Lesson 5 “I am never upset for the reason I think”

The instructions contained in this lesson advise us to “Apply it specifically to whatever you believe is the cause of your upset, using the description of the feeling in whatever term seems accurate to you.”

Note that the central theme of the lesson is contained within this sentence. We do believe that something outside of us has control over our emotions. By keeping the locus of control outside of ourselves, we keep ourselves trapped within the illusion we are effect rather than cause. This victim stance thus not only keeps us helpless, but perpetuates the very illusion of separateness we would transcend on this journey to truth.

I was so excited to see that the portion of NTI I was led to focus on today was about forgiveness. What a misunderstood term! Those of us who have studied ACIM for any time at all have likely been confused by the Course’s description of forgiveness (if not, good for you!). ACIM tells us we forgive our brother for what he did not do. This can be quite confusing. I mean, can’t you see that he/she did …. (say something mean, steal my wallet, cut in front of me).

The key to understanding forgiveness is to see that it actually has nothing to do with my brother! As NTI Luke says:

So what is forgiveness? Forgiveness is simply an acknowledgment of the truth of how the offense or hurt has come about. It has not come from your brother. It has come from the meaning you have applied to thoughts within your mind. Without this meaning, you could not be hurt.

And then, forgiveness is taking this realization one step further by acknowledging you do not want to be hurt anymore. You acknowledge that the meaning that has hurt you is within the mind. You are the owner or believer in that meaning, and so you are also the one that can let go of any meaning you have applied. And when the meaning is let go, the offense or hurt must disappear also, for there is no longer a power to influence an effect. What was made has been undone. This is the process of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is taking back the power we attempt to give away by projecting the cause of our upset onto others. Ultimately, forgiveness is the allowance of all things, without the need for them to be different. Thus, it is the understanding that “All is well, all the time.”

Forgiveness is giving yourself permission to relate to all the world through your heart. As we saw in the Way of Mastery,

The heart is that which feels all things, embraces all things, trusts all things, and allows all things. The heart is that in which the soul rests eternally. The heart is that which is beyond space and time and is that spark of light in the Mind of God, which is called Christ. Only in that will you find the peace that you seek.

We are not being called on to overlook what our brother has done (or not done). Rather, we are being called to see that it is meaningless and that it only has the power to upset us if we give some meaning to it. We only assign meaning in accordance with our belief that things should be a certain way. Allowing things to be as they are allows us to rest within the peace of the heart regardless of what seems to be occurring “outside” of us.

Finally, we also will come to learn that, just as there are no big or small miracles, there are no big or small upsets. They are all the same in that upset indicates that we are continuing to believe that we are separate beings in a world of form and, as such, we need to protect ourselves from one another and from the world at large:

The upset may seem to be fear, worry, depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, jealousy or any number of forms, all of which will be perceived as different. This is not true. However, until you learn that form does not matter, each form becomes a proper subject for the exercises for the day. Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all the same.

Hi Everyone,

Connie and I are alternating writing tips in our contemplation of the ACIM lessons and NTI readings that form the homework for Gentle Healing Year 1. We hope you find them helpful as you complete your own homework. In the future, tips can be found at this link.

Love, Jacquelyn

Lesson 1 “Nothing I see means anything”

This exercise is the first in a series that are designed to bring you to the place of wholly emptiness that was referenced in Lesson 189:

Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

What we will come to learn is that we have, indeed, given meaning to everything we see. In fact, as we look out on our outer world, we are constantly in the process of giving meaning to what we see, whether that be objects in the room around us or the events occurring in our lives.

To begin to see how we use the mind’s assigning of meaning as a buffer between our actual experience and ourselves, consider the objects you see in the room around you. Consider how if I were to come to your home, your office, or wherever you practice this lesson, I might see those same objects. To me the rocking chair that you inherited from your great-grandmother might look like just a chair. I would not see an image of the woman who lovingly picked it out, I would not see a sanctuary where your mother was rocked to sleep as a baby, I would simply see a chair (and would have my own opinions about it, e.g., it’s pretty, it’s old, it’s dusty, it looks like one I saw at the antique mall, etc.).

How can it be if we are not separate beings that you see one thing and I see another? This lesson shows that everything we see is mediated through who we think we are, as separate and distinct from others. Who is it that mediates? Who is it that defines what this object is and what it means to “me.” Who is the me in that sentence?

By beginning to look at the buffer of thought between what we see and how we interpret what we see, we begin to gain insight into how we keep life at bay, experience at bay, beingness at bay by allowing our thinking mind to interpret our experience.

NTI Luke Ch 12 asks us to “take the time to become aware of the thoughts that seem automatic in your mind. What are these thoughts? What are they saying to you? Why are you listening to them?”

NTI Luke points to the efficacy of these early ACIM lessons and why they are helpful in their simplicity:

“Do not worry what you will do with these thoughts as you evaluate them. I will be with you, present in your mind, as you undertake this work of looking and questioning. For now, it is simply useful to become aware of the thoughts you think and are focused on when you think you are focused on the world.”

Lesson 2 “I have given everything I see in this room all the meaning that it  has has for me.”

In this lesson, Jesus tells us “Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, a fly or a floor, an arm or an apple.” Why? Because everything I see is equally unreal.  We give everything we see  a range of importance. A car is more important than a pencil, a body is more important than a button, an arm is more important than an apple. We create a hierarchy so we can keep everything relative and so we know where we stand  and where others stand as well. We keep the falseness perpetuated to create an order to things that have no order. We assign value to everything so this hierarchy becomes a law so we don’t really have to be present.  We know, for example, a child means more to her mother than someone else’s kid would mean to her.

We can let our unevaluated judgements and constructs rule our world. NTI Luke Chapter 12 says,

” You make unevaluated judgments about the work you do, the relationships you have  the pastimes you choose and the person you think of as yourself. These unevaluated judgments define everything and everyone within your world. And they are allowed within your mind without your awareness, your questioning or your evaluation.”

The introduction to the workbook lessons says, ” The purpose of the workbook is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world…The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another…the aim is to learn how to see.”

It means that I haven’t really been seeing. I haven’t been Aware. I’ve been unconscious. I’m ready to wake up and be present.

Lesson 3 “I do not understand anything I see in this room”

What is it we are attempting to do when we attempt to “understand” something? Aren’t we trying to fit that something (object, event, emotion) into our overall understanding of who we are and what the world is? It is our belief that we know (what things are, what things mean) that keeps us locked within our current perception of ourselves and the world. Memory, identification, definition is a trick of the mind that would create continuity and call that continuity “me.”

NTI Luke tells us:

“Remember that you are never focused on the world, and you will not be confused. Always, in everything you seem to do, you are choosing among thoughts within your mind. Always, in every choice, you choose between willingness and resistance, joy and delay.

The law upon which you make judgments is written within your mind. And in this law, you have placed your faith until now. …

Let me tell you that of yourself, you cannot stop judging by the law that has been believed within your mind. That is because you chose to believe this law, and so the law is your desire. In order to have the law erased from your mind, you must give your willingness that it be erased. When you notice that you are making a judgment based on the law, you must rest within the mind and give your willingness again.

Do not believe your own judgments, for that keeps you stuck within the law. What is the law on which your judgments and old perceptions are based? It is the law of separateness.”

What we do is use the meaning we have placed upon objects, events and people to tell us that we are separate beings. By continuing to employ these same meanings, we give imagined continuity to a separate sense of self. Let’s be clear that when NTI (and ACIM for that matter) refer to judgment, it is not merely a reference to that “negative” thing we do when our thoughts or our words show disdain or contempt for the actions of others. Rather as the word is defined in the English Oxford Dictionary, judgment means “the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.”

It is these “considered” and “sensible” conclusions we are looking at. Who has considered them? To whom do they make sense? Isn’t it the false sense of I, the ego, the thinking mind that considers things, assigns meanings and places them within the matrix of the world and how it works as defined by the imposter self?

Lesson 4  “These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room.”

NTI, Luke Chapter 16 says,

“thought has no meaning of itself, but it is given meaning by the thinker.  If the thoughts seem to have effects, it is the thinker that gives that thought any effects it seems to have.  In other words, there is no power outside the power of the mind.”

Wow, no power outside the mind, but the mind is very powerful. Who created this world? You don’t still think it was some power outside of you, do you? No, you have created it and you continue to do so every day. As lesson 4 says the goal is ” separating the meaningless from the meaningful…to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within.” Your REAL thoughts are thoughts you think with God. They are thoughts you think when you are in your right mind. Right now, at least for most of us our thoughts don’t “represent your real thoughts” because our real thoughts “are being covered up by” meaningless ones. Our sight is blocked. If we can suspend our judgment we can begin to really see.