Welcome to active meditation.
A Course in Miracles,
Review,
Lessons 11-15.
We prepare for this exercise by placing our body in a comfortable position so that we won't have to move it for several minutes.
We close our eyes.
We take three deep breaths to relax our mind and body.
The out-breath longer than the in-breath.
And to help relax,
We remove all expression from our face.
Do this now.
Place your body in a comfortable position.
Take three deep breaths and remove all expression from your face.
This is a Course in Miracles.
It is a required course.
Only the time you take it is voluntary.
Some of the ideas the exercises present you will find hard to believe,
And others may seem to be quite startling.
This does not matter.
You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed.
You are not asked to judge them at all.
You are asked only to use them.
It is their use that will give them meaning to you and will show you that they are true.
The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.
Once the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything,
The world that pictures them can have no meaning.
What is producing this world is insane,
And so is what it produces.
Everybody is not insane,
And I have real thoughts as well as insane ones.
I can therefore see a real world if I look to my real thoughts as my guide for seeing.
My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.
I am upset because I see a meaningless world.
Insane thoughts are upsetting.
They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere.
Only chaos rules a world that represents chaotic thinking,
And chaos has no laws.
I cannot live in peace in such a world.
I am grateful that this world is not real,
And that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value.
And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning.
I am upset because I see a meaningless world.
A meaningless world engenders fear.
The totally insane engenders fear because it is completely undependable and offers no grounds for trust.
Nothing in madness is dependable.
It holds out no safety and no hope.
But such a world is not real.
I have given it the illusion of reality and have suffered from my belief in it.
Now I choose to withdraw this belief and place my trust in reality.
In choosing this,
I will escape all the effects of the world of fear.
Because I am acknowledging that it does not exist.
A meaningless world engenders fear.
God did not create a meaningless world.
How can a meaningless world exist if God did not create it?
He is the source of all meaning.
And everything that is real is in His mind.
It is in my mind too,
Because He created it with me.
Why should I continue to suffer from the effects of my own insane thoughts when the perfection of creation is my home?
Let me remember the power of my decision and recognize where I really abide.
God did not create a meaningless world.
My thoughts are images that I have made.
Whatever I see reflects my thoughts.
It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am.
The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts.
And I am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see.
Yet God's way is sure.
The images I have made cannot prevail against Him because it is not my will that they do so.
My will is His,
And I will place no other gods before Him.
My thoughts are images that I have made.
Let's return to our regular waking state of thoughts,
Feelings,
And actions.
To time and space.
Take a few deep breaths to help establish the waking state.
And return,
Fully alert,
Comfortable in all instruments of awareness,
With a heightened awareness of our environment and the knowledge.
I am aware.
I am.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
