I have given everything all the meaning it has for me.
1. I have given everything I see in this room, on this street, from this window, in this place, all the meaning that it has for me.I
2. The exercises to be done with this idea are the same as those for the first lesson.
²Begin with the things that are near you and apply the idea to anything your eyes happen to rest on.
³Then widen your scope.
⁴Turn your head to include what is on either side.
⁵If possible, turn around and apply the idea to what is behind you.
⁶Remain as evenhanded as possible in selecting the objects.
⁷Do not concentrate on anything in particular, and do not attempt to include everything you see in a given area, as that would cause strain.
3. Simply glance around you with a quiet, relaxed gaze, trying not to select objects based on their size, brightness, color, material, or the importance they have to you.
²Practice with whatever you see.
³Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, a fly or the floor, an arm or an apple.
⁴The only criterion for applying the idea to anything is simply that your eyes have rested on it. ⁵Do not try to include anything in particular, but be sure not to exclude anything deliberately.
I The only meaning that the things of the world have for you is the meaning you have given them; in themselves, the things of this world have no meaning. The proof of this is that the same thing can have different meanings for different subjects. For example, this chair means something entirely different to you than it does to your dog.
Although thoughts are always subjective—since a “subject” is what conceives them—the personal mind has a pronounced tendency to “objectify” its own thoughts, to regard them as true, and to believe that what it thinks is universally true. Obviously, everything the personal mind conceives is subjective, yet the mind itself forgets this and elevates it to the status of an “established fact.”
This Lesson urges you to recognize that, in truth, you are the one who has given meaning to everything you behold, whether because the world taught you so or by your own judgment. In any case, ultimately it is you who has deemed that judgment to be true.
Be aware also that this applies equally to what you claim to know and to what you assert you do not know. For that which you call unknown or unknowable also bears a label of your own making—one that reads: “I do not know what that means.” Thus you “catalog” even that which you believe you do not know.
Today you must learn to become conscious that you always relate to everything you perceive on your own terms.