Lesson 52

Today's review covers these ideas:

W-pI.52.1. (6) I am upset because I see what is not there.

² Reality is never frightening. ³ It is impossible that it could upset me. ⁴ Reality brings only perfect peace. ⁵ When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. ⁶ The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. ⁷ Nothing in God's creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. ⁸ I am always upset by nothing.

W-pI.52.2. (7) I see only the past.

² As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. ³ I call this seeing. ⁴ I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies. ⁵ When I have forgiven myself and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. ⁶ There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. ⁷ And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.

W-pI.52.3. (8) My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

² I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. ³ What, then, can I see as it is? ⁴ Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. ⁵ Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. ⁶ Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.

W-pI.52.4. (9) I see nothing as it is now.

² If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. ³ I can see only what is now. ⁴ The choice is not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. ⁵ What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. ⁶ Now I would choose again, that I may see.

W-pI.52.5. (10) My thoughts do not mean anything.

² I have no private thoughts. ³ Yet it is only private thoughts of which I am aware. ⁴ What can these thoughts mean? ⁵ They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. ⁶ Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. ⁷ Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless "private" thoughts?