ACIM

This is our first attempt to introduce structure. Do not misconstrue it as an effort to exert force or pressure. You want salvation. You want to be happy. You want peace. You do not have them now, because your mind is totally undisciplined, and you cannot distinguish between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and fear. You are now learning how to tell them apart. And great indeed will be your reward.

We can see any situation differently if we are first willing to recognize that we don’t see clearly.

I am determined to see.

The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone. You will notice that at times the ideas related to thinking precede those related to perceiving, while at other times the order is reversed. The reason is that the order does not matter. Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate.

Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate.  (Needed to repeat that to myself.)

Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an “invasion of privacy.” Yet it is a fact that there are no private thoughts. Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God.

When you begin to realize that your thoughts are not truly private, it does make you feel far more responsible for what is going on in your head.

I read a book called Mirroring People by Marco Iacoboni not too long ago.  It’s about something called mirror neurons.  Iacoboni is a neurologist and calls his research on mirror neurons existential neurology.  Iacoboni claims that there is scientific evidence of our interdependence and that the reason we have so much difficulty accepting this is based upon faulty philosophies that have been handed down to us for hundreds of years.  He says the most dominant view in Western culture in thinking about the mind originates from a position that goes back to Descarte: that the starting point of the mind is the private, individual, solitary act of thinking. But according to Merleau-Ponty, “I live in the facial expression of the other, as I feel him living in mine.” And Wittgenstein: “We see emotion… We do not see facial contortions and make the inference that he is feeling joy, grief, boredom. We describe the face immediately as sad, radiant, bored, even when we are unable to give any other description of the features.” According to Iacoboni, mirror neurons explain how the existential phenomenologists got it right and Descartes got it wrong.

I’m not so sure how Iacoboni’s research would fit the idea that thinking and its results are simultaneous.  But I suppose it would still make sense.  Iacoboni says that scientists and philosophers have long believed that we recognize an emotion before we feel it.  But Iacoboni’s research shows that it is actually the other way around.  We feel the emotion before we recognize it.  The feeling of the emotion shows up on our face and others mirror our facial reaction which makes them feel what it is we are feeling and so it goes.  This often goes completely unnoticed by us.    Obviously, how we choose to perceive things is going to create an emotional reaction within us that others will read and so it goes.  We think the cause and effect are separate, but they are simultaneous.

• We are not alone in experiencing the effects of our thoughts.
• I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts about studying biology.
• I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts about the sirens that are blaring.
• I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts about feeling each other’s energy.
• I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts about my dog needing to go to the restroom.

Especially since a dog doesn’t “go to the restroom”!  (It’s raining outside and she has to go out but won’t.)

It’s strange to think that other people are experiencing these sorts of thoughts!

I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.

The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later on.

We do pick up an each other’s energy.  The other day I was in one a pissy mood.  I mean a really pissy mood!  We have a faulty dryer that requires being turned on a kazillion times in order to get one load of clothes dry.  We invariably end up with mountains of laundry and clothes that need to be soaked in vinegar because they are left wet in the washing machine too long thanks to clothes not drying in the dryer.

Our dryer is upstairs which makes it extra difficult for me because I have trouble going up and down the stairs on my crappy ankle.  My teenagers aren’t particularly responsible when it comes to taking care of their clothes, especially my son!!! So yesterday, I decided to do stuff upstairs so I could get on top of some of the mountains of laundry.  I’d been turning it on over and over and over again for hours and was cussing every time I had to get up and turn it on again (something like every 10-15 minutes).  When it came time to fold clothes, I broke down in tears at the sight of my husband’s socks.  Apparently, he had been putting them aside for me to sort and I HATE sorting his socks.  I’ve been doing it for 20 years, for God’s sake.  He came upstairs and I told him I wasn’t going to sort his socks anymore because I HATE his socks.

This could have blown into something ugly had he responded ugly.  But he didn’t.  He asked me what his socks had ever done to me and told me his socks loved me.  They were really sad that I said I hated them and their feelings were hurt.  He pulled out his drawer and started sorting them himself while dancing and periodically mimicking a kiss to his socks while apologizing to them for what I had said .  I went from crying to laughing so hard I could barely stand it.

Apparently, even my husbands socks are involved in the effects of my seeing.

Today’s idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today emphasize this aspect of your perception.

• I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see my husband’s socks.
• I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see the dryer.
• I am not alone in experiencing how I see the effects of my the mountains of laundry.
• I am not alone in experiencing how I see the effects of my dancing husband.

I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.

The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. Those that are true create their own likeness. Those that are false make theirs.

Every thought either extends truth or it multiplies illusion.

• This thought about my messy house is not a neutral thought.
• This thought about my dog tearing the stuffing out of her monkey is not a neutral thought.
• This thought about how tired I am of allergies is not a neutral thought.
• This thought about my daughter getting up at a decent hour is not a neutral thought.
• This thought about my son having left the Wii in the middle of the den is not a neutral thought.
• This thought about my son creating a recording studio in his room is not a neutral thought.

It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your “seeing” was made. This is the function you have given your body’s eyes. It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.

Methinks I think, therefore I think, I think.   But no, I only think I think.  Because I think I think, I don’t “see”.  I merely make images with mine eyes through the thoughts I think I’m thinking.

Is it just me, or does ACIM sometimes get a bit cryptic and Shakespearean?  Me thinks I think I get it, however.  We think we “see”, but we have actually replaced real “seeing” with the images of our thoughts.  (This is the function for which we have created eyes.)

Jesus would agree. Just after he tells the parable of the sower to the multitudes and he is again alone with his disciples, he tells them:

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.  Mark 4: 11-12

Jesus isn’t trying to fool the people by teaching in parables, he’s trying to get beyond the images created by what it is they think is reality.  He gets frustrated with his disciples, too.  A few chapters later he chastises them because they are taking him too literally:

Having eyes, do you not see? and having ears, do you not hear? and do you not remember? (Mark 8:18)

We think we see, but we do not.  We think we hear, but we do not.  Our thoughts are images we have made. They are, in effect, the idols we worship.

ACIM says that we will know we are beginning to “see” when we see little edges of light around things.  In fact, as we go on, we may have many “light episodes”.  I noticed that Ben mentioned on his blog that he is beginning to see energy emanating from everyone he contacts and that it is like having an antenna that is becoming more finely tuned for improved reception.  ACIM says that this sort of experience is not knowledge and it may not persist, but it is a symbol/sign of true perception.

I had several fairly significant “light episodes” in my 30s although I rarely have them anymore, although I have always been able to see light around people.  Both of my kids and many of their friends claim to have this ability, too.

Lots of people discuss having various light experiences. Annie Dillard offers a beautiful example in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She describes an illumination that was a tree. A Buddhist might say it is the uncontained experience of the tree before our mind contains it by labeling it “tree”. It is the ability to actually “see” beyond our labels and our beliefs about it.

• This dog is an image that I have made.
• That cat is an image that I have made.
• This computer is an image that I have made.
• This TV is an image that I have made.
• That pillow is an image that I have made.
• That plant is an image that I have made.
• That crystal pitcher is an image that I have made.
• That candle is an image that I have made.
• That incense holder is an image that I have made.

My thoughts are images that I have made.

The world you see has nothing to do with reality.  It is of your own making and it does not exist.

On the one hand, this makes total sense to me.  What we see/experience is based on sensory experience and an interpretation of that sensory experience.  The meaning we give that experience is a projection.  It isn’t reality.

On the other hand, I still get tripped up saying something like, “The holocaust isn’t real”, because such human horrors remain such a reality for the people who experienced them.  But it is a seeming reality (as is all experience), not an actual reality.  One of the most effective means of healing someone who has post traumatic stress disorder is by helping them to directly face the trauma, which involves helping them to “relive” what it is they most fear.  This works because it helps them realize that what they fear, doesn’t exist.  It can’t hurt them any longer unless they allow it to hurt them.  This isn’t an attempt to convince people they didn’t experience what it is they experienced.  It’s not like saying, “your experiences at Auschwitz weren’t important”.  Quite the contrary.  It is the perception of our experience that most shapes our lives.  But that doesn’t mean perception of experience, or experience for that matter, is real in actuality.  It is an experience of reality.  Not reality itself.   (It is a perception of an experience of reality.)

My own personal list of horrors is ever shifting.

• God did not create malaria, so it isn’t real.
• God did not create pancreatic cancer, so it isn’t real.
• God did not create starvation, so it isn’t real.
• God did not create global warming, so it isn’t real.
• God did not create the oil spill, so it isn’t real.
• God did not create diabetes, so it isn’t real.
• God did not create heart attacks, so they aren’t real.
• God did not create the current animal holocaust, and so it isn’t real.

God did not create a meaningless world.

Engender – to bring into existence

A meaningless world brings fear into existence.  A meaningless world brings fear into existence.  A meaningless world brings fear into existence.

Sorry.  Just have to wrap my brain around that.  A meaningless world brings fear into existence.  It’s a good point.  A meaningful world doesn’t bring fear into existence.  What we understand, we don’t fear.  We fear what it is we don’t understand, and so we create meaning in order to assuage our fear.

Today’s idea is really another form of the preceding one, except that it is more specific as to the emotion aroused. Actually, a meaningless world is impossible. Nothing without meaning exists. However, it does not follow that you will not think you perceive something that has no meaning. On the contrary, you will be particularly likely to think you do perceive it.

A meaningless world is impossible?  Is Course referring to the denotative meaning of meaningless here?  Or the connotative meaning?  Something else?

Here we go with this cryptic language…  It does not follow… that you will not think… you perceive something… that has no meaning.

Let me give this a stab…  Nothing without meaning exists.  However, just because all that exists has meaning, does not mean that you will not think you perceive something that has no meaning.

Ah!  OK.  One more try.  Everything that exists has meaning.  That being so, it won’t keep you from perceiving things that do not have meaning.  Despite the fact that everything that exists has meaning, we continue to perceive that which does not exist and is therefore meaningless.

Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego “challenge” each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space that meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own ideas there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own impotence and unreality. And on this alone it is correct.

It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes that it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist. To the ego illusions are safety devices, as they must also be to you who equate yourself with the ego.

You don’t have to use the term “God” here.  There is Reality and unreality.  The term “God” can be interchanged with “Reality”. The ego creates what is unreal and therefore meaningless.  Reality has meaning, but it is not a meaning we can comprehend through the ego.

So – does that mean ACIM is pointing to connotative meaning?  Or something else?  Ultimately, it is connotative meaning that means the most to us.  After all, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.   But connotative meaning remains a part of the ego, doesn’t it?  It’s difficult to imagine that denotative meaning would engender fear.  Surely it is the connotative meaning that engenders fear.  But what the ego does when it experiences fear is to create denotative meaning, not connotative meaning, right?  We divide and conquer by naming, categorizing, and cataloging.  In that way we attempt to gain understanding.  Denotative meaning is ultimately symbolic, but we still think of it as real.  Connotative meaning is more directly experienced because it is felt more than it is actually understood.   (The word river denotes a moving body of water and may connote such things as the relentlessness of time and the changing nature of life.)

I don’t know.  I’m not a psychologist and this is the first I’ve even considered denotative or connotative meaning in terms of ACIM.  Perhaps it has nothing to do with it at all, but I’m going to keep it in mind, anyway.

I am looking at a meaningless world.

A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God/Reality.

What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises.

The point is – to accept life on its own terms rather than the way we want it to be. We hold on to beliefs for our future based upon our past experience, but both the past and the future are an illusion. All there is – is now. Any attempt to live in the future or the past is going to lead to anxiety.  We aren’t open to today being totally different than yesterday.

We think that what upsets us is an oppressive world, or an insane, world, or a miserable world. The world is meaningless in and of itself – we have given it it’s meaning and it is we who must take responsibility for it.

I think I see a scary world, a dying world, a tragic world, an absurd word. But I am upset because I see a meaningless world.

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. Each man is questioned by life and can only answer to life by answering for his own life, by being responsible. Responsibleness is the essence of human existence.” ~ Victor Frankl