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

Lesson 25

I do not know what anything is for.

1. Purpose is meaning. ²Today’s idea explains why nothing you see means anything. ³You do not know what it is for. ⁴Therefore, it is meaningless to you. ⁵Everything is for your own best interests. ⁶That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. ⁷It is in recognizing this that your goals become unified. ⁸It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning.

If I see everything as being for my own best interests, everything is purposeful and meaningful. It might seem at first glance, that not everything is in my best interest. I mentioned yesterday that I have been divorced three times. That hardly seems to be in my best interests until I remember why I am here. I came to heal my mind. Each marriage offered me a different classroom in which to correct my beliefs about relationships and about love.

It hardly seemed in my best interest that so many people I love suffered from addictions. But these were perfect classrooms for us all. Together we worked out a number of false beliefs and healed our relationships as well. I learned that in order for love to be love, it doesn’t change with circumstances. It seems that all my goals are the same goal. I want to heal the mind and awaken from the dream of separation. It seems different but that is because I just go at it from many directions. If my goal is to heal the mind, then everything helps me to do that so everything is in my best interest.

False Identification

2. You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. ²These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. ³This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. ⁴As a result, you are bound to misuse it. ⁵When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them.

3. Another way of describing the goals you now perceive is to say that they are all concerned with “personal” interests. ²Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. ³In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. ⁴And thus you do not know what anything is for.

When I was interested in the ego-self, I was attached to a false identity. As I began to detach from the idea of a personal self, I dropped most of the ego goals that used to drive me. I’m not interested in being the best, or winning. I don’t have a financial goal or a relationship goal. There is no sense of loss in giving up these goals because I didn’t give them up. I just stopped caring about what the ego wants when I realized I wasn’t the ego.

I want to heal my mind so that the Sonship will awaken. And I want to help others do this because we are one and so I can’t do anything “on my own.” I want to extend love so that we all begin to remember that we are love. These are the kinds of goals I have now. They are my goals because they are for all of us. It is in my best interest because we return to Heaven together. As I heal my mind, I heal all minds.

When I notice a goal that is personal, I know that I need to look at my beliefs with the Holy Spirit again. In reality, there is no separate me with personal interests so there is no need for personal goals. One of the reasons I am at peace most of the time now, is that I don’t have much interest in the narrative of Myron. When I am interested, it is so that I can see what yet needs to be healed. If I become upset in any way by something happening in the story of Myron, I can let it go to the Holy Spirit. In this way, the mind is healed.

Giving Up Meaningless Goals

4. Before you can make any sense out of the exercises for today, one more thought is necessary. ²At the most superficial levels, you do recognize purpose. ³Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels. ⁴For example, you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. ⁵What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. ⁶And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not.

5. It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. ²The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than “good” or “bad,” is the only way to accomplish this. ³The idea for today is a step in this direction.

The example of the phone is a good one for understanding how it is that we will not understand purpose if we look only at the superficial level. Yes, I know what the phone does for me, but what I might not understand is what I want to reach the person for. I might want to speak to a friend because I am lonely or bored. That would not be a very meaningful contact. However, if I am calling to extend love or to be helpful, that could be a meaningful encounter.

In the first purpose for the call, I would be trying to fill that God-sized whole in me. I could as easily try to do that with food or shopping. Some people use entertainment for that, and others ty to do it with personal drama. None of that works and so the goal of using these methods for a sense of fulfilment is not bad, just meaningless.

If I were to feel a sense of emptiness and recognize it as a failure to fulfill my purpose, my goal would have meaning. It might be in that case that a phone call would be a way to fulfill my purpose. I could call in order to share my love with someone, or to join in the Daily Lesson or some other spiritual experience. I would be using the same phone, maybe making the same call. But in this instance, the purpose gave it a different meaning.

Another Simple Example

Every day, I visit Facebook. Most of the time, I do this to post inspirational ideas or to share the Daily Lesson. I answer questions and share my insights. I discover inspiring stories and helpful processes from other people. Facebook is a way that I live my purpose. It is a worthwhile goal. On the other hand, it could be used differently. It could be used to criticize and judge and often is. It could be used to kill time in the same way shopping and eating can be used. In this case, the purpose of Facebook would be meaningless and a goal that is of no worth.

The Practice

6. Six practice periods, each of two-minutes duration, are required. ²Each practice period should begin with a slow repetition of the idea for today, followed by looking about you and letting your glance rest on whatever happens to catch your eye, near or far, “important” or “unimportant,” “human” or “nonhuman.” ³With your eyes resting on each subject you so select, say, for example:

⁴I do not know what this chair is for.
⁵I do not know what this pencil is for.
⁶I do not know what this hand is for.

⁷Say this quite slowly, without shifting your eyes from the subject until you have completed the statement about it. ⁸Then move on to the next subject, and apply today’s idea as before.

As before, this exercise is to help us open our minds so that we can know what things are for. It is easy to look at a pencil and think we know what it is for, but it is also easy to just go along with the lesson and do it anyway. Even if I think I know what the pencil is for, it’s not going to upset me to consider maybe there is something else I could know about a pencil. Jesus is a real genius when it comes to setting up these lessons. He knows how to use these early lessons to gently bring us to a new way of thinking without causing us to resist too strongly. I am very grateful to my Brother.

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 25 click here.

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