Tip for Lesson 33 and beyond:

Today we are doing the meditation, “There is another way of looking at the world.” As you do the meditation, the ego may utilize a trick. The trick is letting the lesson slide back and be repeated in the background of attention while thoughts sneak forward to reclaim the foreground of attention. Be aware of this and do not let it happen. Put your heart on the lesson so it remains in the foreground as you survey thoughts, which should be at a further distance. 

Lesson 32. I have invented the world I see.

Yesterday’s lesson was “I am not the victim of the world I see.” Today’s lesson is “I have invented the world I see.” Jesus explains in today’s lesson, “You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it (the world you see).”

The practical application comes at the end of today’s lesson when Jesus says, “The idea for today should also be applied immediately to any situation that may distress you. Apply the idea by telling yourself “I have invented this situation as I see it.” This seems much more practical in application than “I have invented the world I see.” I can see how I could have invented this present situation that I find myslf in. For example, the arguement that I had with….I can see how I might have created or invented that situation. Seeing it from that perspective pulls us into the present time where we can change our thoughts and thus our experience or better understand the cause and effect relationship between our thoughts and our experiences.

This reminds me of Byron Katies clear explaination of enlightment. Katie says,

People think that they need to get ‘enlightened’ in ordermto be free, and nobody knows what enlightment is. Yes, it’s in the sacred texts, and yes, this guru or that lama says he has attained it, but that is just a concept, it’s a story of the past. The truth is there is no such thing as enlightenment. No one is permanenetly enlightened. That would be a story of a future. There’s only enlightenment in the present moment. Do you believe a stressful thought? Then you are confused. Do you realize that the thought isn’t there? Then you are enlightened to it. It is as simple as that. And the next thought comes, and maybe you’re enlighted to it as well, and maybe not.

There is only enlightenment in the moment because that in reality is the only place we can be. So if I can understand how “I have invented this situation as I see it” then I am able to understand or at least get a glimpse at how “I have invented the world I see.” I invented it one thought at a time. This realization illuminates our power and our true relationship with cause and effect.

NTI Colossians 3 explains it like this

Look on all that you see and love it, but do not identify with it. It is not your truth or your reality. It is a reflection of your thought. Be grateful for the love that you find. ‘Embrace it. But also be grateful for the reflection that seems not to be love, for it is what it seems not to be. It comes to you in love and grace to show you what you have thought, that you may choose again.

“I have invented this situation as I see it.” And “I have invented the world I see.”

LESSON 31. I am not the victim of the world I see.

“Today’s idea is the introduction to your declaration of release.” It is a reminder that we create the world we see by casting believing attention upon the thoughts that come into our minds.

You may see the tendency toward denial of this truth in your mind. You do not wish to be responsible for the world’s ills. You do not wish to be responsible even for your own intersection with the perceived evils of the world. This lesson empowers us to transcend the world we see by withdrawing the belief that there are attackers and victims. We do so by denying that something outside of us could impact the Son of God without any creative input from him. The world of attack and defense, perpetrators and victims, is what we have chosen to experience. That choice can be revoked at any time by recognizing it as choice. Denying the possibility of victimhood frees us from the belief in the reality of the world we see.

You may say that this sounds like blaming the victim. The truth is that there are no victims. This does not mean that there is no suffering in the world. This simply means that to transcend suffering, one must transcend the world. One does this by choosing where to place selective attention. To see the world’s problems as puzzles to be solved by taking action within the world is to believe in the reality of a world separate and apart from the thinker.

This does not mean that you are to take no action in the world. Those who suffer must be met where they think they are. But know you need not join them in their misperception. Nothing has gone wrong. This is the choice that was made. Know that, in truth, the One does not suffer; the One merely experiences.

As NTI Colossians 2 tells us:

Although you do not seem to be aware of all experiences, you live all experiences because you are all elements of experience. This is why you are called “one mind.” All things that seem to happen, happen through you because you are the process of creation. Creation is made through communication, and the basis of all communication is faith plus desire. Or to state it more clearly, where there is passion, there is creation.

This is why I have asked you not to look at the world. When you look at the world and fear it with the passion of belief, fear travels through you to all things seen and unseen. Fear becomes a basis of communication, because fear was put forth with faith and desire. And so without judgment or partiality, that which was put forth is shared. And that which is shared comes back to you, just as you have put it out. Circumstances arise through the flow of Life that is you to teach what you have asked to learn. If you seemed to seek fear through your focus on fear in the mind, circumstances of fear shall be given into your holy awareness. Therefore, do not look at the world letting it tell you what to think. To make this mistake is to participate in illusions, which is not the motive you seek to have served.

Thus, what is required is the withdrawal of the belief that anything occurs separate from or without regard to you or your choices. The belief in perpetrators and victims is the “reasoning” that fosters the illusion that we are what we are not—separate, alone and vulnerable. Indeed, as ACIM tells us, this is the belief that keeps us from even inquiring into the cause of what we experience.

The “reasoning” by which the world is made, on which it rests, by which it is maintained, is simply this: “You are the cause of what I do. Your presence justifies my wrath, and you exist and think apart from me. While you attack I must be innocent. And what I suffer from is your attack.” No one who looks upon this “reasoning” exactly as it is could fail to see it does not follow and it makes no sense. Yet it seems sensible, because it looks as if the world were hurting you. And so it seems as if there is no need to go beyond the obvious in terms of cause. ACIM T-27.VII.3.

In our recognition that we cannot be victims, we recognize our power to transcend the illusion and we communicate to the One Self those thoughts that are consistent with our True Desire.

Be in service to your motive through the consistent service of your mind. Separate yourself from what you see in order to connect to it through right communication, which is not erroneous or sleeping communication, but communication where faith and motive are thoughtfully put together through passionate desire for Self. Be at peace in your mind through consistent practice of desire through motive. Silent remembering is the way. Let your mind focus on the Heart, and your mind is focused on true desire and true motive. Let “Know thy Self in Love” be communicated on the current of Life through you and through your passionate love for all things. NTI Colossians 2.

This is the service today’s lesson calls us to perform. “Creation is made through communication, and the basis of all communication is faith plus desire.” We are to place our passion with our True Desire rather than with the belief that we could be victim. In this way, we communicate the desire to know ourselves as One Love to all the world. We relieve the world’s suffering and our own as we release the world from illusion.