My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.I
1. This is the first idea connected to a crucial phase of the correction process: the reversal of the way the world thinks.II
²It seems as if the world determines what you perceive. ³Today’s idea introduces the concept that it is your own thoughts that shape the world you see.III
⁴It will require much practice to accept this idea as true.IV
⁵Be sincerely glad to practice it just as it is presented here, for this idea holds the guarantee of your release.V
⁶In it lies the key to forgiveness.VI
2. Today’s practice sessions should be conducted somewhat differently from the previous ones.
²Begin with your eyes closed and repeat the idea slowly to yourself.
³Then open your eyes and look around you, near and far, up and down—anywhere.
⁴For the one minute that you dedicate to practicing this idea, simply repeat it silently, making sure to do so without haste and without any sense of urgency or effort.
3. In order to gain the maximum benefit from these exercises, your gaze should move fairly rapidly from one thing to another, since it should not rest on anything in particular.
²The words, however, should be spoken without rush, even in a relaxed manner.VII
³Practice the idea as naturally as possible.
⁴It contains the foundation of the peace, the relaxation, and the freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve.VIII
⁵At the end of the practice period, close your eyes and repeat the idea slowly once more.
4. Three practice sessions today will probably be sufficient.
²However, if you experience little or no discomfort and feel inclined to do more, you may do as many as five.
³More than that is not recommended.
I The world I believe I perceive outside myself—the one I call “reality”—has no intrinsic meaning; it possesses only the meaning I have assigned to it through thoughts which, in themselves, are also meaningless. These thoughts, conceived as insubstantial “forms”—the voice of the ego—are the product of a primordial fear: the apparent separation from God, Who is Existence itself. In essence, such thoughts express the idea of separation.
The appearance of a fictitious world before the eyes of an equally fictitious character functions, in a sense, as a protective mechanism, for the idea of being separate from Reality—absolute loneliness—is terrifying and unbearable to the mind. And since nature abhors a vacuum, the mind that contemplates that idea “invents” an imaginary screen—consciousness—onto which it projects its fears and desires. In this way, the mind dreams the world it believes is real. Moreover, given that the idea of being an isolated “self,” set apart from everything, is by nature fragmentary, everything I perceive also appears fragmented and separate.
What I call “reality,” “the world,” or “matter,” and take to be something external, is nothing more than a set of meaningless ideas that have never left my mind, for they exist only within it. This world is apparently composed of ever smaller elements—organs, cells, molecules, atoms, quarks—that arise as the result of a disintegrative process culminating in the insubstantiality of quantum indeterminacy.
Have you ever wondered why nothing has ever been found that is not in perpetual change when examined closely? And if everything is constantly changing to become something else, is it not precisely that changing nature that we define as illusion?
II “…it is your thoughts that determine the world you see” (1:3) is one of the Course’s fundamental principles. This idea gives rise to the celebrated statement: “Therefore, do not try to change the WORLD, but rather try to change your mind ABOUT the world” (T-21.I.1:7).
The mind exists; the world, in itself, does not. We tend to believe that the world causes—or at least influences—what we think, but this Course teaches that the mind is the true cause of all things, whereas the world is merely the effect of an obscured mind.
III For the first time a startling idea is introduced here, one that will be repeated in various forms later on, such as: “I AM responsible for what I see” (T-21.IV.2:3). This implies that my opinions about the world are not the result of the world being a certain way; on the contrary, I am the one who makes the world I perceive out of my way of thinking. The world is not the cause of my opinions, but their effect.
This notion is a foundational pillar in the Course’s ontology and constitutes the basis of forgiveness. Since the world, in itself, is devoid of meaning, what I truly forgive are my own meaningless thoughts. Precisely because these thoughts are unreal, they are what shape a guilty world that I myself have invented.
IV This line appears in Helen’s Notes, but not in later versions, nor in the Urtext.
V You are not a victim of the world you think you see, but of what you tell yourself.
VI The world is not to blame for anything. The guilt I perceive in it is a projection of my own mind. If what I observe outside is the result of meaningless thoughts, then there is nothing in that seemingly external world that deserves to be “blamed.” The only thing that needs to be corrected is my own thoughts.
VII Unlike the previous exercises, in this one you do not apply the idea concretely to the objects around you by naming them as you do so. Instead, the repetition of the idea and the shift in your gaze do not occur simultaneously. Both activities unfold at different tempos: the swiftness with which you direct your gaze contrasts with the slowness with which you repeat the idea.
VIII I can set my mind at ease and forgive what I perceive because it is meaningless. I only condemn and judge when I believe I am seeing something meaningful—something bad, wicked, or terrible. Yet if what I perceive has no meaning, there is no reason to condemn it.
And if my mind is the cause of what I see, how could I judge it? All I can do is acknowledge, as the Text states, that “I am responsible for what I see” (T-21.IV.2:3) and choose to change my own mind.