A Course In Miracles Lesson 57

A Course In Miracles  Lesson 57

I am not the victim of the world I see.

If my thoughts are causing what I see and if my thoughts are what I decide to focus on, I can not be a victim of the world.  I have brought about the conditions I now have from a long legacy of attention to the conditions I am currently experiencing.  If I wish to change these conditions, I will need to place my attention on that which I want, (but do not yet have) rather than on that which I have already made.  I need to change where my attention goes to change how I feel and what I experience. 

This may strike sensible people as self-induced obliviousness or putting on the proverbial “rose-colored glasses” to “deny” reality.  But not putting on rose-colored glasses is the same as choosing to wear the “mud-colored” glasses.  Anyone who criticizes you for shifting your attention towards optimism is simply someone who is choosing to wear a negative outlook.  It is practical and wise to acknowledge difficulties.  But it is irresponsible to fixate on those difficulties and believe it impossible to move through them.

I may feel it is impossible to change my current heavily burdened thoughts, but that can only be because some part of me still has an interest in keeping those burdened thoughts as they are.  There is a safety and a comfort in the idea of powerlessness.  If I can not do anything about a situation, (if change is impossible) I legalize hiding and this only maintains the pain.  Feeling powerless is a choice I make.  That choice is made every time I describe to myself what I believe to be happening.  The running narrative in my mind is of my own making.  If I am seeing myself as inferior in a certain dynamic, what new thread of thought might I add to that narrative which would start to guide me out of that way of thinking?  What thought could I add which would challenge the idea that I am a victim?  How we find our way through our logic is the art of living well.  Living in pain is easy.  Navigating towards happiness is the ultimate pursuit.  I determined how I describe events and relationships.  I determine how I navigate what happens to me because…

I have invented the world I see.

I have created conflict where no conflict exists. I have engaged in negative descriptions of myself, others, and this world around me.  I have described things to myself that have been an inaccurate read on the situation.  I have been wrong.  And everyone around me has also done the same in their own perceptions.  I do not see this world clearly because I have imposed my personal interests upon it and lost sight of the inherent natural state of reality which is Peace.

The actual real-world is Peace Profound.  All the events of quiet perfect harmony and peace that are occurring in countless meadows, back yards, mountain tops, riversides, and city streets far outweigh the fleeting moments of disruption.  But we do not ever report on “peaceful” areas.  We report on disruptions and thus give the illusion that they add up to a volume equal to that of Peace.  But consider the peace in the room you are in now.  Consider the peace in the space just away from you, nearby.  The orchestration of peace all around us is the space holder that enables all disruption.  Disruption is temporary and small.  Peace is forever and infinitely large.  If you do not see it yet, if your surroundings are not reflecting the wellness that is God, consider…

There is another way of looking at the world.

What I think I see may not be what is true.  What I think the purpose of this world is for is not the real purpose of this world.  I am mistaken about what I think this world is for.  By seeing that I am mistaken, I can glimpse a different possible world.  While I see violence and pain all around me, I can see what I see while knowing a different way of seeing is possible.  I can rest in the fact that I do not understand this world.  I can not understand it because it is not understandable.  But I do not need the understanding to locate peace.  

This lesson is not saying that I develop the ability to look upon violence and brutality with indifference.  It is not suggesting that I make an effort to describe a horrible condition in some overtly optimistic way in an effort to blot out what I do not wish to see.  No.  I can clearly acknowledge the poverty and violence I see.  But to this, I also bring a conviction that there is another way of looking at this world.

This world is insubstantial, in that it is not enduring in nature.  What is in this world comes to an end.  What comes to an end is not enduring and therefore is not technically Real.  What is Real is that which endures.  That which endures can only be discovered in its consistency to endure.  This world is of an ephemeral quality even though the pain of it feels real.  Pain is not an indication of “realness.”  What is Real does not hurt.  If something hurts, I can recognize it as quite painful as well as not Real.

I can look at the world in a description of peacefulness.  Doing this will align the illusion I have made into a precisely close reflection of True Reality (which is even more peaceful and joyful than we can even imagine with the calmest and stillest of minds.)  The lessons here are guiding our mind into stillness, like a lake without a ripple.  What gets reflected upon such a still surface will be that which is there to be reflected… will be the ever-present Reality.  Quieting the mind makes us mirrors for the peace that is this Universe.  When I see violence, remember …

I could see peace instead of this.

Peace is the state of true reality.  Peace is what we will always find at the end of any journey we may take away from truth.  This is because what is true can not not be as it is.  Truth must be as it is.  And truth is there even if we do not perceive it.  How can I perceive truth?  A Course In Miracles wants me to remember as often as possible that…

My mind is part of God’s.  I am very holy.

Part of my mind feels and believes itself to be alone, isolated, and separated from everything else.  This feeling/belief is like a cloud blotting out the sun.  That cloud (a misguided belief) never ever comes within miles of the actual sun.  And the reality of the sun’s presence is not ever in any danger whatsoever from this distant, whispy, passing cloud of obscuration.  The truth can be obscured but it can never be altered or changed.  The truth is always what it is and the truth is- God is within you, you are part of God.

If you do not like the word God, replace it with any word that feels better because the Creative Field (God) only ever and always wants your joy.  Because your mind is part of the wholeness of the Universe, you can not ever be alone.  The Creative Force of all life is within you.  You are forever deeply important to the fabric of all existence.  The thread that you are completes the whole Field.  You are vital and rapturously loved by that Field.  Lean back into the Creative Field and reconnect with your forgotten majesty.  You are, in truth, magnificent.  It does not matter that I do not know you, or know whatever it is you think you have done to disqualify you as magnificent, I know that you are.  Your inherent being defines you as such.  Any thoughts that hurt are only the thinnest, briefest of clouds creating a temporary optical illusion to the Truth of you.