Instructions for Review Lessons 51-60
The instructions for Review 1 are fairly flexible. For example, you are told that “if any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one.”
The flexibility in the instructions allows you to develop a personal relationship with the review lessons.
When Helen scribed the review lessons, she also wrote a paragraph below each lesson. We do not know if this paragraph was fully scribed or if it is a reflection of her personal relationship with the lesson. In the instructions, you are asked to read these paragraphs, but you are also told that it is “not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea either literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather, to emphasize the central point, and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.” This might be because the comments are Helen’s personal relationship with each lesson. Rather than emphasizing her personal relationship, it is more helpful for you to develop your own personal relationship.
One way to develop your own personal relationship with the lessons is to contemplate each lesson and then write your own comments, comments that reflect your relationship with the lesson.
My intention for the review period is to spend time each morning contemplating the day’s review lessons and writing my own comments. Throughout the day, I will spend at least two minutes each hour deeply contemplating one lesson and the comments I wrote for that lesson. At the end of the day, I will reread the lessons and comments in the workbook along with my own comments.
If this feels right for you, please feel free to do the same. Developing your own relationship with the lessons as we do the review can be extremely, extremely helpful.
I will post my comments for Lesson 51 as an example:
(1) Nothing I see means anything. I want things in my outer world to have meaning because it makes me feel safe and settled. My thinking mind likes to assign meaning so that it can categorize events and provide a mapped out playing field in which the rules are “clear” and I cannot be taken off guard. As I was nearing the end of the me, me, me journey, I found myself saying about most of the things I encountered in my daily life: “That just doesn’t make sense.” My inability to make sense of the world was the beginning of the end. The Truth is, things in this world simply do not make sense. The attempt to make things fit together in a “sensible” way is an effort to maintain a separate “me.” I honestly and humbly surrender my way of “seeing” to a more natural way of being.
(2) I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me.I want to assign meaning to the world so that I will feel safe in it. I have used everything I “see” for this purpose. Assigning meaning to the things of this world for this purpose have blinded me to the actual nature of myself and the world. When I assign meaning, I alone determine the meaning anything and everything has for me. Any meaning I assign is artificial and tenuous. In order to truly see, I must be willing to give up assigning meaning.
(3) I do not understand anything I see.The world I see cannot tell me who I am. I ask the world to do just this. If I surrender to the mystery of life, I am affirmatively acknowledging that I have failed to understand what anything is for and surrendering to one who does know, which may be called my True Self, my Holy Spirit or Inner Wisdom. My belief that I do understand is that which causes my suffering. I am willing to acknowledge I do not understand anything I see.
(4) These thoughts do not mean anything.I would separate out my thoughts from the other people, things, events, etc., which I encounter because I believe my thoughts carry special meaning. Because I believe I cherish myself, I cherish my thoughts. Because I believe my thoughts are always aimed at my best interests, I trust them and seek them out to show me the meaning of myself and my world. This relationship with my thoughts does not serve me. My thoughts do not support my own best interests. By giving up my beliefs about “my thoughts,” I break the cycle of believing, seeing, experiencing that keeps me bound to my past. By learning that these thoughts do not mean anything, I free myself to experience each moment as it is rather than as I have taught myself to “see” it.
(5) I am never upset for the reason I think.I am upset because I see others as challenging my definition of myself. Because my definition of myself is arbitrary and tenuous, it is always open to challenge. I always find myself to be too much of this and not enough of that. When others say or do things that support “too much” or “not enough” I am upset. I believe that all things need to be “just so” in order for me to feel valuable and safe. When I am upset, it is because things, people and events are not behaving the way I think they should. This threatens my self image. Remembering that I am always upset because I am believing I am something I am not, removes my outward focus and reminds me to focus on my true desire, which is to know myself.
