Lesson 130 It Is Impossible To See Two Worlds

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

LESSON 130 It is Impossible to See Two Worlds.

1. Perception is consistent. What you see reflects your thinking. And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see. Your values are determiners of this, for what you value you must want to see, believing what you see is really there. No one can see a world his mind has not accorded value. And no one can fail to look upon what he believes he wants.
2. Yet who can really hate and love at once? Who can desire what he does not want to have reality? And who can choose to see a world of which he is afraid? Fear must make blind, for this its weapon is: That which you fear to see you cannot see. Love and perception thus go hand in hand, but fear obscures in darkness what is there.
3. What, then, can fear project upon the world? What can be seen in darkness that is real?  Truth is eclipsed by fear, and what remains is but imagined. Yet what can be real in blind imaginations of panic born? What would you want that this is shown to you? What would you wish to keep in such a dream?
4. Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe make up the world. They are not there. Love’s enemy has made them up. Yet love can have no enemy, and so they have no cause, no being, and no consequence. They can be valued but remain unreal. They can be sought, but they cannot be found. Today we will not seek for them, nor waste this day in seeking what cannot be found.
5. It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there are to choose between, and nothing more than these.
6. Today we will attempt no compromise where none is possible. The world you see is proof you have already made a choice as all-embracing as its opposite. What we would learn today is more than just the lesson that you cannot see two worlds. It also teaches you that the one you see is quite consistent from the point of view from which you see it. It is all a piece because it stems from one emotion and reflects its source in everything you see.
7. Six times today, in thanks and gratitude, we gladly give five minutes to the thought that ends all compromise and doubt and go beyond them all as one. We will not make a thousand meaningless distinctions, nor attempt to bring with us at little part of unreality, as we devote our minds to finding only what is real.
8. Begin your searching for the other world by asking for a strength beyond your own and recognizing what it is you seek. You do not want illusions. And you come to these five minutes emptying your hands of all the petty treasures of this world. You wait for God to help you, as you say:  It is impossible to see two worlds. Let me accept the strength God offers me and see no value in this world, that I may find my freedom and deliverance.
9. God will be there. For you have called upon the great unfailing Power Which will take this giant step with you in gratitude. Nor will you fail to see His thanks expressed in tangible perception and in truth. You will not doubt what you will look upon, for though it is perception, it is not the kind of seeing that your eyes alone have ever seen before. And you will know God’s strength upheld you as you made this choice.
10. Dismiss temptation easily today whenever it arises, merely by remembering the limits of your choice. The unreal or the real, the false or true is what you see and only what you see. Perception is consistent with your choice, and hell or heaven comes to you as one.
11. Accept a little part of hell as real, and you have damned your eyes and cursed your sight, and what you will behold is hell indeed. Yet the release of heaven still remains within your range of choice, to take the place of everything that hell would show to you. All you need say to any part of hell, whatever form it takes, is simply this: It is impossible to see two worlds. I seek my freedom and deliverance, and this is not a part of what I want.[1]

Notes and Personal Application: It can be disconcerting when we begin to see the world for what it is – as we begin to lose interest in it, as we begin to see through its lies and false promises, when we seek the world beyond because we realize there is nothing here we want.  There is an element of loneliness attached to discovering this truth – when nearly everyone you know is content to embrace traditions and teachings that promote false concepts and unjust, unkind, divided practices in place of understanding, love, and forgiveness.  Calling someone’s bluff, taking a stand for what is right and true, refusing to be part of cliques or wave banners for go-nowhere causes, growing bored with meaningless rituals can often cause hurt feelings, wounded pride, and utter bewilderment for the people who fail to see this world as hell. That it has suddenly become meaningless to us poses a threat, is experienced as a loss, and can be misinterpreted as attack.    

Jesus asks us today, “Who can really hate and love at one time?  Who can desire what he does not want to be real?  Who really wants to live in a fearful world with danger on every side? Who chooses death and decay over life and everlasting well-being? 

The two worlds have no overlap.  There is no reconciliation between the world of time where all things come to an end, and the world of eternity where all things last forever.  If we seek in this world, the eternal one is hidden to our consciousness.  There are two levels of being – one is death; the other is life everlasting.  We devote our minds to one or the other.  One Jesus calls real and the other unreal.  We may call what we experience here, life, but Jesus calls it death.  Our life cycles are death cycles, our flesh ends up a big nothing, it exists only in time, and has evolved through time.  In this morning’s devotion, James expounded upon how this realm is dedicated to the worship, the preservation, the cherishment of the body.  Everything we do revolves around the body and its survival.  He detailed the systems we must build simply to maintain a safe practice of removing and treating our waste.  Whether we live in a cave, a monastery, a mansion, or a tarpaper shack, most of our time, money, and effort is related to maintaining our bodies, gratifying them, serving them. 

We are, in the flesh, the walking dead!  If we live for the body, Jesus says, we choose hell.  We cannot take our bodies with us to the world beyond.  There we are spirits.  We are no longer slaves to that which decays and dies.  There we do not lick our chops and dribble lusty juices over flesh and blood.  We do not love creation in different ways, divide our love into compartments, or reserve for some and not the other. 

Everything we hold dear here is meaningless there.  Everything we hold dear here is meaningless here as well, but Jesus points out that we are too afraid to look and see that this is so.  We keep putting value on that which has no value.  We keep up the death cycles.  Instead of choosing the real world beyond, in fear and in ignorance we cling to the nightmare world we made. 

Today Jesus asks us to attempt no more compromises.  He asks us to get comfortable with looking at the world we see as proof that it is hell.  That we made hell when we separated ourselves from spirit and became flesh.  We took our inheritance and we made a nightmare, a lie, a twisted and perverted version of God’s creation.  He created us eternal spirits; we made of ourselves flesh and blood.  He created us equals; we made of ourselves unequal.  He created us as one; we split into male and female, king and servants, big and little, smart and stupid – multitudinous and divisive. 

Nothing that we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, or experience in our bodies is holy and sacred.  If it were holy and sacred, it would not decay.  It would not fade away.  It would not die.  It would last forever.  Our good works, our bad deeds, our charities and causes, our selfishness and greed – are all one and the same.  Our world is hell.  It is maintained by our investment in its lies, its false promises, the implicit threat to not examine it too closely, the derision, mockery, and scorn and downright viciousness reserved for those who do! 

Jesus was crucified by those who cherished their religion, ancestry, sacred scriptures, and lineage of traditions, rituals, and devotion to God above the truth of God.  Today Jesus is calling to us to not make the same mistake.  Beyond this world there is a world I want.  I choose to see that world instead of this, for here is nothing that I really want.  Nothing here will save us; nothing here provides us with what we really want. 

We give up separation for unity, we give up the lie for the truth; we give up our decaying bodies for eternal spirit; we give up nothing for Everything! 

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 130 It is impossible to see two worlds.  Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). pp. 237-238.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com