Lesson 52 – Review of Lessons 6-10
Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)
My whole life is a game of pretend. Make-believe. I have dreamed up a scenario involving space and time, the world and bodies, special relationships and life and death. But I am confused. What I consider real is only illusion, and illusion is actually nothing.
What I call seeing is actually a condemnation of the world. The text says that what the ego calls a question is actually an accusation disguised as a question. It’s the same thing. By “seeing” anything other than God, I am disguising my error from myself by projecting terror, anger, shame, blame and the need for punishment upon my brothers, the world and God Himself.
When I turn to the Holy Spirit for help, my seeing is transformed into true perception and God’s Vision filters through everything I think I see, transforming my view of the world and other people into a Loving experience.
The past is the way that I keep the present out of my awareness. I do this to forget God. In that sense, I made up time to use it against God Who Is Timeless. Part of the forgiveness process is giving time back to God, just like anything else.
I give my sense of being separate and individual to God. I give my attachment to the ego thought system to God. I give my conviction that duality is true to God. I give God every grievance I seem to have, every pain I seem to have, everything that seems real to me in order to clear a space where I recognize what I already am.
Giving to God is the undoing process which ACIM offers us. Yes, I would rather join the thinking of my Creator than to obscure what is really mine with a pitiful and meaningless false sense of privacy. Wow. Review is powerful.
LESSON 52
Today’s review covers these ideas:
1. (6) I am upset because I see what is not there.
Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God’s creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing.
2. (7) I see only the past.
As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies. When I have forgiven myself and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.
3. (8) My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. What, then, can I see as it is? Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.
4. (9) I see nothing as it is now.
If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. I can see only what is now. The choice is not whether to see the past of the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would choose again, that I may see.
5. (10) My thoughts do not mean anything.
I have no private thoughts. Yet is it only private thoughts of which I am aware. What can these thoughts mean? They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless “private” thoughts?
Let’s practice together! Watch and listen to Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.
