Lesson 25: I do not know what anything is for.
Typically, I read the workbook lesson all the way through. Then, I do the practice. Next, I go back and re-read the lesson, allowing whatever stands out to be given my attention. Like this:
“Purpose is meaning.”
“…the ego is not you.”
“…withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of trying to reinforce them.”
“…the goals you now perceive…are all concerned with “personal” interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing.”
As a longtime Course student, I know that Jesus is speaking to the dreamer of the ego dream, not the little me named Amy. I know that the “you” being addressed all throughout A Course in Miracles is what Ken Wapnick calls the decision-maker, the part of the Mind that has free will, the power of decision, the ability to choose. When Jesus says “you have no personal interests,” he is reminding the dreamer of the ego dream that it is Spirit, a creation of God- Mind, not a human body.
Let’s continue:
Jesus tells us that, as humans, we do understand purpose at superficial, worldly levels, such as, “a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not.”
“It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than “good” or “bad,” is the only way to accomplish this.”
These ideas are found in the Text as well. For instance:
“Yet your willingness to learn of [the Holy Spirit] depends on your willingness to question everything you learned of yourself, for you who learned amiss should not be your own teacher.” T-11.VIII.3:8, and
“To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold.” T-24.Intro, and
“Let us forget the purpose of the world the past has given it.” T-29.VII.7:1
Over the years, questioning every value that Amy holds has become more and more relaxing. For one thing, as recognition of what we truly are, Spirit, increases, Amy’s values align with Spirit values. This is the development of true integrity and results from seeing with the Holy Spirit’s vision.
Spirit values are always aligned with the highest good of all. There is awareness that what happens to any one person, family, community, region, country, all over the world (e.g., climate change), happens to all of us because we are joined on the atomic* level and we are joined in Spirit. That affects our personal choices: our integrity grows, our fearlessness grows, our compassion and love grows.
In conclusion, here’s one last paragraph to reinforce Lesson 25:
“Everything the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For although the ego urges you again and again to get, it leaves you nothing, for what you get it will demand of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation it sees separation, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name. Therefore ask not of yourself what you need, for you do not know, and your advice to yourself will hurt you. For what you think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world against the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can really hold for you.” ACIM T-13.VII.11
*The internet says that in ancient Greek philosophy, the word “atom” is derived from “atomos” which meant “uncuttable” — the concept was that matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles (this was a philosophical idea, not scientific).
