I loose the world from all I thought it was.
What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.
Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think. You free the past from what you thought before. You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find.
The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind.
The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came.
There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind.
But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is. There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.
But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.
And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today. Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.
A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea. You are as God created you. There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?
What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.
Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timelessness and Love. Are these inherent in the world you see? Does it create like Him? Unless it does, it is not real, and cannot be at all. If you are real the world you see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by which you were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free, that you may know the Thoughts you share with God.
Release the world! Your real creations wait for this release to give you fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him.
There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.
Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about all living things we see upon it. They can not be there. No more can we. For we are in the home our Father set for us, along with them. And we who are as He created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions, that we may be free.
Begin the fifteen-minute periods in which we practice twice today with this:
I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. 3 For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.
Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with you.
You need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world, as well as to the ones you see nearby, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. But you will sense your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released alone.
Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:
I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
-Lesson 132
“I loose the world from all I thought it was.”
This lesson has taken on a deeper meaning for me than ever before. I have understood that a central idea of this course is that there is no world. But now the connection is much stronger in my mind that for me to know my Self, I need to accept that there is no world. I cannot continue to believe anything in this world is real and know my Self. To know my Self as God created me, I cannot believe the world is real. That is why it is essential that I loose the world from all I thought it was. I need to step back and recognize illusion as illusion.
The ego resists this with every trick imaginable, because when I fully accept that there is no world, I fully accept that there is no ego and I am not the ego. It is because of my identification with the ego thought system that it seems difficult to recognize the unreality of this world. No one is willing to give up what they believe is their identity. This world was made to make the ego identity seem real.
Thankfully, I am not the ego. I am still as God created me. It is this that gives me hope and strength. It is this fact that assures me that I will return Home to the hearth of my Creator, no matter how much I may wander in dreams. It is clear now that recognizing my Self and seeing this world as real are mutually exclusive. I can experience one or the other, but never both. The first is reality. The second, the world, is unreality, only a dream. Only my belief in the dream, in the idea of separation, makes it seem real. But I would loose the world from all I thought it was.
As I do this lesson, I look out of my window and see the beautiful, secluded lake in the middle of the forest. There are no other signs of “civilization” visible. I find it peaceful to look upon, yet I remind myself that this is not real. There is no world, though the trees and water appear real to my body’s senses. Throughout the day I practice reminding myself there is no world. What my body’s eyes show me is not real, nor is the body. I continue to go through my day, doing the things that I am directed to do.
As I remind myself there is no world, I find it brings me peace. I am less attached to specific outcomes. I am less prone to judge. The purpose given for my doing is more often for the purpose of healing my mind and sharing the healing and less to maintain an image of any kind. While I may feel like I may be a long way from fully accepting the unreality of this world, its nonexistence, I am aware that as I move in that direction, I walk with a lighter step, with more joy in my heart and more Love to offer the world. This is my goal and I will continue to practice.
This lesson reminds me of the power of my beliefs. This lesson asks me to look at the source of every thought that I hold in my mind. I am to ask myself, “What is the source of this thought? Does it come from the split mind or from my true Self?” As I learn to question every thought that I hold, I go through the process of letting go of belief in the world. Belief in the world comes from the ego mind. Its foundation lies in the belief in separation.
If I want to remember my true Self, I must loose the world from all I thought it was. I must go through the daily process of undoing or letting go of all the false ideas that come from the ego split mind. The strength of God is in me. The strength of God will help me let go of all these false imaginings. God is my Source. Vision is His gift. It is my willingness to open to Christ’s Vision that brings It into my awareness.
Right now what helps my willingness is to maintain my consistency in working with the Course day by day. The central thought the Course attempts to teach is “There is no world!” (6:2) As I continue being consistent and sticking to my daily study and practice, my willingness to open to the truth gradually expands more and more each day.
The ego thoughts many times tell me that there are more important things to do. But as I stick with reinforcing the thought system in the Course, I am more easily able to see through the ego’s false ideas and lay them down. Not because they are bad, but because they are meaningless.
As I continue to go to the Holy Spirit, with every fear, with every problem or concern, I am finding that the Holy Spirit is always there, eager to return my mind to the truth that I am still as God created me. I am safe because there is no world. The Love of God is all there is. The hand of Christ is all there is to hold. All is still safe in the Mind of God. God’s peace and joy and Love are mine to receive and extend.
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