Keys to this Lesson
Today’s idea explains why nothing we see means anything.
We don’t know what it is for and it is meaningless!
All of the previous lessons come in to play here.
We think the world is meaningful based upon what our ego has told us.
The ego is not who we are and the ego does not have our best interests in mind.
The ego is a false identification and so we really can’t have understanding if it is false.
Jesus tells us that when we can believe all of this we will try to withdraw our belief in the world instead of trying to make the world more real to us.
He shares with us the idea of purpose.
The example is given of a telephone.
We understand that a phone has a purpose to talk to someone who is not in the same room with us,
YET, we do not know WHY we want to talk to the person.
We think we do. But we do not.
Because we do not understand we do not know if the contact that we have is meaningful or not.
We have to give up all the goals that we have made for everything.
We have to recognize that they are meaningless.
Not good or bad, but meaningless.
As we proceed with this lesson, we will continue to train our minds to learn.
Exercise
6 practice periods, two minutes each.
Repeat idea for today, slowly.
Look about you and let your eyes glance on whatever catches your eye.
It doesn’t matter what it is.
Jesus says here to use whatever it may be, important or unimportant, human or nonhuman.
As you rest your eyes on the subject:
I do not know what this chair is for.
I do not know what this pen is for.
I do not know what this hand is for.
You are to say this slowly, keeping your eyes focused on the subject until you have completed the statement.
This may seem a little trying as you may feel you want to rush through the practice, or it seems boring to you or trivial.
Slow down and just trust Jesus in the process.
Keep moving to the next subject until the practice period is complete.
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Today’s lesson reminds me of something I learned several years ago that my sponsor in AA told me. He said the fact is Bob that you do not know what is good for you. At the time I thought: “How can he say that”, “how can he know that”? He’s just insulting me.! But over time I had to realize that he had a point. If I look back over my life I realized that literally he was right about every major decision I had made in my life. I had not known what was good for me, up to that moment.
And he was also right that if I just quit pretending that I knew what was right for me that things might start to go easier in my life!
That was an astounding revelation! This is when I 1st heard the word surrender applied to my life for the 1st time. Surrender was no longer a dirty word. Surrender could give me peace of mind. It is a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
It is very reassuring that the Course teaches the very same lesson. Nothing I have read in the Course has proven to be wrong.
Amen Bob! It took a while to set in as you described in your “story” and also in mine!