Commentary on Lesson 132

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

 

 

 

Medical Intuitive Carolyn Myss speaks of 'making a difference in the world on the level of thought.  I have been noticing the synchronicity of what I think of as my own thinking, and what then comes up in the Course.  Today I was watching my mind be a bit angry about a business deal.  Suddenly I realized I could give that voice a name.  I decided to call it 'my voice for hell', to contrast it with 'my Voice for God'.  Then I had a dialogue occur between them that I witnessed, and asked questions of etc.  Stuff like 'where does my voice for hell come from?' and 'how do I stop listening to it', and 'is there a purpose behind it's existence?'  

 

But the main point is just that I entered a new level of awareness of my thinking, and then entered an internal inquiry about that.  And that is where the Course takes us today...  directly into the practical impact that mastering our minds does make in the world.  All from 'the level of thought' BECAUSE this entire world all arises from our thought also....  Therefore, as we learn today, it is impossible to not effect the world when we change our thoughts.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

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Very first person version ;-)

 

Lesson 132

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

What keeps my world in chains but my beliefs? And what can save my world except my Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts I hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.

Yet is salvation easily achieved, for I am (as anyone is) free to change my mind, and all my thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change my mind means I have changed the source of all ideas I think or ever thought or yet will think. I free the past from what I thought before. I free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what I do not really wish to find.

The 'present-now' remains 'the only time'. Here in the present-now is the world set free. For as I let the past be lifted and I release the future from my ancient fears, I find escape and I give it to the world. I have enslaved the world with all my fears, my doubts and miseries, my pain and tears; and all my sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to my beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because I hold the bitter thoughts of death within my mind.

The world is nothing in itself. My mind must give it meaning. And what I behold upon it are my wishes, acted out so I can look on them and think them real. Perhaps I think I did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for my thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth I found exactly what I looked for when I came.

There is no world apart from what I wish, and herein lies my ultimate release. Change but my mind on what I chooose to see, and all the worldmust change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if I would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride which tells me that I made the world I see, and that it changes as I change my mind.

But it is pride that argues I have come into a world quite separate from myself, impervious to what I think, and quite apart from what I chance to think it is. There is no world! This is the central thought the course is here to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept this thought, and each one will go as far as he will let himself be led along the road to truth. Then, he will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.

But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.

And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that I do today. Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed my own imagining, then I can loose it from all things I ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. The sick are healed as I let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when I let thoughts of life replace all thoughts I ever held of death.

A lesson earlier repeated once is now stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea. 

I am as God created me. There is no place where I can suffer, and no time that can bring change to my eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist, if I remain as God created me?

What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know my Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change my mind about myself. There is no world apart from my ideas because ideas leave not their source, and I maintain the world within my mind in thought.

Yet if I am as God created me, I cannot think apart from Him, nor make anything that does not share His timelessness and Love. Are these inherent in the world you see? Does it create like Him? Unless it does, it is not real, and cannot be at all. If I am real the world I see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by which I was created, so it is my thoughts which made it and must set it free, that I may know the Thoughts I share with God.

I Release the world! My real creations wait for this release to give me fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares His Fatherhood with me who is His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, and the Son begin as something separate from Him.

There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.

Today my purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts I ever held about it, and about all living things I see upon it. They can not be there. No more can I. For I am in the home my Father set for me, along with them. And I who am as He created me would loose the world this day from every one of my illusions, that I may be free, as well as my brothers.

I begin the fifteen-minute periods in which I practice twice today with this:

I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.

Then I shall merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let my mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with me.

I need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world, as well as to the ones I see nearby, as I send out these thoughts to bless the world. But I will sense my own release, although I may not fully understand as yet that I can never be released alone.

Throughout the day, I will increase the freedom sent through my ideas to all the world, and say whenever I am tempted to deny the power of my simple change of mind:

I loose the world from all I thought it was, 
and choose my own reality instead.