ACIM Daily Lesson Section 8. What Is the Real World 1. The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. ²Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made.
8. What Is the Real World?
8. What Is the Real World?
1. The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. ²Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made. ³Your world is seen through eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. ⁴The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness blesses, so they see a world where terror is impossible, and witnesses to fear can not be found.
The real world isn’t real. It is a symbol of reality, a reflection of the truth. It is what we experience when our mind is healed, and we no longer terrorize ourselves with untrue beliefs. Without these ego thoughts in our minds, we see the world differently. I’ve seen this in my own life. I used to be terrified of bad weather. I remember one time my brother came to stay with me because of a bad storm, and he knew how afraid I would be. Over time, my belief in the world has loosened, and with it, the fear thoughts that used to terrorize me. I actually enjoy storms now.
A World Seen Differently
2. The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world; a sure correction for the sights of fear and sounds of battle which your world contains. ²The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. ³Nothing but rest is there. ⁴There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing there remains outside forgiveness. ⁵And the sights are gentle. ⁶Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself.
When the world was made by us, the Answer to the world was given. The Holy Spirit corrected each untrue thought. We have a choice, always. We can experience the world as the battleground we made of it. Or, we can experience the corrected version of the world. We can see the world through forgiving eyes. It hardly seems possible, but if that is so, it is because we are asking the ego to interpret what we see. Instead, we can ask the Holy Spirit for His interpretation, and we will see love or a call for love, nothing else.
Here is an example.
I used to feel attacked if someone disagreed with me. Sometimes I would avoid that person, or sometimes I would defend myself. Either way, I was at war, even if it was a cold war, that is, all happening in my mind. War is violent even when it never gets further than our thoughts. It costs us our peace of mind.
Now, even if the person thinks they are attacking me, what I experience is someone who wants happiness but doesn’t know what it takes to get it. Why would I defend against that? I wouldn’t because that doesn’t feel like an attack against me. It feels like a call for love, so I give love. Because giving is receiving, I receive love and peace, and happiness.
Question Your Thinking to Change Your World
3. What need has such a mind for thoughts of death, attack and murder? ²What can it perceive surrounding it but safety, love and joy? ³What is there it would choose to be condemned, and what is there that it would judge against? ⁴The world it sees arises from a mind at peace within itself. ⁵No danger lurks in anything it sees, for it is kind, and only kindness does it look upon.
This paragraph reminds me of a Byron Katie story that influenced my understanding of the real world. This is the story as I remember it. Byron Katie was invited to speak in a part of the world that we would consider dangerous. Her friends begged her not to go pointing out the dangers. She told them that she was in danger nowhere in the world. I don’t remember her exact words, but it was something like this. She can’t be in danger because there is no thought of violence in her. She knows that the world is a reflection of her mind.
As Katie says, she teaches people to question their thinking, which changes their world. She has only kindness in her mind, so there is no danger in her world. If our world seems to show us angry, hateful people, that tells us that we need to change our minds. From a changed mind comes a changed world. Once we have released all thoughts opposed to truth, we will see a peaceful world. This is because a peaceful world will arise from a mind at peace within itself.
A Symbol that the Dream of Sin and Guilt Is Over
4. The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God’s Son no longer sleeps. ²His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father’s Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. ³The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless.
5. The Holy Spirit has no need of time when it has served His purpose. ²Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it as it goes, and leaving but the truth to be itself. ³That instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God. ⁴And as we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and comes to take us home, reminding us of our Identity which our forgiveness has restored to us.
Once we have forgiven the world as we see it by forgiving our beliefs about it, we will experience the symbol of a forgiven world, what Jesus is calling the real world. With the world’s redemption, not only are sin and guilt gone but so are time and perception. This is the instant that is our goal, the instant in which the world as we know it disappears. That is the instant that contains the memory of God and of Self. That is the instant in which He takes us Home.
Past Entry
It is clear from the first paragraph that the real world isn’t real either. We have in our minds the thoughts which create the effect of the illusional world we are now experiencing. As we forgive, we begin to slowly withdraw our projections of guilt, fear, and rage, and we see this illusion differently. The world seen without the effects of wrong-minded thinking is what the Course is referring to as the real world. It is our illusion without fear.
There is a story in A Thousand Names for Joy that I hold in my mind as an example of living in the real world. Byron Katie was being held at gunpoint, and the man threatening her stated his intention to kill her. Katie’s thoughts were something like this. She was shocked that he was taking his thoughts so seriously. She understands when he says he has to do it; she remembers once believing that she had things to do. And she thanks him for doing the best he can, and she notices that she is fascinated.
Katie says, “Is this how she dies? Is this how the story ends? And as joy continues to fill me, I find it miraculous that the story is still going on. You can never know the ending, even as it ends. … I love that I don’t miss one moment, one breath, of this amazing life. I wait. And wait. And in the end, he doesn’t pull the trigger. He doesn’t do that to himself.”
This story is what I think of as living awake.
This is what I think about when I think of the real world; still watching the world we made but not being fooled by it. Not identifying with it. Without believing that I am the body there would be no desire to be alive, no desire to be dead, no desire for anything to be other than what it is. Without identifying with the world, it becomes just the story it is. Would I be distraught when a good book ends? Am I upset when the credits run at the end of my favorite movie?
I used to think that I could experience the real world only when everyone else did. I thought that the real world appeared when everyone was happy and kind and knew who they were. Now I realize that how I experience the world has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing or thinking. It has nothing to do with what seems to be happening in the illusion. There is nothing in the illusion for me to fix. All correction is done in my mind.
How I see the world and experience the world is dependent only on what is in my mind. If I am still harboring guilt and fear, I will see a world that displays the effects of these beliefs. When I have fully forgiven the world, I will see the effects of a forgiven world regardless of what seems to be happening. Of course, as more and more of us awaken to the truth, the world will begin to take on the appearance of a happy dream because it is a projection of the mind, and a healed mind can only project a healed world.
Here is a link to Byron Katie’s book, A Thousand Names for Joy.