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.
