Today's lesson says: 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].
Immediately, I think of "meditation" and how when you meditate, you may watch your thoughts "float" across the screen of your mind, and the trick is to do so without attaching anything to the thoughts. Essentially because on some level you know your thoughts ...are just thoughts. Until you attach to them, and perhaps even act upon them, they are indeed meaningless.
This definitely gets tough when you get into certain "categories" of thought, from the extremely logical and rational ones on over to the deeply emotional ones. It seems hard to accept that a thought which demonstrates "fact" is not meaningful on the one hand, and on the other, it seems challenging to accept that a thought imbued with deep love, for example, is not also meaningful!
Like the previous lessons, I believe the practice is to help you suspend judgement and refrain from attachment. Allowing yourself the ability to see things "just as they are." A further description within the text of this lesson says: "The aim here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful. It is a first attempt in the long-range purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within. It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different."
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Lesson 3
Today's lesson says:
I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].
It's true! As I scan everything in sight before me, there is a way in which I understand none of it. For example, there is a small glass before me. An IKEA glass. I imagine it's conception, the design, the approvals, the manufacturing, the resources that went into making it, the delivery, the display, the packaging, the purchase transaction for it, all the countless times someone has poured a beverage into it and used it, then washed it and put it back in the kitchen cupboard. Can I claim to really understand this little glass? No, not really. What is it really? A glass, yes. But at the same time it is so much more, and completely insignificant all at the same time.
I can't say, either, that I fully understand my "self"! The same wonder applies to the human body. I have a basic understanding of the different parts and the different systems, but do I really understand my body? Not on some levels. It seems like you can break this down in the same way as the IKEA glass. There was procreation, division of cells, whatever food my mother ate breaking down and building "me" inside her belly. But how can anyone really understand that? What are the driving forces?
As I consider today's lesson I'm just so overwhelmed by the enormity of disparate ENERGIES that conspire to create "things". And I am surrounded by so much! Magazines, furniture, walls, doorknobs, light fixtures, windows, clothing. What does any of it actually mean? I think this is the point. In conjunction with Lesson 2, it seems quite clear that anything that exists in my field of perception, if it has meaning to me, this meaning was "perceived" by me. And anything perceived by me comes from my experience with it and my perceived associations. It is different to look at the world before you, release the mind, and realize things exist just as they are.
I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].
It's true! As I scan everything in sight before me, there is a way in which I understand none of it. For example, there is a small glass before me. An IKEA glass. I imagine it's conception, the design, the approvals, the manufacturing, the resources that went into making it, the delivery, the display, the packaging, the purchase transaction for it, all the countless times someone has poured a beverage into it and used it, then washed it and put it back in the kitchen cupboard. Can I claim to really understand this little glass? No, not really. What is it really? A glass, yes. But at the same time it is so much more, and completely insignificant all at the same time.
I can't say, either, that I fully understand my "self"! The same wonder applies to the human body. I have a basic understanding of the different parts and the different systems, but do I really understand my body? Not on some levels. It seems like you can break this down in the same way as the IKEA glass. There was procreation, division of cells, whatever food my mother ate breaking down and building "me" inside her belly. But how can anyone really understand that? What are the driving forces?
As I consider today's lesson I'm just so overwhelmed by the enormity of disparate ENERGIES that conspire to create "things". And I am surrounded by so much! Magazines, furniture, walls, doorknobs, light fixtures, windows, clothing. What does any of it actually mean? I think this is the point. In conjunction with Lesson 2, it seems quite clear that anything that exists in my field of perception, if it has meaning to me, this meaning was "perceived" by me. And anything perceived by me comes from my experience with it and my perceived associations. It is different to look at the world before you, release the mind, and realize things exist just as they are.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Lesson 2
Today's Lesson: I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.
Wow! This lesson feels immensely powerful, almost eerie with intensity. To truly think about this means that I, and only I, give every aspect of my own little unique life experience meaning. The analogy that's coming to mind right now is dipping into a bath, where meaning is like water, just there, floating around en masse. It might be hot, cold, cloudy or bubbly. And in this bath of "meaning" I can choose whether to dip just my foot, swirl it with my hands, or completely dive in and submerge myself entirely.
I feel almost tickled by this play, this push and pull of power. The power to control how much meaning I infuse any and every individual thing in my surroundings with, even including myself and other living things. I am also empowered to give zero meaning to a thing. With my mind and imagination I can control the meaning a thing has to me. For example, I see a small container of paperclips before me and I play with the magnetism of meaning. This paper clip container could mean a great deal to me, it could be something my grandmother gave to me representing her and our link in life before she died. I might have taken the container off to college with me, and kept it as I moved from place to place. I might simply love the swirly design on the cover of the container. Alternatively, I could toss this container in the trash and never apply another shred of my living energy to it again!
Its also true that every object or even living thing, if it has meaning to me, it only has the meaning I give it. Even if the meaning it has to me happens to overlap with the meaning it has to my husband, this sense of "meaning" is still embodied to each of us as our own.
Today's lesson helps me see that I am ridiculously powerful, that we are all extraordinarily powerful!
Wow! This lesson feels immensely powerful, almost eerie with intensity. To truly think about this means that I, and only I, give every aspect of my own little unique life experience meaning. The analogy that's coming to mind right now is dipping into a bath, where meaning is like water, just there, floating around en masse. It might be hot, cold, cloudy or bubbly. And in this bath of "meaning" I can choose whether to dip just my foot, swirl it with my hands, or completely dive in and submerge myself entirely.
I feel almost tickled by this play, this push and pull of power. The power to control how much meaning I infuse any and every individual thing in my surroundings with, even including myself and other living things. I am also empowered to give zero meaning to a thing. With my mind and imagination I can control the meaning a thing has to me. For example, I see a small container of paperclips before me and I play with the magnetism of meaning. This paper clip container could mean a great deal to me, it could be something my grandmother gave to me representing her and our link in life before she died. I might have taken the container off to college with me, and kept it as I moved from place to place. I might simply love the swirly design on the cover of the container. Alternatively, I could toss this container in the trash and never apply another shred of my living energy to it again!
Its also true that every object or even living thing, if it has meaning to me, it only has the meaning I give it. Even if the meaning it has to me happens to overlap with the meaning it has to my husband, this sense of "meaning" is still embodied to each of us as our own.
Today's lesson helps me see that I am ridiculously powerful, that we are all extraordinarily powerful!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Lesson 1: Nothing I see... means anything.
For this first post, I'd like to start with some background. Near the turn of the new year 2008, at a girl's dinner, my friend Kate asked her friends to express 2007 and 2008 using just one word for each. Given the timing, the word for 2007 naturally represented more of a reflection of the past, and the word for 2008 represented a vision for the future. For 2007 I chose "Love," and for 2008 I chose "Super Power" (or "Supah-Powah" as my friend Charley suggested!)
It's already one month into the year of "Supah-Powah", and so I am a little out of sync with the timing of my project with "A Course in Miracles", but such is life. I think it is my vision of 2008 as a year of Super Power that has spawned my interest. My intention is to embark on "A Course in Miracles" as a student, reading the book and practicing the daily "Lesson" it offers over the next year, beginning today. I expect to have "slack periods" in which it is impossible to make this course a daily activity. But I do intend to move through the "Lessons" sequentially, with the hope of taking one lesson at least every few days, if not daily. I have had this book on my mind for quite some time now, ordered it last year, and for whatever reason, opened it up for the first time last night. In some ways, I guess this tentative leading into the book only means everything is lined up inside me to invite the lessons that may come with this book, and the time to explore it has finally arrived.
If anyone out there has read thus far, and wants to join me, I would love your company! Please join me in experiencing and sharing about this "Course". I recommend you purchase the book: "A Course in Miracles: Foundation for Inner Peace." Get the version which includes the "Workbook for students" and "Manual for Teachers". Or, I haven't looked into it, but I am sure there are many circles, both online and off, in which you can explore this work with guides or groups.
Today's Lesson states: Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.
Upon considering this, I feel confused and want to beg the question: Why? Why does everything mean nothing? Effectively, that is what this lesson is saying. But I realize that the point of this lesson, as with most lessons, will become clearer with context. I just took some time to look around me to try it! I see a water bottle, a motorola talkabout, my wedding ring, my fingers typing, my cell phone, a wooden box, postage stamps, my dog Baxter. I have asked myself to settle quickly and calmly into this idea that "nothing I see...means anything". I am breathing consciously so as to be able to focus in this way. A pang of sadness comes up as I release the idea that everything surrounding me has meaning. There is something depressing for me about this and I feel a bit of tension in considering it. Particularly when it comes to the "living" things in my list, such as my dog and my hands. How could these things not mean anything? What about "intrinsic worth"?
I think part of experiencing this "Course" will be to simply allow it to unfold. Like a mystery. What is the point of learning something you already understand? So I am committing right now to being a student of this course with as much openness, and generosity of perspective as I can possibly yield.
With that resonating in my experience in this moment, I can better sense the "lesson" in "Nothing I see... means anything." It is another version of the metaphysical concept that "life is an illusion," also known as "Maya".
Nothing I see in this room... means anything.
Yes! There is a fleeting, almost magic moment, when I can feel this truth resonating inside me. This level of truth wells up from within the deepest part of me: my soul. (I can even sense this truth in my heart - which otherwise seems to have the opposite function in life of imbuing everything with value and meaning.) Even when it comes to the dog, even with it comes to my hands, I can sense this Lesson. We are both just a mixture of energy and matter. We are both just "bodies".. things that exist. Like everything else that exists, living, breathing.. or not. No different than a tiny bug hidden in the Amazon, that never got noticed, or a ray of light shining through my window.
I so quickly go to the desire to see the "sacred" in things, especially when it comes to "living" things. But that is not today's lesson. The lesson is intended to be used with complete indiscrimination while practicing, and that all things are like the other as far as the application of this idea of "nothing means anything" goes.
I can see why this is a "Course". It is going to be a learning, stretching and perhaps mot of all a re-learning or remembering process.
It's already one month into the year of "Supah-Powah", and so I am a little out of sync with the timing of my project with "A Course in Miracles", but such is life. I think it is my vision of 2008 as a year of Super Power that has spawned my interest. My intention is to embark on "A Course in Miracles" as a student, reading the book and practicing the daily "Lesson" it offers over the next year, beginning today. I expect to have "slack periods" in which it is impossible to make this course a daily activity. But I do intend to move through the "Lessons" sequentially, with the hope of taking one lesson at least every few days, if not daily. I have had this book on my mind for quite some time now, ordered it last year, and for whatever reason, opened it up for the first time last night. In some ways, I guess this tentative leading into the book only means everything is lined up inside me to invite the lessons that may come with this book, and the time to explore it has finally arrived.
If anyone out there has read thus far, and wants to join me, I would love your company! Please join me in experiencing and sharing about this "Course". I recommend you purchase the book: "A Course in Miracles: Foundation for Inner Peace." Get the version which includes the "Workbook for students" and "Manual for Teachers". Or, I haven't looked into it, but I am sure there are many circles, both online and off, in which you can explore this work with guides or groups.
Today's Lesson states: Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.
Upon considering this, I feel confused and want to beg the question: Why? Why does everything mean nothing? Effectively, that is what this lesson is saying. But I realize that the point of this lesson, as with most lessons, will become clearer with context. I just took some time to look around me to try it! I see a water bottle, a motorola talkabout, my wedding ring, my fingers typing, my cell phone, a wooden box, postage stamps, my dog Baxter. I have asked myself to settle quickly and calmly into this idea that "nothing I see...means anything". I am breathing consciously so as to be able to focus in this way. A pang of sadness comes up as I release the idea that everything surrounding me has meaning. There is something depressing for me about this and I feel a bit of tension in considering it. Particularly when it comes to the "living" things in my list, such as my dog and my hands. How could these things not mean anything? What about "intrinsic worth"?
I think part of experiencing this "Course" will be to simply allow it to unfold. Like a mystery. What is the point of learning something you already understand? So I am committing right now to being a student of this course with as much openness, and generosity of perspective as I can possibly yield.
With that resonating in my experience in this moment, I can better sense the "lesson" in "Nothing I see... means anything." It is another version of the metaphysical concept that "life is an illusion," also known as "Maya".
Nothing I see in this room... means anything.
Yes! There is a fleeting, almost magic moment, when I can feel this truth resonating inside me. This level of truth wells up from within the deepest part of me: my soul. (I can even sense this truth in my heart - which otherwise seems to have the opposite function in life of imbuing everything with value and meaning.) Even when it comes to the dog, even with it comes to my hands, I can sense this Lesson. We are both just a mixture of energy and matter. We are both just "bodies".. things that exist. Like everything else that exists, living, breathing.. or not. No different than a tiny bug hidden in the Amazon, that never got noticed, or a ray of light shining through my window.
I so quickly go to the desire to see the "sacred" in things, especially when it comes to "living" things. But that is not today's lesson. The lesson is intended to be used with complete indiscrimination while practicing, and that all things are like the other as far as the application of this idea of "nothing means anything" goes.
I can see why this is a "Course". It is going to be a learning, stretching and perhaps mot of all a re-learning or remembering process.
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