscription, email [email protected] or call 845-496-9089.  To ask Amy a question, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com