Sunday, February 22, 2015
Lesson 53: “My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.” “I am upset because I see a meaningless world.” “A meaningless world engenders fear.” “God did not create a meaningless world.” “My thoughts are images that I have made.”
When I read these lessons together, what sticks out for me is the word “meaningless.” Suddenly getting news that our world is meaningless is such a stopper, and also we have our gaping jaws at the idea. What do you mean it’s meaningless? We have to forgive this word for being startling and forgive our perception of the world because we can’t go on with things as the ego sees them. We have to keep being willing to surrender our belief we know what we see. And we probably will need to continue to face again the need to surrender this because often we just can’t get to the place of accepting this in full instantly.
We need to realize that we simply don’t know what anything we see means. We must be firm with the ego about giving up its control over our perception. Our ego feels like it can believe in its own reality if we accept its role as conductor on our train. But when we do that, we always end up off the tracks because the ego has no idea how to manage such a complex entities as us.
When we surrender our belief that we know anything this is the way to peace ultimately. The ego has huge attachment to what it thinks of reality and makes every effort to get us to not argue its hold on our minds. But ultimately freedom comes when we accept this concept of everything being meaningless. The ego is afraid of the concept of meaningless because for a moment the ego can’t seem to make sense of things.
But Jesus reminds us in the Course that when we allow our lives and the world to be meaningless, then we can allow God to do the writing of what is the true meaning of what we see. Thus, there is never an ounce of anxiety because we know for certain God has loving and helpful perceptions of all we see. Then we can enjoy the ride because we aren’t resisting or struggling against the engaging with this idea that God is the perfect provider we need of meaning.