A Course In Miracles – Lesson 31

Lesson 31 of A Course In Miracles states:

I am not a victim of the world I see.

A Course In Miracles – Lesson 31 is a decision you make. It is a declaration to release thought paths that are illusory and untrue. This lesson asks us to take two or three moments today and sit quietly with this statement in your mind. Consider: I am not a victim of the world I see and observe how willing or resistant your opinions about it are. Also, whenever you remember, say this statement to yourself all through the day as you look around you slowly at all the objects near you. This includes people as objects. Repeat slowly as you look around, “I am not a victim of the world I see.” Then close your eyes and apply the same idea to what you “see” in your mind. You are also not a victim of your thoughts. In fact, your inner experience is what is causing your outer experience. If we can identify the quality of our inner experience and see it as it is, we are then able to direct that situation rather than feel directed by it.

As you close your eyes and consider the idea, let whatever thoughts you have just cross through your mind like fish drifting past. Note its colors, shape, and qualities with as little opinion as possible. Watch as dispassionately as you can whatever rises up and let it move on. Do not follow a thought or dwell. Let the stream move on evenly and calmly without any investment on your part. And say again, whenever you remember to, “I am not a victim of the world I see.”

We apply this idea and this exercise to the outside world we see as well as to the inside world we see. We are not a victim of the outside world and we are not a victim of the inside world. A Course In Miracles – Lesson 31 is teaching us that we are not a victim.

Declaring this for yourself declares it for the world as well because what you achieve personally is something you achieve and share in and for the world. How you are is what you give the world. This lesson is a declaration that you will not put yourself into bondage. You choose to recognize the truth about where all the stuff you see all around you really comes from- from your choice of thought paths.

I have found that the challenge here is in actually realizing that we are, in fact, feeling like a victim in many areas of our life even though we are smart enough to know that it is incorrect to feel like a victim. This brings into view the nature of knowing something. Intellectual knowing is removed from the experience of knowing. This means we can understand an idea while at the same time not experience that idea’s qualities. I can say, “I am not a victim here” while still holding onto a covert experience of victimhood. I can know I know better than to feel like a victim while still feeling like one. When this happens, not only do we feel the negative effects of victimhood, we add to it the negative effects of judgment that says we should not feel how we feel. The complexity of the mind is truly breathtaking.

What would help here is to see if we can locate where we feel powerless and attacked in our life and just give that condition the acknowledgment in needs.

Finding our way out of the logic that describes victimhood is not easily done. That is why this lesson explains itself to be a declaration. Changing our logic regarding ANY topic will be an act of will that overrides the current program through sheer will to do so. Will is the driving force behind everything in this world and in the whole cosmos.

If you do not like what your eyes see around you ask yourself what you believe about the things you are seeing. And then take note of the quality of those thoughts. They are negative. They are describing something in a way that does not feel good. What, then, would be a description that would feel good? Depending on the content of our thoughts, there are many effective ways to guide ourselves out of thoughts that do not feel good. And it is helpful if we do not try to impose an idea that is too large or too lofty for our current disposition. We want to take it step by step upwards rather than try to reach the top of the stairs all in one thought jump.

The reminder that we are not a victim of this world is one step up.

But just out of curiosity, what happens if we follow the logic that is saying we are a victim? This would mean that we live in a hostile environment where anything at any time can attack us and take us down. If we look around, we will see clear evidence of this condition. We will see acts of violence attacking and taking people down all over the world. And we can keep staring at these conditions indefinitely and we would be right if we then conclude we are victims of the world around us. But the reason and the proof would only be because of the idea we have decided to believe. If we changed what we believed, we would then see proof and evidence of this new commitment and loyalty to thought. We would manifest the evidence describing the perspective we have decided to perceive.

It may seem hard to believe that you have decided to perceive a negative, hostile world and that is because you have been doing so for so long. But the fact still remands that what you perceive is a decision on your part. Decide to locate what is working, what is good, what is in order and watch how the world around you begins to work, get better, and become more ordered. I am not a victim of the world I see. I have the power within my thought processes to make this world what I would like it to be. My thoughts are what make my world.