Lesson 132
I loose the world from all I thought it was.
We have come to understand that, a miracle, as the Course defines it, is a “shift in perception.” Each step we have taken together we have explored various ways to undo our misguided thoughts so as to shift our perception about others, our circumstances, and ourselves. If you recall from Lesson 2, “I have given everything I see…all the meaning that it has for me,” and Lesson 3, “I do not understand anything I see,” we began to retrain the mind and loosen the chains we had on the world based on our wrong-minded thinking. We came to recognize the programming from which we created the world around us. We now revisit a similar concept in Lesson 132 with a deeper commitment to look more closely at what truly binds us to the world and explore the notion that it is us that must release the world, not the world of us. We look around at all we see, people, places, and things, and saying the most loving words, “I release you.”
“The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real” (ACIM Lesson 132 4:1-3).
The world before us is truly a blank canvas, a canvas that awaits our brush stroke as we paint the experiences we wish to have. We have been exploring our canvas as our image of how we would like to awaken from the dream of separation. As we wanted to witness the awakening for ourselves, we placed the picture outside of ourselves. Yet what is outside of us, only comes from within, our perceptions. As you have come to experience that you were created in Her likeness, how could that which is like her Creator, see a world of fear or hate? This is what must be reckoned with today as there is only one place to be, heaven.
“If you are real the world you see is false, for God’s creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by which you were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free, that you may know the Thoughts you share with God” (ACIM Lesson 132 11:5-6).
We have been learning more about the power of NOW and the power of the holy instant. There is only NOW. In order to loosen our grip on the world we see, we must let go of the past and free the future. Only in doing so, can we come to the blank canvas of the NOW with no previous paint strokes and with no control over what we are to paint. In this moment, as we align with God’s Will, do we come to see the heaven that lies beyond the canvas our mistake thoughts have created.
“The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is with world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from you ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world” (ACIM Lesson 132 3:1-3).
The world is what we perceive it to be. We determine our experience. We can choose to see a world where we have the opportunity to claim our divinity and love or we can choose to see a world in which we must suffer to survive. In our practice periods today we come to know through the process of letting go, that we shift from surviving the world to being the savior of the world. All it takes are three small, yet mighty, words, “I release you.”
The act of releasing is the most loving act we can perform and the greatest gift we can give the world, another, and ourselves. It is the gift of the freedom to awaken. It is the gift in which we recognize we are as God created us with the potential to let go of the maddening world.
Such a crazy world was not intended for a Child of God, rather to be used as a tool to realize you are said Child, thus awaking to the false nature of the world around you. It is important to make the distinction to the mind that upon this realization we will not go, “POOF!” and physically be in another space and time. This is not that sort of magic trick. We come to understand that in our release of the world, we can experience heaven on earth, right here, right now. This is how you become the savior of the world. This is the Ultimate Miracle Magic Trick.
“Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it, and about living things for we see upon it. They can not be there. No more can we. For we are in the home our Father set for us, along with them” (ACIM Lesson 132 14: 1-4).
Today we come to understand that we arrive Home in the process of surrendering our thoughts upon the world. Can we let go of the thinking that this world is a scary place in which we hide from our divinity to a place were come to play out our divinity? To the world this will be a foreign concept. Yet, can you be an outsider to truly know the Inside of the world? In this can you be the change that changes everything.
“You are as God created you. There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to you eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist, if you remain as God created you?” (ACIM Lesson 132 9:2-4).
Welcome to the Real World. A world in which you recognize the power of release and the power of your Divine Thoughts as aligned with God’s Will. This is the moment in which you came for. This is the moment in which you experience the miracle, as you are the miracle.
Paul Simon wrote a song entitled, Rewrite, where he discusses rewriting his life page by page in order to change the ending. Paul Simon has a true gift for song writing as he explores in his lyrics the power he has to change his perception, and thus, his life.
Yeah I’m workin’on my rewrite, all right
Gonna change my ending
Throw away the title
Toss it in the trash
Every minute after midnight
All the Time I’m spending
Is just for workin’on my rewrite.
Gonna turn it into cash
In so many words, Rewrite describes how we are the creators, painters, rewriters of our lives as we release the world from what we thought we believed. In the song Paul turns his rewrite into cash, as students of the Course, we turn it into miracles. These lyrics, divinely given to another soul as part of the Cosmic Conversation, is another reminder to us that it is never too late to change the ending of your story. It is never too late for the miracle. With a joyful heart, tap your feet, and enjoy a little bit of Paul Simon, as you become the author of your rewrite, releasing the world from what you thought it was. Namaste.