LESSON 21. I am determined to see things differently.
As the lesson says, it is obviously a continuation and an extension of Lesson 20. What is new here is the discussion of upset as attack.
Attack thoughts are those thoughts that go unquestioned by you that speak both of justification for your attack and justification for continuing the war between you and your brothers. With every thought you make either war or peace. It is not up to you to decide how to be in relation to your brothers. That is preordained. You, along with your brothers, comprise the body of Christ—the one mind or indivisible consciousness.
Attack thoughts are very simply a way of maintaining your belief in yourself as a separate individual. For who here would curse his foot for making him trip and fall? You would not, as you recognize your foot is is one with you. Anger is merely a way of drawing boundaries around yourself. These are of course imaginary boundaries as you could never actually be separate from your brothers. The lesson asks simply that you not attempt to project your responsibility for the wish to remain separate on your brother. If you do so, you are particularly unlikely to perceive your believing attention as the actual source of your upset.
We choose that which we wish to experience. If you choose to continue to experience a world wherein there are attackers and victims, the justified and the un-justified, justice and vengeance, you continue to ask for this type of conflict by focusing on the “wrongs” that have been perpetrated upon you by seeming others. If we recognize our true desire–to know oneness as the truth of our being–it becomes obvious that anger is a step in the wrong direction. The lesson would have us focus on the anger thoughts in our minds, no matter how slight, so that we can see how we continue to play out an old wish—to see something other than truth. Again, this lesson is an opportunity to see old habits as just that and to let them go that we may begin to consciously pursue our true desire.
