I am never upset for the reason I think.
1. This idea, like the previous one, can be applied to any person, situation, or event you believe is causing you pain.I
²Apply it specifically to everything you think is making you upset, and describe the feeling you experience in whatever terms seem appropriate to you.
³The upset may seem to be fear, worry, depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, jealousy, or any other form of discomfort you perceive as different.
⁴But it is not true that they are different. ⁵However, until you learn that the form does not matter, each of them is a suitable subject for today’s practice.II
⁶Applying the same idea to each of these forms of upset individually is the first step toward eventually recognizing that they are all the same.
2. When applying today’s idea to the specific cause you believe is behind your upset, use both the name of the disturbance as you perceive it and the “cause” you attribute to it.
²For example:
³I am not angry with ____ for the reason I think.
⁴I am not afraid of ____ for the reason I think.
⁵But again, this should not replace the practice of first searching your mind for what you believe is the “cause” of the distress you are experiencing and the form in which you see it.III
3. In this exercise, more than in the previous ones, you may find it difficult to be impartial and to avoid giving greater importance to some subjects than to others.
²It may help to begin the practice by saying:
³There are no small upsets.
⁴They all equally disturb my peace of mind.IV
⁵Then search your mind for anything that is troubling you, regardless of how much or how little you believe it is affecting you.
4. You may also be less willing to apply today’s idea to certain causes of upset than to others.
²If this is so, think first of this:
³I cannot keep this form of upset and let go of the others.
⁴For the purpose of this exercise, I will regard them all as the same.
⁵Then examine your mind for about a minute and try to identify the different forms of upset that are disturbing you, regardless of the degree of importance you assign to them.
⁶Apply today’s idea to each one, naming both the perceived cause of the upset and the emotion you feel.
⁷Other examples might be:
⁸I am not worried about ____ for the reason I think.
⁹I am not depressed about ____ for the reason I think.
5. It is enough to do this three or four times today.
I This Lesson is also very important. Emotions arise from our judgments. Without a prior judgment, no emotion is possible. All discomfort or distress comes from a judgment of condemnation, from something we reject because it shatters our expectations. Just as pain signals that something is wrong in the body, emotional discomfort signals that something is wrong in the mind. If we suffer in any way, it means we are misusing the mind, for we are thinking something that is not true. In that sense, everything that is not true is the same: a falsehood. Our anger is the emotional response to a story we have told ourselves, according to which the idea we hold about ourselves—our ego—or our idea of how reality ought to be—our imagined ideal world—has been violated. Both ideas are false, arbitrary, and changeable.
II The world of forms is the symbolic language used by perception. Just as Sigmund Freud rightly described the figures of dreams as symbols of underlying emotional causes, perception is the dream of the world, and it too is an effect of deeper causes. That is why forms, in themselves, “do not matter,” for they are only effects.
III That is to say, it is not enough to declare that you are not upset for a given reason. You must look within your mind for the idea that has led you to feel distressed—the underlying cause of your discomfort.
IV Every distress or discomfort has a positive function: it is a reminder urging you to regain peace of mind. We must remember that our peace has been disturbed by a prior thought which, as the previous Lesson indicates, “means nothing,” yet which we have regarded as true and important.
In a certain sense, the ego could be described as “that which” thinks what it imagines is true and important. That “being” does not exist; it is merely a whimsical “stance” of the mind.