Saturday, January 10, 2015
Lesson 10: “My thoughts do not mean anything.”
This lesson focuses on “my thoughts” instead of “these thoughts.” The Course teaches us to make sure we understand that everything is personal. Everything is a direct result of our own viewpoints. We were told before that our thoughts about everything else also don’t matter. Everything is instead rather an effect of our past creeping into the present’s definition of what we see.
But the Course wants us to be ever so careful to pay attention to the fact that these thoughts are all MY thoughts. They don’t come from anywhere else. The world teaches that thoughts just happen upon us and we have no power over whether we feel like a prime victim. It’s all just chance and random.
The Course instead asks us to take responsibility for our own view. We must know that we are in charge of making our own perception. Thought doesn’t just happen. We make it happen. It doesn’t matter how automatic thoughts appear to be. They are still simply the outcome of our own energy and intention getting manifested into the realm of thinking. We have to realize it’s our own discrete objective to unearth what thoughts we have. We have to make effort and be willing to keep stopping thoughts in their tracks when we are faced with drama and mental tumult.
We are learning here how to take a look deeper within at how we think about everything. When we see thought OUR thoughts are the deciding factors about the quality of life we live, we have to stop and forgive them and then release them. Ultimately we have to let go of our thoughts that have no meaning. This releases them back to the atmosphere to be absorbed and transformed by God’s love when we relinquish our old habit of giving them meaning.
One further thought about the first sentence of my Reflection is that we must understand that everything that the Course is teaching us is personal. We are finding out that all roads point back to us as individuals when we are trying to understand who is responsible for showing us that our own thoughts are the only vehicles where we find judgement tagging along. We have to know that it’s only OUR responsibility to change our thoughts. I am the sole one of responsibility.
Yet, while we know this as our own personal adventure, we also can know that what is happening in the world is not at all personal. Sometimes when we feel like we are responsible for our own insane feelings, then we are quick to feel guilty for being the ones in charge of creating our own hell. We need to forgive ourselves and let go of the guilt, and know that nothing that we learn in the Course is holding us personally responsible.
We are responsible, so can take action to correct our thinking but are not taking on some idea that we need to be punished for the way the ego says we personally screwed up. We want the best of both worlds here- to be healthy emotionally, and in the Course we have this. Therefore, let’s be grateful for this sane method of getting the equanimity in our days back on track.