Lesson 33

Lesson 33

There is another way of looking at the world.

Today’s idea is an attempt to recognize that you can shift your perception of the world in both its outer and inner aspects. A full five minutes should be devoted to the morning and evening applications. In these practice periods, the idea should be repeated as often as you find comfortable, though unhurried applications are essential. Alternate between surveying your outer and inner perceptions, but without an abrupt sense of shifting.

Merely glance casually around the world you perceive as outside yourself, then close your eyes and survey your inner thoughts with equal casualness. Try to remain equally uninvolved in both, and to maintain this detachment as you repeat the idea throughout the day.

The shorter exercise periods should be as frequent as possible. Specific applications of today’s idea should also be made immediately, when any situation arises which tempts you to become disturbed. For these applications, say:

There is another way of looking at this.

Remember to apply today’s idea the instant you are aware of distress. It may be necessary to take a minute or so to sit quietly and repeat the idea to yourself several times. Closing your eyes will probably help in this form of application.

 

Journal

“There is another way of looking at this.”

When I heard on the news that Donald Trump was our elected president, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to tell myself that the damage he could do was limited and that it would be OK, but with the passage of time, I was to discover that it was worse than I imagined. Children being torn from their parents were the worst so far and my constant struggle to release the anger and resentment, and let me be honest, the growing hatred I felt toward him, got trampled under this new outrage.

Even so, I knew that how I felt had to change. I was hurting myself, and all of the Sonship with my attitude. I was reinforcing rage, hatred, disdain, and disgust; I was reinforcing separation, fear, and guilt. My thoughts and beliefs affect all of my life because they are not discreet and they are not discreet to my personal story; they affect all of us. I was polluting consciousness with these beliefs and these runaway emotions.

So what I did was to ask for another way of looking at this. I realized that the only thing happening in my mind, and in my mind is where my business is, the only thing happening there is that I made a judgment. It was really that simple. I made a judgment and that judgment fueled everything else that came after. We make judgments all the time and we change our minds all the time so this should be simple and easy, I thought. But as it turned out, simple as it was, it was not so easy.

The reason it was not easy is that having made the judgment, I now believed it and when I went to the Holy Spirit, I was asking for help but asking amiss. I was asking how to forgive this terrible man, because that was my judgment and so my belief about him. The Holy Spirit was answering me but I wasn’t hearing the answer because it didn’t make sense according to what I thought I knew. That is why Jesus tells us not to make a decision and then ask for help. But he knew we would and so he gave us a process to use to turn it all around. (See T 30, The Rules for Decision.)

Because of my judgment, I was suffering. This motivated me to do what needed to be done regardless of how impossible it seemed to me. I accepted that I don’t know what anything is for and that I don’t want to make decision on my own (with the ego). I willingly let go of my judgment and I asked the Holy Spirit to show me another way of looking at this. I did this because I remembered my function, my one goal and my purpose, which is the peace of God.

My anger began to fall away. It did this in jumps and starts for a while, but pretty quickly, I was feeling quite neutral about the whole thing, so that was good, but not enough. I needed to feel only love toward Donald Trump and that still seemed impossible. But in God, nothing is impossible and so I went back to the Holy Spirit and asked for a different way to see this. Again, I put aside my judgment that I could not love this man, and I opened my mind and heart to another way to see.

A true miracle occurred at that point. All separation thoughts fell away and I was filled with love when I thought of Donald, my dear brother and part of my Self. I began to pray for him every day. I prayed that he would be open and receptive to his highest guidance. I prayed for his happiness and for his peace of mind. This doesn’t mean that I agree with his policies or that I would ever vote for him, but I don’t wish him any ill will, and I love and appreciate him.

That was an attitude that I felt but didn’t understand, even myself, but there it was. Since then, I have come to see the whole situation differently. I see his part in our story as essential. He represents a part of our shared mind. He tweets his outrage at someone disagreeing with him, and I see my outrage that he didn’t agree with me, or I remember my outrage that my boss blamed me for something I didn’t do. I mean, who has not felt outrage when they felt threatened.

I have been accepting the gift of detachment lately, and this has allowed me to see things on different levels. I see how situations affect the story of Myron and how they appear on the world stage and how different they look when seen from the imagined distance of the effects on the awakening Sonship. I see my part. I see how I affect all of us through my choices.

This detachment helps me to recognize that there is always another way of looking at the world, a way that is encouraging and helpful and loving and that I can see it if I choose to. I can see through fear or I can see through love and this is true in every circumstance. How I choose to see is going to help lift us all out of suffering or it will bring us all deeper into the illusion. It is a big responsibility, but it is simple and easy to make the right choice.

 

Past Entries

It often seems that we can’t see a situation differently. Sometimes we are so stuck in the form of the story, the details, that we completely overlook the content. For instance, when I was concerned about how I could retire, how the money would show up, I could obsess about it and all I could see were the various challenges. When I asked for another way to see, I realized that this was just another image of the belief in lack. The form is how to afford retirement, but the content is the belief in lack.

While my mind is focused on the form, I am distracted by the many forms the solution could take, and upset that I can’t pin one down. The solution is always in the future and out of reach and I am left to worry and fret. When I shift my vision to the content instead of the form, the solution is simple and obvious. I believe in lack and lack is not the Will of God, so I ask for the Atonement in this case, and the false belief is removed from my mind.

I did that, and then I watched it unfold. I felt comfortable about the whole thing. I was curious as to how this would look and when it would happen. I was talking to my friend about it as if it were still a problem, and that is when I realized it was no longer the problem it had been. I still wanted to retire, but I didn’t need to retire. I still had thoughts about wanting to continue my writing, but having to go to work instead, but I no longer believed that I knew how long I should write and that I no longer believed that I shouldn’t have to go to work.

Because this was, for a while, a new change for me, I still noticed the ego thoughts clamoring in my mind, trying to get my attention. I would see the same old complaints and the fears, but they didn’t hook me like they used to, just a short time before. For instance, I remember a morning I had the thought that I would like to get some projects finished around the house and I can’t because I have to go to work tomorrow. I tried to feel unfairly treated, but I just couldn’t. Cool!

I notice that I still believe in lack because I see fear about other things, however, I now have proof that there is another way to see it. I know how to shift my mind from the sad or scary story that I don’t have what I need, to the belief in lack that it represents. Then I can ask for that new vision just as I did before. I look forward to practicing this truth today. I wonder how many problems I would be willing to see differently?

This is how I use the lesson in the world, and how things change in the world when I do. By using it to change my mind I am able to see the effects of changing my mind. But there is far more to the change than is apparent. What I am really doing is teaching myself that there is another way to see the world altogether. I am learning that the world as I presently see it is not reality, and in releasing these thoughts in this way, I am teaching myself that I can, and want to, see the real world.