To post comments in the discussion, click "Reply" in any of the posts. While everyone is welcome to view the discussion, only registered users can post comments. Click here to register.

Good Morning,

I see nothing as it is now.  Lesson 7 and 8 taught us that we see only the past and that we are preoccupied with past thoughts.  Today's lesson is that I see nothing as it is now.  Makes sense if you follow the logic of the progression of lessons.  Don't worry if these lessons are troubling you, or causing you to be irritated, or goading you into thinking they are trivial.  If you were already enlightened, would you need A Course in Miracles?   You have taken the courageous step to suspend your understanding of the world as it exists for you now, to look deeper and to be willing to be wrong about what you thought. 

The first sentence of paragraph 2 says:  It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there.  This is no small statement, folks.  It undermines our very reality.  It makes us wonder what these lessons are trying to pull on us.  To undertake these lessons requires a suspension of belief in the status quo, a desire for a new way of perceiving reality, and the willingness to accept uncertainty and "not knowing". 

Remember when we learned how to ride a bike?  We didn't just go from standing up and desiring the ability to ride the bike, it was a PROCESS.  You had the training wheels and the lessons in balancing and the falls and spills.  But nothing deterred you from wanting to ride the bike and you believed that you would ride the bike eventually. 

These lessons are kind of like that!  Thanks to all you brave souls.

Joan

Ditto.  The site is beautiful-- thank you, The Garden Now--and HUGE thanks to Joan for the comments.  I find them direct, refreshingly candid, interesting, and simply wise.  It's hard for me to believe the "bad" in Joan's confession that she has "a mixture of good, bad and confusing thoughts."  :)

Thanks for your support and encouragement.  I really appreciate when people post.  I know you're "out there" in spirit but its nice to get some feedback in words! 

Great point, Joan. It is our willingness to practice and apply these lessons that will eventually allow us to get past these areas of discomfort and reach a place of understanding. Zen author and teacher Cheri Huber wrote in her great little book, The Key - and the Name of the Key is Willingness:

"To do anything there must be willingness to do it. Achievement is commensurate with effort. Effort is commensurate with willingness."

 Changing a single belief is difficult enough. As with "A Course in Miracles", dismantling the entire belief system of the ego can sometimes feel like setting myself on fire a little bit at a time.

To use your bike metaphor, I am now learning that there is such a thing as a bike and that riding it is a possibility. Once I know that a bike exists, pretending that walking is my only option isn't an option anymore.

Okay, but does it not create a problem if deep examination of our pasts in seeking to release ourselves from the restraints of those past experiences causes a fixation upon that which we are seeking to free ourselves from?

"There is no try, only do"

Yoda

I will refer back to lesson 7. "I see only the past." Deep examination of the past is kind of redundant. It's pretty much all we "do". Otherwise, we wouldn't know how to function.