Today we review the following: W-41 to W-45 I
1. W-41 “God goes with me wherever I go.”II
²How can I be alone when God always goes with me?
³How can I be uncertain and insecure when perfect certainty resides in Him?
⁴How can I be disturbed by anything when He rests in me in absolute peace?
⁵How can I suffer when love and joy surround me through Him?
⁶Let me not cherish illusions about myself.
⁷I am perfect because God goes with me wherever I go.
2. W-42 “God is my strength. Vision is His gift.”III
²Let me not look to my own eyes to see today.
³Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God.
⁴Christ’s vision is His gift, and He has given it to me.
⁵Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity.
3. W-43 “God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.”IV
²I can see what God wants me to see.
³I cannot see anything else.
⁴Beyond His Will lie only illusions.
⁵It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him.
⁶It is these I choose when I try to see through the body’s eyes.
⁷Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them.
⁸It is through this vision that I choose to see.
4. W-44 “God is the Light in which I see.”V
²I cannot see in darkness.
³God is the only Light.
⁴Therefore, if I am to see, it must be through Him.
⁵I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been wrong.
⁶Now it is given me to understand that God is the Light in which I see.
⁷Let me welcome vision and the happy world it will show me.
5. W-45 “God is the Mind with which I think.”VI
²I have no thoughts I do not share with God.
³I have no thoughts apart from Him, because I am not apart from His Mind.
⁴As part of His Mind, my thoughts are His and His Thoughts are mine.
I The five ideas for today are absolutely true, but it is also true that they are absolutely incredible. You do not believe them. If you did, you would not be here. In fact, you are not here, but because instead of believing the truth these Lessons express, you have chosen to believe something else, you now believe you are in this world, which is not true at all.
To believe is to think that what you imagine is true. But truth cannot be imagined; truth can only be being, because you are the truth. Yet that, too, is incredible, because you cannot imagine it either. The only thing you can imagine are illusions, because that is precisely what illusions are: imaginings. Images are not real, because reality is perfectly abstract, and you are real; that is why you cannot imagine what you are, you can only be it.
To believe is to misuse the mind. Your mind was created to create, not to believe. Believing is good for nothing, so do not worry at all if you cannot believe the five ideas for today; it is perfectly natural. You will never be able to believe them; they are intrinsically unbelievable because they are the truth. Do not worry. You are the Son of God, even if you do not believe it, nor can believe it. Do not waste time trying to believe; simply trust and work.
Jesus does not ask you to believe in the ideas he proposes. Today it is especially worthwhile to read slowly again the introduction to this Workbook:
“Some of the ideas you will find hard to believe, and others may seem quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply them to what you see. You are not asked to judge them, nor even to believe them. You are merely asked to use them. Their use is what will give them meaning to you and will show you that they are true. Remember only this: It is not necessary to believe the ideas. It is not necessary to accept them. And it is not necessary to welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter or lessen their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas contained in the exercises. Whatever your reaction to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.”
II This is a supremely powerful thought. The more you use it, the greater will be its effects. It will transform your life and fill you with trust and certainty. It is not enough merely to repeat it; you need to reflect it in every one of your actions. Strive to embody this powerful idea at all times.
For learning to be truly effective, it must be fully experienced in its two dimensions. The first is receptive: it consists in opening yourself completely to the idea you wish to root in your mind. The second, equally important or even more so, is when you internalize that idea by sharing it with others.
That is why you should not only repeat to yourself that God always goes with you; act as someone who truly feels His presence. Do this and watch the results.
III This thought calls upon humility. With God you can do all things; without Him, you will live only a dream of fear, loneliness, and death. By linking your strength with God, you make yourself invulnerable to discouragement, danger, and temptation.
Apply this idea just as you did the previous one: do not merely repeat it; put the Strength of God into action and use it in everything you do. Always reject any thought of weakness and be realistic: God is with you and infuses His Strength into everything you undertake in faith.
IV To think that you can see something meaningful without God is as illusory as believing you can know reality by watching television. You may convince yourself of it, but it remains an absurd idea. Whenever the world depresses or frightens you, you may be absolutely sure that you are seeing nothing real; you are simply dreaming. You have fallen into a deep hypnotic sleep, and what you believe you see is nothing but an illusion.
The eyes of the body were not made to see reality, but to dream. The problem is that your thought system is inverted and you interpret everything backwards. Reality is not outside you; Reality is the Kingdom of God that dwells within you and that, in essence, you are.
In this world, you can only glimpse “aspects” of Reality in the form of reflections of love in everything you behold. These flashes of love are the echoes of truth that transcend the world’s illusions and remind you of your divine origin. When you succeed in seeing with the eyes of the spirit, you recognize the light behind appearances and perceive the divine essence that connects everything and everyone.
Accepting this requires a deep change in your way of seeing and understanding. It is an inner transformation that leads you to look beyond forms and appearances to recognize the eternal and immutable. In doing so, you begin to awaken from the dream of the world and remember your true identity.
V Notice that everything depends on what you want to see. If you use the world’s light to interpret what lies before you, you will continue to see the sad and guilty world that almost everyone sees here, which is the one you have granted yourself until now. But is that what you want to keep seeing? Is that what you want to keep feeling?
VI Recognize that you still do not understand well what the mind is nor what it means to think. You call thinking the act of relating concepts through preestablished functions. That is not true thinking; that is only processing data.
The world distinguishes between “human intelligence” and “artificial intelligence” and is surprised that a machine can “think” as well as or better than a human. The world has not yet realized that there is nothing surprising about this, that human intelligence is also artificial, and that is why machines can emulate it. That is nothing but algorithmic thinking: applying certain functions to certain concepts. Nothing more.
Thinking is creating, it is engendering Life from Life. Thinking is extending existence; it is what you do when you create in heavenly reality, and thus you bring forth your Creations, Son of God.