LESSON 19. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.

Today’s lesson introduces the idea of “private thoughts.”

Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an “invasion of privacy.” Yet it is a fact that there are no private thoughts. Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God.

I have been associated with spiritual communities that have made “no private thoughts” part of their ground rules. I applaud their enthusiasm, but it is important to understand that we need not set ground rules for things that occur whether we like it or not. The truth is, we are all incapable of having private thoughts, because the body of Christ (consciousness) is one. What we would keep secret can never be. By our every thought, we ask for that which we would experience. Because there is only one consciousness with absolute creative ability, what we ask for is returned to us through that same consciousness. As we are told in NTI Ephesians 3:

When you think you are thinking alone, you are not. Your thoughts, which are heard by your brothers, are answered through them. This is the law of Love. This is why all things are Love. Only Love exists. Every experience that is given you is unequivocally the gift of Love given in answer to your request for Love.

In Kabbalah, we are told that God is a process and we are the process that is God.

The closest we can come to thinking about God is as a process rather than a being. We can think of it as “be-ing,” as verb rather than noun. Perhaps it would help us understand this better if we renamed God. We might call it God-ing, as a process, rather than God, which suggests a noun. …

We can relate to God as an interactive verb. It is God-ing. Moreover, from this perspective, creation should not be treated as a noun. It too is an interactive verb; it is constantly creation-ing. And, dear reader, you should not treat yourself as a noun–as Joan, or Bill, or Barbara, or John. With regard to God as an interactive verb, you are also verbs; you are Joan-ing, Bill-ing, Barbara-ing, or John-ing in relation to God-ing, just as I am David-ing. Each part in the universe is in dynamic relationship with every other part.  (Rabbi David Cooper, “God is a Verb”).

NTI Ephesians 3 confirms we are the process of creation.

You are a being made in God’s image through the process of creation that is God. In this way, you are the same as He. The process that you are is what you are. It is your truth. It is how you live and exist. What you do through your mind is made and created, not alone, but in conjunction through oneness with your brothers. Your relationship with your brothers is so perfectly bound, free, and loving in its operation, that all you can truly give them is gratitude. For without your brothers, you would not be and you would not experience. Your very existence is extended and experienced through them.

As Regina Dawn Akers has said, “Love is spirit giving through spirit, to spirit, that which spirit requests.”

We are often told that everything that exists is One. If this is so, wouldn’t the one be the giver, receiver and the thing given? How could there be anything outside of this Oneness? How could there be a private mind outside of this Oneness? The truth is that the entirety of what is conspires to give us the experience we would have. It could not be otherwise. This is why there are no idle thoughts. This is why there are no private thoughts.

To assume we could have private thoughts is to deceive ourselves about the source of our experience. It is to assume there is something outside of us that could somehow be separate from us. In addition, it is to assume that there are thoughts of which we should be ashamed; thoughts that tell people more than we want them to know about us; thoughts that make us vulnerable. It is these thoughts we would keep private. The wish for private minds and private bodies is the wish for separation. Let go this wish and with full knowledge of the truth that there can be no private thoughts, choose carefully the thoughts which you would activate by casting your creative attention.

There is one body of Christ. There is one law that governs us all. That is the law of Love. In this law, we are blessed to receive as we have asked. We begin to ask for clarity on purpose, on truth and on love by giving attention to only those thoughts that speak of the same.

Lesson 18, I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing

I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing because of what NTI Ephesians calls The Law Of Love.  “Through Christ all are bound together and there is no separateness.  This is The Law Of Love.”  This is made clearer when Holy Spirit says, “You believe your thoughts are private and have no effects beyond the brain you see as yours.  All of this is illusion and a misunderstanding of what you are.”  What you are was “created, not alone, but in conjunction through oneness with your brothers.”

NTI Ephesians likens the totality of what we are to a body; each person is like a nerve ending in the body, which feeds back into the body’s central system.  This body is made up of mind and spirit. The mind is the great receiver and the spirit, is the great deliverer, which is to say you are the  receiver of thoughts. You are not thinking thoughts.  Remember, you are the caster of attention and as you cast your attention on the thoughts you receive, you re-activate those thoughts.  And when you re-activate them, the thoughts get sent back into the world.  Others receive your activated thoughts and then they cast their attention on them. The thoughts are activated again and it goes into the central system and gets received by still others. This is called the Loop of Experience.

If the effects of my seeing (casting attention) are hate thoughts or fear thoughts or guilty thoughts or thoughts of unworthiness, those effects are felt by the un-conscious receiver.  What the un-conscious receiver of thoughts fails to understand is that it is these unevaluated thoughts of hate, or fear, or guilt or unworthiness that are being cast and re-cast into the world that are creating the very problems they would like to see vanish from the world.

What we are here to do is to become more conscious.  So when you don’t take interest, cast attention, or re-activate thoughts you let it go for everyone.  You take a little piece of the world’s hate, fear, guilt or thoughts of unworthiness and make them disappear.  You are not sending it back into the oneness.  You are changing the effects that we all experience.

Lesson 17, I see no neutral things

This lesson is central to the Course’s goal of mind-training, what we have called reprogramming the brain. As we were told in yesterday’s lesson, given that the whole world is created and maintained by the thoughts upon which we cast our attention (“the thoughts we think we think”), there is no such thing as an idle thought. In addition, as we are reading in NTI Ephesians, there are no private thoughts because the creative attention we give to thought is fed back into the “central system” or the “mind” of the one.

My thoughts about anything are based upon what I think I know of that thing, person, circumstance from the past. Every pattern, concept, judgment I use to interpret the things I perceive carries with it all the prejudices, emotions and intellectual “understanding” I have garnered from the past. Not only do I continue to operate in a way that is consistent with my past “learning,” I continue to feed what I think I have learned back into the collective consciousness. (Note: I sometimes find it helpful to think of the one mind in this way—as collective consciousness. However, this description is flawed in that it suggests that consciousness is something that is formed by collecting together the many when, in reality, there is only one consciousness).

The lesson begins:

This idea is another step in the direction of identifying cause and effect as it really operates in the world. You see no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts. It is always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is the other way around. This is not the way the world thinks, but you must learn that it is the way you think. If it were not so, perception would have no cause, and would itself be the cause of reality. In view of its highly variable nature, this is hardly likely.

We are reprogramming our mind (and the mind of collective consciousness) to see that those thoughts upon which we place our creative attention are the cause of the world we see. With this knowledge, we are motivated to see the results of those thoughts (the images of the world) not as evidence of reality or “how things really are,” but as a guide to the ideas we have allowed to flourish in our world by continuing to think them. Lesson 16 emphasized this point:

Besides your recognizing that thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible. There is such a temptation to dismiss fear thoughts as unimportant, trivial and not worth bothering about that it is essential you recognize them all as equally destructive, but equally unreal. We will practice this idea in many forms before you really understand it.

If cause and effect were reversed, the images we see in the world would indeed be the cause of our experience. The images we see in the world would not be subject to change by changing our thoughts about them. Indeed, we would be the relatively powerless victims we have imagined ourselves to be, who can make very little impact on the world, who seemingly have little power to relieve the suffering we see “out there” and within ourselves. That is not who we are. We do hold the creative power, not only to change the world we see, but to let that world be entirely undone.

The emphasis for those of us who have embarked on this journey to Truth is on the undoing – the atonement (correction) – of the misperception of who we are in relation to the world and in relation to each other. The first step in this journey is seeing the power of our thoughts. We begin to undo the world by recognizing what we have done. “I see no neutral things, because I have no neutral thoughts.” We will not try to have neutral thoughts. That is impossible. All thoughts to which we give creative attention have effects—in fact that is the very point we are taught in this lesson. Rather, by seeing that we have created the world, we give our willingness to see beyond the illusions we have created to the truth of our being.

Workbook Lesson 16, I have no neutral thoughts

Here are some definitions to consider while contemplating NTI Ephesians, especially chapters 3 & 4:

mind – a conscious substratum or factor in the universe; a complex of elements that feels, perceives, thinks, wills and especially reasons. (Note: A “complex” is a whole made up of complicated or interrelated parts. One definition of “reasons” is the sum of intellectual powers.)

spirit – an activating or essential principle that influences

Christ = consciousness. consciousness – the totality of conscious states (Note: A “state” is a mode or condition of being.)

This week’s reading is worthy of deep contemplation, and is highly related to today’s workbook lesson. Today’s workbook lesson says, “There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of ‘idle thoughts.’ What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends the truth or it multiplies illusions.”

NTI Ephesians likens the totality of what we are to a body. It is as if each person is like a nerve ending in the body, which feeds back into the body’s central mechanism.

According to NTI Ephesians, this body is made up of mind and spirit, which really cannot be separated but are spoken of separately in order to help us gain understanding. The “mind” is referred to as “the great receiver.” The “spirit” is the great deliver. We are also told that each individual is a microcosm of this same mode of functioning.

Since we perceive ourselves as individuals, it is probably easier to look at this from the individual perspective first.

“Mind is the great receiver.” On an individual basis, this means that the thoughts that come into your mind are not really thought by you. They are received from the mind (the central system) of the totality. This is why yesterday’s workbook lesson said “you think you think.” You do not think thoughts. You receive thoughts, and then you either cast attention on them or you don’t.

When you receive a thought, the first decision that is made is whether this thought is worth attention or not. If it is decided that the thought is worth attention, attention is given. Attention is spirit, an activating agent. Once you cast attention onto a thought that has been received by mind, that thought is re-activated and sent back into the central system where it can be delivered as an influencing agent throughout consciousness. (Note: NTI calls the totality “Christ”, but “consciousness” is the appropriate non-religious term.)

So if we put this all together, here is an example of how this ‘loop’ works.

I receive a thought of attack in my mind. Maybe it shows up as a thought about the president or a thought about his protestors. I decide that thought is worthy of my attention and I cast attention on that thought. By casting attention on the thought, I reactivate the spirit of the thought, which is attack. This sends the spirit of attack back into the central system and it is redistributed upon the totality. It shows up in many ways: It shows up in the minds of others as attack thoughts, who most often will strengthen it by casting attention upon it; it shows up as violence and war on the world scene; it shows up as cancer in bodies; it shows up as one animal killing another for survival; it shows up as weeds taking over a landscape killing all of the other plants; it shows up as a violent storm, etc.

Or as another example, I receive a right-minded thought in my mind, like the thought to rest, accept and trust. This time, I decide this thought is worthy of my attention, and I cast attention deeply and consciously upon it. This idea of resting from false thoughts is blessed with the activating agent of my spirit and sent back to the central system. It is redistributed upon the totality and shows up in a variety of ways. Someone is given a spiritual book by a friend, and it ignites a new curiosity. Another who has been struggling in the spiritual path intellectually has his/her first genuine realization from within, and the spark of truth-seeking is reignited with new vigor; another person awakens; another begins teaching from the flow of spontaneous wisdom; a female lion feels compassion for an injured calf and protects it so it can heal in peace; a forest that was burnt down begins to regrow; a woman’s cancer spontaneously heals; a scientist suddenly realizes a cure for a disease that has plagued humans for generations; a polluted atmosphere begins to spontaneously regenerate itself, a new beautiful song comes through a young songwriter, etc.

NTI says there is a shift occurring. It is a shift from wanting something different than truth to wanting to know our truth. It also says, “Determine where within the the shift you choose to be and join the operation of the body there.”

There are no neutral thoughts. How will you cast attention?

Lesson 15, My thoughts are images which I have made.

For the past two weeks, we have been learning to see how we create our own experience by casting our attention. That is, some thought comes into our awareness and we imbue it with energy (give it life so to speak) by casting our attention on the thought. As we said, the first decision in this creative process is, this thought deserves my attention. We further enliven the thought by what gets added on after we accept the initial thought. From there, attention goes more deeply into the idea and makes additional judgments. Regardless of what those follow on decisions are, they lead deeper into the game of that thought and that thought becomes a ‘real’ part of my ‘world.’

The images referred to in this lesson are the things of this world. They are those things we perceive. But there is no difference in “things” and “thoughts.” All that exists is one–what can exist outside of oneness? Thus, all that we experience, including the objects within our experience have been created in the way described in NTI Romans. As NTI Ephesians, Chapter 2 explains,

Your mind is of God. This we have already established. Being of God, it is the same as God. This is the law of which we speak. The law of God is the law of mind. This can also be called the law of thought. And being the law of freedom, it is the law of Love. It is the law through which you live. …

The Christ shall be the symbol for the law, for through the Christ the ones that seemed many are one. Through this law the ones that seem many are one. And in fact, they have always been one, as they are bound as one through the law.

It is true that the Christ is the chief cornerstone on which the foundation and the building are built. This is why all is one. It is because it is through no other process that that which is built can be built. Call it an agreement, but it is not an agreement. It is the law of the nature of truth. But from your perspective, it seems like an agreement that is bound through the law of Love. This is the agreement, which is also law:

All that you are, you are through creation. All that you be, you be through creation also. In this way, thought is alive and serves as your creative force through your brothers, who serve you as you serve them.

Thus, we learn that the experience we create is shared with the entire world, which keeps passing the experience around through the process of unevaluated believing (casting attention). NTI Ephesians teaches,

You perceive yourself as a person, but you are not what you perceive yourself to be. You believe your thoughts are private and have no affect beyond the brain you see as yours. All of this is illusion and a misunderstanding of what you are.

Once you cast attention onto a thought that has been received by mind, that thought is re-activated and sent back into the one mind that we are. “What you do through your mind is made and created, not alone, but in conjunction with your brothers.” Thus, the thought, its energy and its effects are delivered as an influencing agent throughout consciousness.

We now begin to see the monumental service upon which we have embarked. Somewhere, sometime, someone needs to begin evaluating the thoughts that are received and deciding if attention should be cast there or not. And that someone is me. That time is now. It happens here.

Lesson 14, God did not create a meaningless world

When one does this workbook lesson, it is helpful to do it with the attitude of wanting to uncover false beliefs and see through them to truth/reality.

However, seeing through false beliefs is not the same as denial and repression. Denial and repression come from fear. This attitude avoids looking too hard and denies feeling/experience to the best of its ability. It is the attitude that has become cliché regarding the ACIM or non-duality student: A person’s family member dies and the ACIM/non-dual student says, “He/she was just an illusion anyway.”

That misguided form of denial is not what we are after with this workbook lesson. We seek truth by seeing through illusion.

Today’s lesson says, “The world you see has nothing to do with reality.  It is of your own making, and it does not exist.”

You aren’t denying that the ‘horrors’ are experienced, because they are.  You are simply denying that they are truth or reality.  Realize war is experienced, but experience is not reality.  In order to see what is real, first you must remove your belief that the horrors are reality.

Bryon Katie imparts a similar message in her teachings. Her message is that your suffering is not based on reality.  She doesn’t say you aren’t suffering.  She doesn’t say you didn’t have an experience, but she does say there is another way of looking at your experience.

The mind is the cause of the world and I am not the world’s victim.   I am not in the world, the world is in my mind.  The world is not external.  The lesson says “The idea for today is another step in learning to let go the thoughts that you have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place.”

“What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His.  Therefore, it has no meaning.”  Something else is reality.  You can choose to give the thoughts and the world another purpose.  God’s purpose. You can choose to focus on your true desire, which is to see the truth. Have the willingness to see right through suffering to truth. Have the curiosity, “What is real?” Let that curiosity grow in you so that it becomes a motivating force within you.

In short, do not deny that experience is experienced, but be intensely curious to see and know truth.

Workbook Lesson 13, A meaningless world engenders fear

Today’s lesson shares an idea that is really important for anyone who wants to awaken beyond the ego point-of-view.

“The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own ideas … fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own impotence and unreality. And on this alone it is correct. It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear.”

This also tells us how we “unweave” our way out of fantasy. (Reference NTI Romans, Chapter 3.)

Politics, relationships, spiritual discussions and more present us with wonderful opportunities to see the opinions and beliefs we want to cling to and defend. If we pay close attention we can feel the energy arise within that “I must make this point,” “prove that I am right” or get the other one to “see it my way.” This energy is the ego rushing in frantically to establish its own ideas so that it remains potent, seeming real and ‘me.’

If we want to unweave our way out of fantasy, it is “essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear.” In other words, feel that energy rushing forth inside of us and do nothing to satisfy it. Hold back on our opinion. Do not try to prove we are right. Let the other have their point of view. Etc.

Feel the ego squirm. Rest, accept and trust. Let it squirm. Do nothing. The threads are pulled out of the ego tapestry as we become comfortable with not placing meaning on everything we perceive.

Note: One fun exercise today might be to write down the things that seem important to you, the things you’ve noticed yourself feeling fired up about recently, and then look at the list you have written and say to yourself, “I am looking at a meaningless world. A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God.” This may help you to rest, accept and trust instead of rushing forth with opinions and defense in those same or similar circumstances in the future.

Lesson 12, I am upset because I see a meaningless world

We think that what upsets us are the “horrible” things that we know about the world, but Jesus says right in this lesson, “What you see does not matter.” He  says, “You teach yourself this as you give whatever your glance rests on equal attention and equal time. This is a beginning step in learning to give them all equal value.” Giving them all equal value means giving them all no value at all. This is what this lesson is reinforcing for us.

NTI Luke told us that everything is given meaning by the thinker.  We make an unevaluated judgment about something and then that is the meaning it has for us.  We then experience the effects of the unevaluated judgment we have made.  This is a very simple summary of how we go about creating our experience, through one unevaluated judgment after another. We then take an unevaluated judgment and reapply it when a similar set of circumstances arise. Thus, our experience comes from our own decisions based on the meaning we have given to the meaningless.

We make decisions by casting attention. Thoughts come into the mind. We do not actually “think” them.  They appear.  Some of them seem to capture our interest, and we cast attention on them.  Typically, casting attention is followed by a value judgment or decision.  The first value judgment or decision is simply, “This idea is meaningful.”  From there attention goes more deeply into ideas and makes additional judgments.  Thus, NTI Romans says “Judgment is a web of meaningless thoughts.”

Be aware that healing occurs through recognition (seeing) and resting. That is your job in healing. Clear awareness does the rest. (Clear awareness can be equated to the Holy Spirit.)

Rest, Accept and Trust (RAT) is a simple reminder of your job in the healing process.

1. 1. Rest the mind by withdrawing your attention/belief from obsessive thinking. If that is challenging, try positive healing-focused self-talk such as, “Ok, just breathe now. Take a deep breath. Now another. This is okay. This is coming up now because I have decided to heal. I want to heal. And in order to heal, things must come up. I am happy this is here, but I do not want to give it my attention. I want to rest attention away from this so it can be healed. I will focus attention on my breath. I trust healing is happening. I am happy for this opportunity.” Etcetera, or something similar.
   2. Accept the feeling. Allow it to be. Realize that as this feeling comes into awareness and is seen, it is healing. Stay out of the way. Do not try to change anything. It is just a feeling, an emotional energy and nothing more. Let it be as it is. Be grateful that healing is mysteriously occurring.
   3. Trust that healing is occurring. You have done your part by resting and accepting. Clear awareness (God, Holy Spirit) is taking care of everything else. You have gotten out of the way so healing can happen. That is all you were asked to do.

In summary, I’m upset because I have made judgments. These judgments have arisen because I have allowed my attention to become focused on thoughts that seem to pop into the mind and that I give credence to.  Jesus says that they are meaningless and I wouldn’t be upset if I let the truth be written upon the world for me—if I quit deciding what things, situations and people mean and casting my attention upon those decisions. So, all the meaningless thoughts being equally of no value means they aren’t horrible; they just are not true.  Therefore, the horror (or sorrow, or hatred, etc.) is removed because I know my thoughts aren’t real and I don’t have to play the game by casting my attention on thoughts that participate in the fantasy. Instead, I can rest, accept/allow and trust. Jesus promises learning to do so, will make me indescribably happy.

LESSON 11. My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.

This lesson begins with these weighty words: “This is the first idea we have had that is related to a major phase of the correction process; the reversal of the thinking of the world.”  The decision to believe without basis was the first error and remains the fundamental error. Judgment is defined as the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. (Wikipedia). NTI Romans explains that we had the wish to experience the answer to the question “What if nothing was as it is?” Though we had the option to laugh at this absurd thought, we looked upon experience and decided to see it as evidence that we had actually changed something.

Deciding to believe the false “evidence” presented to us by what we created made and maintains the world we now seem to see. To continue to look there for evidence as to what we are and how we are to be is to continue to build on the layers of fantasy created by our first decision to see something that was not. As NTI Romans, Chapter 3 explains,

Within your mind reason is confused, because you believe all that isn’t true. You cannot truly judge at all, because you know nothing on which to decide. Your world is a fantasy of beliefs based on experience created through judgment without basis.

NTI Romans Chapter 4 tells us that existence is Love. What we see does not seem to support that immutable fact. But, we must remember that we look upon that which was created to show us something different than the truth; that which was made to seem real, but has no truth in it.

The lesson continues, “It seems as if the world determines what you perceive. Today’s idea introduces the concept that your thoughts determine the world you see.” It is important to understand that this truth is not limited in its application. This is why the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the atonement (or correction) for himself. The one mind awakens to its truth as we each awaken to the meaninglessness of our thoughts about the world.

NTI Romans 7 states:

With Jesus, you have been released, because with Jesus, a belief has been loosened in the mind. With Jesus, the thought that you are forever separate from God, forever within a spatial compartment of time, forever a slave to your own invention…with Jesus, this was all undone. In Jesus you see the limitlessness that is your truth. In Jesus you see your innocence and love. In Jesus, your perfection remains unmarred. My dear child, through the symbol of Jesus, you glimpse your own truth!

Jesus was able to see past the appearances of the world to the truth. This is why he was said to be “in the world but not of it.” Jesus did not rely upon the “evidence” he saw in the world that would tell him what we all assume is true without question: that we are beings separate from each other, that we must give credence to the ideas of fear, competition, struggle, etc. Jesus’ life was a perfect reflection of what he came to see was the truth of his being – changeless, invulnerable, eternal.

This is what we are asked to do. Rather than digging deeper into the fantasy we created, we are to look squarely upon what appears to be evidence that the world is a place of lack, limitation, hate, and sorrow, and make another decision; to see fantasy for what it is and give up the game of giving it our believing attention. In this way, we undo the layered judgment we have laid upon ourselves and the world and allow it to unwind.

We do this by practicing forgiveness—by allowing the world to be — by not making judgments based on what appears – but by understanding our thoughts are judgments without basis and the world we see is based upon this meaningless web of judgments and nothing more. As NTI Romans Chapter 2 says,

Judgment is a web of meaningless thoughts given only the power of fantasy and absolutely nothing more. The game you have made to test your curiosity is a game with rules and options. This gives you the ability to continue to make judgments and to continue to play the game.

We also have the ability to quit making baseless judgments. We must each unwind our own belief in the world. We do this by building on a solid foundation of truth. We do this by trusting the words and the example of the masters, whose truth resonates in our own hearts, where our own remembrance of the truth resides. We begin this process by applying it to each of the thoughts we think carry so much importance; to each thought that seems so “true”, so justified. This reversal of our own judgments about the world begins with this tiny step toward Truth.

Lesson 10 “My thoughts do not mean anything”

NTI Romans, Chapter 4 says, “Existence is Love, and Love is existence.” I don’t feel this is something to think about. Thinking can argue against this fact and keep us blind to its truth. I think this is something that is discovered through practices like awareness-watching-awareness and the loving consciousness methods of meditation. However, I see this as a fact. Existence (or being) and love are absolutely synonymous.

According to the online Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, existence is “reality opposed to appearance.”

The thinking mind may argue that existence is not love. It may argue that existence is hell. That is certainly the experience for some individuals, but that is because they are focused on appearance, not reality, especially the appearance of thought.

The energy of thought is not existence. It is appearance. The online Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines appearance as an “external show.”

The early workbook lessons are helping us discover that our thoughts are an external show. For example, today’s workbook lesson (10) says, “you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning for you.”

The problem is that attention has become so engrossed in the external show that it does not know the difference between what it is and the show it watches. But there is a difference between the essence of attention and the show it watches. Being unaware of this difference is delusion. Discovering this difference is freedom.