July 27, 2008

I Do not Understand anything I See


"I do not understand anything I see", is the title of lesson 3 of the workbook of A Course In Miracles. When I apply this lesson to anything I see, I free myself from the past, because all my understanding is based on a past learning. I thereby deny my past learning and let it go. It then cannot hold me to a past reference that is over and gone. That is a very freeing experience, and the question is only, where do I stop applying it? What is so valuable to me that I dismiss the practice of the lesson in any instant? My world is not doing anything in that regard. It is me valuing certain things, ideas or circumstances, habitually reacting to them and thereby defending an idea and image about myself that is not in accord with what God knows and wills. Or I reject something based on what I think that something or someone is and does and my differing preferences, thereby creating a spit identity in my mind by setting up an enemy in my mind, an alien thought that I no longer see as mine, but applying only to the "other".

blind eyeFact is, I never deal with things directly. My physical eyes do not see. They do not report to me WHAT I see. I always react to my interpretations of things. I always deal with thought. And here is the whole problem, and also the solution. Mis-perception is going on in my mind, and it is only in my mind. Since it is always based on an idea, I can let it go by changing my mind. I don't have to buy my own ideas about things. They are entirely meaningless, because I have to admit I do not understand a single thing about anything I deal with on a daily basis. I think I do, but I don't. Without a heightened awareness I go through my day without even suspecting that I have no clue whatsoever. That is what is called "sleeping".

Let's say, I went swimming today. I take off my clothes, stand naked for a moment before I put on my swim wear. What do I know about my body? I mean really know about it. What does the world really know about it? That it is all space, made up of protons and electrons with a vast amount of space in between? What does that help me? What does my body do? Who is governing its movements? O.k, then, dressed, I decide to walk to the pool and jump into the water? Who is doing what? Who lifts my right foot, and not my left? And the water? What is water? It is cool, smooth, soft, gives way to every movement, but also resists. It is made of hydrogen and oxygen, H²O. What else? What do I know by these statements? It has some practical value, yes, but what do I really know and understand? And how much does my self-proclaimed and "blind" knowledge of things get in the way of recognizing something of real meaning?

What to do with this lesson, "I do not understand anything I see"? Well, you are asked to apply it without making any distinctions. What you see in any given moment, is the proper subject for your practicing. You are not asked to question the "suitability of anything for application of the idea", since this is not an exercise in judgment, regardless of what "emotionally-charged meaning" things may have for you. What is the point of it?

"The point of the exercises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them." (Lesson 3, ACIM)

Try it out. See for yourself. This is exciting and liberating. What is going to happen, if you allow yourself to loose your ideas about things and stand naked in not knowing what things are? That is called "being undone" in A Course In Miracles. That is obviously a requirement of the mind training to stabilize a new perception in our minds. And that is what forgiveness is. The idea that something happened in the first place is changed. Nothing did happen. You cannot be hurt. Why? You are not a body. You are free, still as God created you in His likeness.

What do you say what you are seeing? What do you say you know about it? Are you doing the workbook lesson of A Course In Miracles? Please share.

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posted by Alban Fenle

 

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I Am under no Laws but God's
Workbook Lesson 76, one of the most challenging lessons in A Course In Miracles: I Am under no Laws but God's.

We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense. Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not.

Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek salvation where it is not, and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.

Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.

These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers just in order that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your "laws" would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.

There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, over and over, until you realize it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to God's Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.

The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth that we would hide. We realize instead it is a truth that keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God make free. The light has come because there are no laws but His.

We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the "laws" of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in the "laws" of friendship, of "good" relationships and reciprocity. Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God's and what is yours. Many "religions" have been based on this. They would not save but damn in Heaven's name. Yet they are no more strange than other "laws" you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.

There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice That speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made; there are no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else. God's laws forever give and never take.

Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the "laws" you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell you more. About the Love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.

Let us today open God's channels to Him, and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We will repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God's. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:

I am under no laws but God's.

We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.