It is impossible to see two worlds.
A Course in Miracles is simple because it offers us only two choices: reality or unreality, love or fear, innocence or guilt. It is hard – sometimes brutally so – because choosing the reality of our innocence manifest in our inheritance of love means the end of suffering.
And we are very very interested in – very very committed to – suffering. We like to be victims, especially innocent victims. We like the world to be cruel, indifferent and unfair. If it were easy to choose peace, we would have done so a long time ago. We would not need A Course in Miracles, nor any other help.
Today’s lesson helps us see more clearly the totality of the choice we make with respect to the world we see. We can only see one world, and when we see it, the other is disappeared entirely. There is no such thing as a little bit of reality, or a little bit of fear. It is all or nothing.
As a simple example, you could look around you right now and notice the space you are in. I am in the hayloft/office writing and reading. While I am here doing this, I am not throwing a frisbee at the beach with my kids. I am not drinking tea with Chrisoula in the kitchen.
Just as our body can only be in one place at one time, our mind can only choose to see one world – the world made by fear and ego or the world interpreted by love and the Holy Spirit. The one I choose renders the other invisible.
You and I do not want to suffer anymore. Nor do we want the world to suffer. Our desire for the end of suffering is still weak, but it cannot be denied. Our goal, then, is to strengthen our willingness to accept Christ’s Vision, in which we perceive only what is shared and thus serves the function of “loving in a loveless place” (T-14.IV.4:10).
In doing this, we actively refuse to see the ego’s world of differences, competition, sacrifice and loss. Critically, in doing this, we learn that we are not actually choosing between reality and unreality because what is not real does not exist.
Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe make up the world. They are not there. Love’s enemy has made them up. Yet love can have no enemy, and so they have no cause, no being and no consequence (W-pI.130.4:1-5).
We are liberated when we realize there is nothing to choose between; there is only the Love of God endlessly creating, and taking joy in what is created.
The power of mind is such that it can make the impossible appear very real. Indeed, lifetimes can pass in dreams of suffering and pain. When we choose suffering, the world we see produces suffering. The external world always reflects our thinking (W-pI.130.1:2) and our thinking always reflects “our choice of what we want to see” (W-pI.130.1:3).
Accepting this, our work today involves regular attempts to see not the illusion of a world constructed of fear and suffering but rather a world lit up with God’s grace, which is the Vision of Christ.
You will not doubt what you look upon, for though it is perception, it is not the kind of seeing that your eyes alone have ever seen before. And you will know God’s strength upheld you as made this choice (W-pI.130.9:4-5).
Our faithfulness to the daily lesson matters more than what we think of it. It seems too fantastic or supernatural, it violates common sense, it’s too hard or too abstract. The decision to practice reflects the underlying decision to refuse illusion in favor of truth. At that level, we cannot make a mistake.
Without expectation, without a lot of drama, simply understand that a mind which chooses fear cannot simultaneously choose love and then choose love. If you cannot do this, don’t worry about it. The fact that you tried means that you are ready to succeed. Dreams of pain cannot long survive in a mind which does not want them. We are nearer than we know to unending peace and joy.
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