Welcome to active meditation.
A Course in Miracles,
Lesson 133.
I will not value what is valueless.
Sometimes in teaching there is a benefit,
Particularly after you have gone through what seems theoretical and far from what the student has already learned,
To bring each student back to practical concerns.
This we will do today.
We will not speak of lofty world-encompassing ideas.
We will dwell instead on benefits to you.
You do not ask too much of life,
But far too little,
When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns,
Be drawn to things you buy.
When you let your mind be drawn to eminence,
As valued by the world,
You ask for sorrow,
Not for happiness.
This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have.
This course does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains.
There are no satisfactions in the world.
Today,
We list the criteria by which to test all things you think you want.
Unless they meet these sound requirements,
They are not worth desiring at all,
For they can only replace what offers more.
The laws that govern choice you cannot make.
No more than you can make alternatives from which to choose.
The choosing you can do.
Indeed,
You must.
It is wise to learn the laws you set in motion when you choose.
It is wise to learn what alternatives you choose between.
We have already stressed there are but two alternatives,
However many there appear to be.
The range is set,
And this we cannot change.
It would be most ungenerous to you to let alternatives be limitless,
And thus,
Delay your final choice until you had considered all of them in time.
It would be most ungenerous to you not to bring you clearly to the place where there is but one choice that must be made.
Another kindly and related law is that there is no compromise in what your choice must bring.
This choice cannot give you just a little,
For there is no in-between.
Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing.
Therefore,
If you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing,
You will make the better choice.
Let's consider the tests.
First,
If you choose a thing that will not last forever,
What you choose is valueless.
A temporary value is without all value.
Time can never take away a value that is real.
What fades and dies was never there,
And makes no offering to those who choose it.
We are deceived by nothing in a form we think we like.
Now say to yourself,
Repeat in your mind,
If I choose a thing that will not last forever,
It is valueless.
Repeat,
If I choose a thing that will not last forever,
It is valueless.
Next,
If you choose to take a thing away from someone else,
You will have nothing left.
This is because,
When you deny someone's right to everything,
You have denied your own right to everything.
You therefore will not recognize the things you really have,
Denying they are there.
The one who seeks to take away has been deceived by the illusion that loss can offer gain.
Yet,
Loss must offer loss,
And nothing more.
Say to yourself,
After me,
I will not choose to take something away from someone else.
Repeat,
I will not choose to take something away from someone else.
Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest.
Why is the choice you make of value to you?
What attracts your mind to it?
What purpose does it serve?
Here,
It is the easiest of all to be deceived.
For what the ego wants,
It fails to recognize it does not even tell the truth as it perceives it.
For what the ego wants,
It fails to recognize it does not even tell the truth as it perceives it.
For the ego needs to keep the halo which it uses to protect its goals,
From tarnish and from rust,
So that you may see how innocent the ego is.
Yet,
Is the ego's camouflage a thin veneer,
Which could only deceive those who are content to be deceived.
The ego's goals are obvious to anyone who cares to look for them.
Here is deception doubled.
For the one who is deceived will not perceive that they have merely failed to gain.
They will believe that they have served the ego's hidden goals.
Though we try to keep the ego's halo clear within our vision,
Still we must perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core.
Our ineffectual mistakes appear as sins to us,
Because we look upon the tarnish as our own.
We look upon the rust as a sign of deep unworthiness within ourselves.
We,
Who would still preserve the ego's goals and serve them as our own,
Make no mistakes according to the dictates of our guide.
This guidance teaches it is an error to believe that sins are but mistakes.
For who would suffer for their sins if this were so?
Ask yourself,
Why is the choice you make of value to you?
What attracts your mind to it?
What purpose does it serve?
And so,
We come to the criterion for choice that is the hardest to believe,
Because its obviousness is overlaid with many levels of obscurity.
If you feel any guilt about your choice,
You have allowed the ego's goals to come between the alternatives.
Thus,
You do not realize there are two choices,
And the alternative you think you chose seems fearful and too dangerous to be the nothingness it actually is.
Say to yourself,
If I feel guilty about my choice,
The choice has failed the test.
Repeat,
If I feel guilty about my choice,
The choice has failed the test.
All things are either valuable or valueless.
All things are either worthy or not of being sought at all.
All things are either entirely desirable or not worth the slightest effort to obtain.
Choosing is easy just because of this.
Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult.
Repeat in your mind,
If I choose a thing that will not last forever,
It is valueless.
I will not choose to take something away from someone else.
If I feel guilty about my choice,
The choice has failed the test.
Is the choice of value to me?
What attracts my mind to it?
What purpose does it serve?
What is the game to you in learning this?
It is far more than merely letting you make choices easily and without pain.
Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds,
Which come with nothing to find everything and claim heaven as their own.
We will attempt to reach this state today with self-deception laid aside and with an honest willingness to value only the truly valuable and the real.
Our two extended practice periods of 15 minutes each begin with this.
Repeat after me,
I will not value what is valueless.
Only what has value do I seek.
Only what has value do I desire to find.
Receive what waits for everyone who reaches unencumbered to the gate of heaven,
Which swings open as God comes.
Should you begin to let yourself collect some needless burdens?
Should you believe you see some difficult decisions facing you?
Be quick to answer with this simple thought,
I will not value what is valueless,
For what is valuable belongs to me.
Ponder on this.
You you you you you I will not choose to take something away from someone else.
You you Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing.
I will not value what is valueless.
You Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
