LESSON TWENTY THREE

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: The Course text is in bold face. The Guidance is in normal type In His Guidance, He has asked Me to capitalize the pronouns You and We as an acknowledgement of the Divinity of All of Us, an acknowledgement of Equality, an expression of His Love and respect for You. When You see the word ‘YOU’ capitalized in the Guidance, know that He is not just speaking to YOU, He is honoring YOU.

Workbook PART I

L e s s o n 23

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.

For thoughts of harmony must bring only good into Our shared world experience.  For We do see but our own bizarre, hellish miscreations.  They flow from our own (really the ego’s) mental aggression.

Would You still choose to be like this if You knew there was a way to gain Your freedom?  There most surely is if You will listen!

¹ The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will ever succeed.  Why is that?  Because You are the generator of the fear, and You can thus cease that operation. Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see.  As You allow Yourself to accept this, You begin to see that this  ‘world’ is ‘in here’ – in Your consciousness – and not ‘out there’. You also will begin to see that You have not been in charge; it’s been the ego. You are not the ego, and it’s not You. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work if your perception of the world is to be changed.  Now do You begin to really get an understanding of these words: When You choose to change Your mind about the world You see, that world changes for You accordingly.

² If the cause of the world you see is attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want. Rejoice! For You are not powerless against an insane world.  You need but heal Your own insanity. There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. An “effect” of what but Your own thinking? But (And) there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically.  And accordingly.

³ The world you see is a vengeful world, and everything in it is a symbol of vengeance. Each of your perceptions of “external reality” is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. I understand that this is troubling; yet would You ignore and continue with Your self-destruction?  For does not this dream ultimate in ‘death’? Is that it’s purpose? One can well ask if this can be called seeing. Is not fantasy a better word for such a process and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result?  Is not ‘death’ the underlying purpose of this fantasy: Your escape hatch from a dream that has become too much; for it’s Your passport back into another dream.

⁴ You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image-maker. But rather are You the ‘victim’ of Your own projected world. You cannot be saved from the world, – It’s Your own thinking! – but you can escape from its cause.  It’s Your own thinking! And this cannot be said too frequently! This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision – the Universe of God’s Reality – already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. You ask: Is this true? And I assure You! Loveliness can light your images and so transform them that you will love them even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone. You will again be congruent with God.

⁵ The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed.  You can change Your mind, and Your experience of it will change! This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced. The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not. Your images have already been replaced. By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so.  Would You not think with God instead of the unpleasant malicious, vicious, ego?

⁶ Besides using it throughout the day as the need arises, five practice periods are required in applying today’s idea. As you look about you, repeat the idea slowly to yourself and then close your eyes and devote about a minute to searching your mind for as many attack thoughts as occur to you. As each one crosses your mind say:

⁷ I can escape from the world by giving up
attack thoughts about _____.

⁸ Hold each attack thought in mind as you say this, and then dismiss that thought and go on to the next.  Their author is not God but the ego.

⁹ In the practice periods, be sure to include both your thoughts of attacking and of being attacked. Their effects are exactly the same because they are exactly the same. You do not yet recognize this, and you are asked at this time only to treat them as the same in today’s practice periods. We are still at the stage of identifying the cause of the world you see. When you finally realize that thoughts of attack and of being attacked are not different, you will be ready to let the cause go.  What is the premise of all this but the thought that this world is dangerous and the ego is Your protector. This is a lie! You live safe eternally with God.  Turn always to Him