A Course In Miracles, Lesson 56 plus Commentary by Allen Watson
Our review for today covers the following:
(26) My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.
How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will teach me what it is.
(27) Above all else I want to see.
Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision, I will look upon the world and on myself with charity and love.
(28) Above all else I want to see differently.
The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.
(29) God is in everything I see.
Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged. Behind every veil I have drawn across the face of love, its light remains undimmed. Beyond all my insane wishes is my will, united with the Will of my Father. God is still everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part of Him will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them all.
(30) God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.
In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of Who I am because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has not left His Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and one with Him.
Commentary by Allen Watson
The Door behind the World
There is a door behind this world which, if opened, will allow me to see past this world to a world that reflects the Love of God. It is a door in my mind, a door to vision.
This world, full of "pain, illness, loss, age and death" simply reflects what I think I am. It is a hallucination superimposed over reality, hiding it and seemingly replacing it.
The opening line of the review asks: "How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack?". Think about that. If I am truly under constant attack, beset by illness, loss, age and death, how can I be a perfect creation of God? How can God even be real? I believe in a self-image that is constantly threatened. If I am threatened, how could I be an eternal, spiritual being? If the picture I see in this world is true, then I am nothing, worth nothing, and destined for destruction. I may as well say, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!" I may as well take what I can get because nothing will last, including myself.
Something in all of us, however, tells us that we are more than this. Something in us resonates when we read, in the Course, that nothing real can be threatened. If that is true, and I am real, then the world I see must be false. The picture it is showing me, reinforcing my image of myself as vulnerable, must be a lie. Either I am real and the world is not, or the world is real and I am not. "For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality".
Therefore my greatest need is vision. I need to open that door in my mind, "look past all appearances", and see a world that reflects God's Love, and by so doing remember who I really am. "Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged". "In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of Who I am because I have forgotten it".
I want to open that door behind the world and see the truth again. I want to remember.