Lesson 6

Lesson 6

I am upset because I see something that is not there.

The exercises with this idea are very similar to the preceding ones. Again, it is necessary to name both the form of upset (anger, fear, worry, depression and so on) and the perceived source very specifically for any application of the idea. For example:

I am angry at ____ because I see something that is not there.
I am worried about ____ because I see something that is not there.

Today’s idea is useful for application to anything that seems to upset you, and can profitably be used throughout the day for that purpose. However, the three or four practice periods which are required should be preceded by a minute or so of mind searching, as before, and the application of the idea to each upsetting thought uncovered in the search.

Again, if you resist applying the idea to some upsetting thoughts more than to others, remind yourself of the two cautions stated in the previous lesson:

There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.

And:

I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.

 

Journal

Yesterday when I was thinking of my daughter and granddaughter and worrying about them, I saw that I was not upset for the reason I thought. Jesus helped me get to the root cause of the upset and that was very helpful. Today, as I apply this same problem to this lesson I see that I had been anxious for my daughter and granddaughter because I was seeing something that was not there.

On one level, I was seeing a story long over, as Jesus points out, an ancient memory that I held before my eyes. (T 26, V) On another level, I was seeing danger where there was none. I had to look into a non-existent future to find the danger. I had to look into an ancient past that existed nowhere but in my memory in order to find the reason for my fear.

In the moment we were together, absolutely nothing was happening except a lot of fun and a lot of love. It was marred only by thoughts in my mind. So really, I was upset by thoughts in my mind, not anything happening. Well, jeez. The bad news is that I did it to myself. The good news is that I did it so myself. Having given it to the Holy Spirit for healing, I can rest easy now.

NTI Luke 16 continued

I read the second part of this chapter. It is very much telling us what the lessons are saying. All experience is really only thought and thought is meaningless until we give it meaning. We think that we are focused on the world, that is, we are living in a body in the world.

We think that we either know what it means or that we can figure it out. So much seems to be happening and we have so much to do. But the joke’s on us. There is no world out there to focus on or interpret or act upon. There is only thought in the mind.

On another level, this can be seen as meaning that whatever we see or experience in the world is filtered through our beliefs. So nothing we believe about the world means anything. After all, where did our beliefs come from? Do they stay the same or do they change all the time? How real can they be if they are not stable?

For instance, there is a generally agreed upon law that prohibits murder, and yet, the very government that enforces that law commits murder when they decide the person deserves to be murdered. So we have all these beliefs and we judge what we experience according to our belief, not even the belief, but our present interpretation of the belief. We are constantly focused on our thoughts, constantly interpreting, constantly choosing the perception we prefer.

Or we can become aware of our tendency to judge and stop ourselves. We can rest the thinking mind instead of listening to it and believing what we find there. In that rest, we can allow the truth to become known to us, or perhaps it is true perception that is revealed. But whichever it is, the interpretation is given us rather than coming through the filter of our beliefs. What will we see then, I wonder. I know the mind would finally be calm and we would experience stability for the first time.

Past Entries

Jesus is taking this a step at a time. We begin by looking around at what we see with our eyes and accepting that nothing we see means anything. If we think it does mean something it is only because we gave it the meaning it has for us. We each choose the meaning of what we see based on past learning which is often, if not always, misleading. Just these two ideas are enough to convince me that something is very wrong with the way I see the world.

It also points to why everything is so unstable and why the world so often provokes anxiety. What can be depended upon if nothing is enduring and how can we know how to respond if “reality” shifts with each person’s perspective. It will do no good to look for that one person who is going to straighten it all out for us so that we have something concrete, something that doesn’t shift meaning because no one understands anything they see.

Then he leads us to understand that this applies to our thoughts as well. They do not mean anything either, which can be both a relief and fearful, a relief because our thoughts are so crazy and confused it’s nice to know they don’t mean anything, and fearful because we have always depended on our thoughts to explain the world to us. We will not be left in our confusion. But here he does introduce a new and important idea; what we see is connected with what we think. This is the beginning of the way out.

The next idea we are given is that we are never upset for the reason we think. This is an undoing, a letting go and emptying out exercise, designed to make room for something else. Today’s idea, that I see something that is not there, is what we were making room for. In his own gentle way, the Holy Spirit is asking us to take it easy, to let this build slowly. Today just let the mind adjust to the idea that everything is about to change.

The implication is not lost on me though. I see something that is not there. If what I see is connected to what I think as implied in the first lessons, then I must see something that is not there because my thinking is off kilter. For today, though, I will rest with the idea that I do see something that is not there. Isn’t that enough of a shock?

It certainly was startling, even disquieting, when I first began to do these lessons, I can assure you. In fact, at first, I didn’t really believe it. Not really. I was accustomed to thinking that the body’s eyes can actually see and that if they see it, it must be real, and it is real only if they see it. It felt like Jesus was asking me to throw reality out the window and as weird as that seems, I knew that I must do so.

My doubt didn’t stop me because I kept doing the lessons. That is all that is asked of us at this point. It seemed to me that Jesus was telling me that I am not upset by what is there, but that I am upset by what I think I see there. If my eyes are not showing me what is actually there, does that mean I must learn a new way to see?