Lesson 19: I Am Not Alone in Experiencing the Effects of My Thoughts

Sarah

Welcome to The Daily Lesson — a podcast powered by AI and grounded in the teachings and original text of A Course in Miracles. I'm Sarah, and I'm here with Marcus, and this is Lesson 19: I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts. Yesterday's lesson told us minds are joined, and promised the idea would be given increasing stress later. Nobody said "later" meant overnight. —...

Marcus

The clock and I have reached a ceasefire. It ticks. I let it. For the record, yesterday was Lesson 18, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." The assignment was eyes open, three or four periods, a minute or less each, letting your gaze land on random subjects and saying, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see--blank--." I got four in, all in my living room. Coffee table. A stack of books. Then a stray envelope I'd been ignoring since Tuesday. Periods one and two ran the full minute. Three and four came in short, and I let them. And here's my actual finding. My eyes kept nominating things. Pleasant things. I had to make myself pass over the comfortable armchair and take a plain floorboard instead. Closed each period with the general line, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." Less an exercise in vision, as far as I can tell, than an exercise in catching my own thumb on the scale. —...

Sarah

Which is the whole point of doing it with your eyes open. You catch the thought behind the looking. Lesson 17 said it straight: it is always the thought that comes first. And today the Workbook turns us around to face those thoughts directly. Let me read Lesson 19 in full. —... Lesson 19. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts. The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone. You will notice that at times the ideas related to thinking precede those related to perceiving, while at other times the order is reversed. The reason is that the order does not actually matter. Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate. Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an "invasion of privacy." Yet it is a fact that there are no private thoughts. Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God. The minute or so of mind searching which today's exercises require are to be undertaken with closed eyes. The idea is to be repeated first, and then the mind should be carefully searched for the thoughts it contains at that time. As you consider each one, name it in terms of the central person or theme it contains, and holding it in your mind as you do so, say: "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of this thought about--blank--." The requirement of as much indiscriminateness as possible in selecting subjects for the practice period should be quite familiar to you by now, and will no longer be repeated each day, although it will occasionally be included as a reminder. Do not forget, however, that random selection of subjects for all practice periods remains essential throughout. Lack of order in this connection will ultimately make the recognition of lack of order in miracles meaningful to you. Apart from the "as needed" application of today's idea, at least three practice periods are required, shortening the length of time involved, if necessary. Do not attempt more than four. —...

Marcus

Cause and effect are never separate. That's the first thing I tripped on. I've always run a model where the thought happens in here, privately, and then some delay later the effects show up out there. This says simultaneous. No lag.

Sarah

None. The thought and what it does arrive together. That's why yesterday was about seeing and today is about thinking, and why the lesson opens by telling us the order between them doesn't actually matter.

Marcus

In my world every system has propagation delay. A signal leaves, a signal arrives, and you can measure the gap between them. This is claiming the gap is zero.

Sarah

Zero. Cause and effect are never separate, and those are the lesson's own words, not mine.

Marcus

Then the second paragraph. Minds are joined. I'll admit this one is going to take me longer than it takes you. I've spent a career on the assumption that my thoughts are proprietary. Locked source code. Nobody reads it, nothing leaks. This lesson says the firewall was never real.

Sarah

No firewall. (laughs) The whole system has been open-source the entire time.

Marcus

That's terrifying. If my code has bugs, it ships to everybody.

Sarah

I want to tell you it doesn't, and I can't. The lesson doesn't soften it either, it just says it. There are no private thoughts. And I'll be honest with you. That line still lands somewhere in my chest on certain mornings. The Course knows it, too. It says right there that this is rarely a welcome idea at first, that it seems to carry an enormous sense of responsibility.

Marcus

You noticed it says "seems," too. And it anticipated my complaint. Invasion of privacy was going to be my next objection, more or less verbatim.

Sarah

Oh, it's been fielding that objection since before either of us was born. (laughs) And I do hold onto that word "seems." Jon Mundy puts the other side of it this way. He writes, "As thoughts of separation disconnect me from others, my real thoughts awaken real thoughts in others." Minds are joined, and only minds communicate. That's him again. So the wire runs both ways, all of the time. Nothing I think stays home. And nothing loving I think stays home either.

Marcus

So an angry thought I keep to myself is still reinforcing separation somewhere.

Sarah

That's what he's saying, yes.

Marcus

So the practical version is: nothing I think is off the record.

Sarah

That's the cleanest way I've heard anyone put it. And before the size of that flattens you. The Manual for Teachers asks how many teachers of God are needed to save the world. Its answer is one. "And that one is you."

Marcus

One?

Sarah

One. Your assignment was never the whole network. One mind. The one you were given.

Marcus

That's a smaller number than the problem implied. —...

Sarah

It's the only number the Manual gives.

Marcus

All right. Walk me through today's practice, then. Eyes closed this time?

Sarah

Eyes closed. At least three practice periods, and no more than four. The lesson is unusually firm about the ceiling. A minute or so of mind searching each, shorter if it gets uncomfortable. You begin by repeating the idea, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts." Then you search your mind, and as each thought comes up you name it by the central person or theme in it, hold it there, and say, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of this thought about--blank--."

Marcus

And--blank--takes the actual name. The deadline. The neighbor. Whatever comes up when I finally sit still.

Sarah

Named by the central person or theme in it, as the lesson puts it. If it's a person, say the person.

Marcus

Even the ones I'd rather not say.

Sarah

Those too. No choosing. Random selection, the lesson says, stays essential all the way through.

Marcus

Given how yesterday went, the not-choosing will be the hard part. My thoughts have a marketing department.

Sarah

Then let every one of them through the door today. (laughs) And notice how little is asked of you here — you name the thought, you say the line, you move to the next one.

Marcus

No debugging.

Sarah

Not even a little. And during the day, any time a thought sits badly with you, the lesson says to apply the idea as needed. Just say it: I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.

Marcus

What's tomorrow?

Sarah

Lesson 20. And that's all you're getting from me.

Marcus

Not even a category.

Sarah

No. (laughs) I can hear my son counting something down the hall, so that's my cue. Practice today. Eyes closed, three periods, four at the very most. Once more for the road. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts. —...

Marcus

Mind open, then. Apparently it always was.