Lesson 4: “These thoughts do not mean anything.  They are like the things I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).”

This lesson says, “You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called ‘good’ or ‘bad.’” 

We are learning to loosen our grip on the ego’s perception. 

The problem is that we get so attached to how we think of things.  The ego is a judging machine and makes judgements without fail.  We are asked to just realize when the ego is doing this.  We get really invested in seeing things from the ego’s view and we often want to just maintain the ego’s status quo and not rock the boat.

The ego likes to make decisions about how things are because the ego likes to be the one in charge and be the one with control.

The Course reminds us that we all know from our own experience living a human life that nothing can be considered either good or bad when we really look at something clearly.  This awareness of nothing being good nor bad helps us to just get a foot in the door so we can let God in.

We just need to have the brave heart to make this logic available to our minds. 

When we do, then we start to realize that we must allow for space in our minds for our understanding that there are only things with both good and bad qualities.  We must let this sink in if the ego resists acknowledging.

If we cling to this notion that anything is strictly one or the other, good or bad, we just need to go back to God and surrender the ego’s rigid hold on interpreting things for the sake of itself.  When we resist, very often it is because we want to keep things as they are.

We are asked to forgive our egos and allow God to come into our inner sanctuary that we so much want to be occupied with God’s Love.

When we have moments of resistance, appreciate that our egos are petrified of letting go. 

Just try to connect with that little bit of willingness we need to get the foot of God into the door of our minds.  

The little willingness is just the smallest amount of our cooperation so we don’t even have to rock the boat.  

We move in the tiniest way.  We make a breath of effort and this is enough to just begin letting God in.

When we remember how small is this willingness we need, then it totally changes our perspective.  Then our effort doesn’t seem like too far a stretch. 

Whenever we get stuck in our learning practices, simply come back to this one concept.