Lesson 22: What I see is a form of vengeance.

Vengeance is what you see in the world if you hold attack thoughts in your mind. The world will mirror your thoughts. A vengeful world is your own projection staring back at you. It follows from having angry thoughts, and since your thoughts are not real, neither is a vengeful world real. Think peace; see peace. Think attack; see vengeance about to strike. Which thought is your choice now?

The purpose of this lesson is to help you learn that you really do not want what you are seeing. Take a good look. What do you really want – attack and vengeance? Or peace? Make a focused choice to perceive peace, and your perception will change with your choice. Is it really that easy? Can you just change your mind to change the world you see? Yes, it is that easy. Do it and experience the truth of it. Consider a situation that has been disturbing you and change your mind about it. Decide that you want to see peace instead of the turmoil or chaos you have been seeing. Your experience of the situation will miraculously change as your thoughts about it change.

“You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there.

Perception has no other law than this.”

(T-25.III.1:3-4)

Is it joyous news to hear that a world of vengeance is not real? Is it a happy discovery to find that you can escape the world you see? You made every thing that you hate and would attack and destroy. You thought it into your existence. Is it simpler to just not make such a world, than to first make it and then try to change or destroy it? Correct what you have made by changing your mind, and then choose to see the world clearly -- in the light.

Lesson 23: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.

“The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will ever succeed.” Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. You see the world you have made, but you do not yet see yourself as the image maker. Each of your perceptions of “external reality” is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. So there is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. And there is no point in blaming someone else. The world you see is an effect of your thoughts. When you change your thoughts, you are changing the cause and thus automatically changing the effect, which is the world you see. If you will to see truly, change your condemning thoughts to forgiving happy thoughts -- and see a happy world.

Have you ever wondered why some people are so happy, healthy, seemingly whole and complete -- while others seem to struggle endlessly over some situation or other? You are the image maker of your world, as they are of theirs. Vision holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images and transform them so you can love what you see. This is true for everyone.

The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. First, identify the cause and then let it go so it can be replaced. The replacement for attack thoughts is loving thoughts, and they are behind every attack thought you may have. Let the attack thought go, and the loving thought behind it can then be seen and experienced.

One more aspect of this lesson is that thoughts of attack and thoughts of being attacked are the same. Understanding this will increase your motivation to let them both go, as you are the cause of both. Both are made of hate and based on fear. You do not want either. It is also helpful to know that you will not be letting go or forgiving by yourself. In letting go of these fantasies and hallucinations, you will have abundant Help!

Lesson 24: I do not perceive my own best interests.

Your best interests are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived. This may sound selfish at first, but unless your best interests are met, everyone’s best interests will not be met as you are a part of everyone, a part of the whole. In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you and all others happy. Therefore, you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result. Realizing this, is the first step to being taught what is best. Thinking you know, when you do not know, will block the perfect answer from reaching you. So open your mind, realize that you do not know, and be ready to learn. This is an important step in mind training.

Lesson 25: I do not know what anything is for.

Today’s idea explains why nothing you see means anything. You do not know what anything is for. Therefore, it is meaningless to you. Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. But since you do not perceive your own best interests, how can anything have any meaning to you?

When you begin to understand anything, it is crucial that you begin with a true premise rather than a false one, in order for the next step to also be true, and on and on. Currently, you perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. So you must first perceive yourself correctly to be able to perceive your own best interests.

In identifying with the ego, you are mostly concerned with “personal” interests. Yet since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing, and therefore you have no relevant goals at all. Yet even at the most superficial levels you do recognize partial purpose. For example, you do realize that a phone is for the purpose of communicating with someone who is not in your immediate physical vicinity. Yet you do not necessarily know whom to call – or why.

It is crucial, therefore, that you give up the goals you have established for everything. They are not “good” or “bad,” they are just meaningless. Clear your mind of meaningless thoughts, goals, ideas, and purposes, and make way for true thoughts goals, ideas, and purposes. Allow life to have meaning that is apart from ego, and thus nearer to truth. This lesson is a step in that direction.

Lesson 26: My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.

You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack. “And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you.” (W-26.1:4) It is this law that will ultimately save you, but you are misusing it now. You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.

Attack thoughts make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. You always attack yourself first with these thoughts. They first weaken you in your own eyes, by attacking your perception of yourself. Finding this intolerable, you then deny this perception of yourself by projecting it outside yourself onto a brother. Your brother may view this projection as an attack and he may counter-attack. You then think that this attack originated with him, when it is merely a reflection of your own attack thought projected outward onto him and then mirrored back to you. This is not unlike a movie being projected onto a screen and you see its reflection. Your projection is no more real than the movie projection. You ARE invulnerable; as God created you.

Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together as they contradict each other. Only one can be true. It is the same as sinlessness and sinfulness, innocence and guilt, heaven and hell. Opposites cannot co-exist. All Thoughts of God are true; thoughts contrary to His Thoughts are not. And anger? Anger never accomplishes anything. It just multiplies the appearance of error.

The idea for today will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so. In essence, then, the way you see yourself, and the way you see the entire world, is a reflection of your own thoughts, and nothing else. The correction will then be with your thoughts. “You cannot change the world, but you can change your mind about the world,” and then instead of seeing attack mirrored there, you will see God’s glorious light. Smile. It is a welcome change.

Lesson 27: Above all else I want to see.

Today’s idea expresses something stronger than mere determination. It gives vision priority among your desires, in an effort to bring you closer to the day when you want vision more than everything else,

Remember:

Vision has no cost to anyone.

It can only bless.

(W-27.2:3,5)

Are you tired of not knowing truly? Of not seeing clearly? Of not understanding anything? Vision will change your “tired” to “inspired.”

Lesson 28: Above all else I want to see things differently.

You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means that you are not seeing at all. God is about joining and oneness, not separation. If you see even one thing as it really is, you will see that there is no separation between things as there are no “things,” only light. The light you will see in any one of these things is the same light you will see in them all. And God’s light is continuous, not separated into tables and chairs and bodies and sky. This is what vision will show you: There is no separation; all is ONE.

When you say, “Above all else I want to see this table differently,” you are making a commitment to withdraw your preconceived ideas about the table, and opening your mind to what it truly is, and what it is truly for. You are not defining it in past terms. You are asking what it is instead of telling it what it is, while remembering it is only for your best interests. You are not binding its meaning to your tiny experience of tables, nor are you limiting its purpose to your personal thoughts or interests. You are asking for its universal purpose.

You will not question what you have already defined. And the purpose of this lesson is to ask questions and receive answers. In asking questions, you are committing yourself to wanting to see, and recognizing that you do not see now. You are opening your mind, which has heretofore been closed by thinking you know and see clearly, when you do not. Hidden under all your ideas about things is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with the universe. So you are really asking to see the purpose of the universe. Instead of placing your own purpose upon it, you are making a commitment to let the universe unfold in all its glory. And this you really DO want to see! ❤