Lesson 6 “I am upset because I see something that is not there.”
Right off the bat Jesus lets us in on what is really going on in this lesson when he says…”it is necessary to name both the form of upset (anger, fear, worry, depression, and so on) and the perceived source very specifically for any application of the idea.” The PERCEIVED source. It isn’t the real source because the upset can’t come from anywhere or anyone but me.
Isn’t that what we just learned, “I have given everything I see…all the meaning it has for me.” So we take a perceived upset and find a reason for it. This is what ACIM calls projection. I have taken thoughts and things and assigned meaning where there was none and then blamed someone else for the false associations, which were my associations. Jesus is calling upon us to stop making these false associations. Your associations are different than my associations which again points to their falsity, but all of them are unreal and a new version of reality is made up. All these made up constructs keep us from seeing truly because projection makes perception.
