001-010

1 Nothing I see in this room means anything.

MT: You begin this year of change by wiping clean the slate. What a challenge to say, "I do not know." There was a time I found these words a disgrace. Back then, I must know everything, and I thought it a thing of shame to have a gap in my expertise. Thank you for the permission not to know.

JC: Knowledge is of God. It is given you, not made up by you. It is grace. It comes from an infinite, boundless Source vast beyond comprehension. Awe—not interpretation!—is the only appropriate response to the Source. But the ego wants to think it understands, and thus it dismisses opportunities to learn the new. It remains ignorant by pretending to be wise.

MT: An explosion of collective intelligence would happen if we all admitted: we do not know. We can, and must, collect information, but then there's a point of surrender, the space of "not knowing," and that's where God steps in and the path is shown us.

2 I have given everything I see in this room (house, street) all the meaning it has for me.

JC: You do notice how arbitrary your definition of a "thing" is.

MT: Yes. I can see a calendar, a date on the calendar, the blackness of the number, a pixel of blackness. Well, I can't see the pixel but I know it's there. It is endless. I can separate things into smaller and smaller components, down to atoms, or I can include more and more and call it a room, a city, a country, the whole Earth. That's so cool!

JC: You are welcome to delight in this finding. Just don't take it too seriously. It's only intended to make a point.

MT: The point being?

JC: The point being how subjective and arbitrary perception is. It is tied to words, and words are useful to communicate with others (or with me, in this case), but words do not make reality. "The map is not the territory."

MT: Thank you for this book, JC. It has raised my IQ by ten points at the very least.

JC: Better still, it facilitates access to a universal intelligence, and that's a stunning leap in abilities. Why crawl on the ground when you can fly with eagles?

MT: Why indeed. . .

3 I do not understand anything I see in this room [house, city, window].

MT: I notice, JC, a feeling of peace and rest when I gaze at things and say I don't understand them.

JC: You get a break from the constant work of trying to give meaning to things around you, yes.

MT: And I realize it's OK not to understand, that things will be there tomorrow, whether I fret and worry or don't.
Today I allow my mind to be serene and uncluttered. I cloak myself in the garments of peace. I look upon the world with eyes of peace today.

4 These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room.

My mind chatter maintains the dream of separation, as do the things I see, the bodies I make up around me. If I am to let in a new vision and a new thought, I must surrender my old way of seeing and thinking.

Today, JC, help me to silence, because it is in silence that I hear the Thought of God.

5 I am never upset for the reason I think.

MT: So why am I upset? I had a minor anxiety attack yesterday. I thought it was because of upcoming travel. The anxiety diminished when I asked you to intervene. Oh, I get it. This lesson is about “not making the world real.” Because action at the illusion level does not solve anything, it only reinforces the supposed “reason” for the anxiety. Anxiety happens because, at that moment, I am separating from the Source.

Dear God, let me remember where I came from—Your loving arms. Let me remember where I return to, when this brief experiment as a body comes to an end—Your loving arms.

MT: All right, JC, all right, I hear you. But my mind is full of Things to Do.

JC: And the point is, Things to Do aren't there. They are part of the illusion, the fantastic story you made up when you thought God had banished you from Paradise.

MT: I agree, I need peace now, not a to-do list. This is the essential, my only need--peace, peace. Please provide.

JC: Beyond the sun and stars, beyond the known universe and anything you think you know and see, a pure white light emerges--or was it always there? It suffuses your being with its radiance, and now you know what was hidden to you before: you are a Being of Light. You are this light, as God is this light, as those around you are this light.

7 I see only the past.

MT: I know this, JC. Of course I see only the past. You have convinced me. But what should I see instead? I'd like to know how this relates to miracles and spiritual seeing. Is it something that happens to a lucky few? How do I cultivate spiritual vision?

JC: You need a quiet and receptive mind for spiritual vision, to answer your last question.

MT: So how are things NOW? How do I see them now?

JC: If I told you how they are now, you would be looking for this concept and making it up, and then you would be back in the error: seeing things as you think they should be, not as they are now.

MT: So we're talking about attitude. We're talking about openness to new experience. I get that. But what about miracles? How do they relate to this attitude?

JC: The miracle happens in the now. It is an instant of complete connection to your brother. When you see the past in him, you are locking him there with your energy, and locking yourself in the past as well.

MT: A misuse of the mind.

JC: It is a grievous misuse of the mind, but all who walk the earth do it until they learn a better way.

7 (2006) I see only the past.

I get an occasional glimpse, dear JC, of the meaning of this sentence: I see only the past. As Fritz Perls said, "Lose your mind and come to your senses." There is a place in my mind where I am enraptured with What Is, a timeless state of just being there. And then I lose it. The world collapses back into drab ego forms, and once more I see only the past. But even in the grief over losing something so precious, I know I've evolved, I will never be quite the same, and I know the next miracle of awareness will be given me soon.

Great lesson, JC. I really appreciate you, especially when you say, "[your mind] cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything." This is so true, startling and gently humorous at the same time. Your quiet authority refreshes like a spring of clear water in the desert. It's about time I stopped lying to myself and pretending that my vapid stream of consciousness is Truth.

My question then would be, if I'm not thinking about the past or the future, then what's there to think about? What do I put in my head then? I am being asked to totally, completely change the way I operate.

JC: You are being invited to open up to guidance, that's all.

MT: But what a new world this ushers in!

JC: Not new, only forgotten. Enlightenment is merely a moment of recognition.

MT: I don't know what to say, JC. I think I know this lesson.

JC: But do you really? Or do you only rehash the past? Your perception is made of ideas that you first formed decades ago.

MT: Well, yes, I am rehashing the past. Which, you're telling me, is what I do when I look around the room. I used to differentiate between hallucination and perception, but I guess our perception is an hallucination too.

JC: And a huge one. Open yourself to the glorious unity of all things of Heaven and Earth.

MT: I long for a fresh look that shows me that. All I see is the usual drab world of dusty things. No glorious unity for me, right now. Sometimes I really empathize with Apostle Paul and his laments.

JC: For now it suffices to accept that what you are seeing is an idea, not the "Ding an Sich," the thing itself.

10 My thoughts do not mean anything.

This is a point I touched on lightly in earlier study of the Lessons. My attitude was, ok already, let's get on with the real material! Enough pussyfooting around! But you put so much emphasis on this concept, I know you must judge it crucial to everything that follows. Guess you'd want me to highlight it in fluorescent yellow, to make it into a throbbing popup ad.

JC: It is essential, like the air you breathe. We've already dedicated nine days to this undoing, and will continue to reinforce it throughout the year.

MT: It is a tool to quiet my overactive mind, isn't it.

JC: Yes. You asked for such a tool a long way back, and here it is.

MT: Right in the beginning. You snuck it in when I wasn't looking.

JC: So today, return to this basic idea: your thoughts do not mean anything. They are as devoid of meaning as the things and bodies you've made up to populate your world.