Lesson 23: I Can Escape From the World I See by Giving Up Attack 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 23: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. Yesterday named what the world looks like. Today names the way out. And I owe you a report first, since I said on this program where I'd be doing mine. Yesterday was Lesson 22, "What I see is a form of vengeance." Five times, a full minute each, eyes open, letting them move slowly from one thing to the next and saying: I see only the perishable. I see nothing that will last. What I see is a form of vengeance. I did four at stoplights and one at the sink. And I spent an entire period arguing with the bumper of the car in front of me about whether it counted.

Marcus

Did it win?

Sarah

It did not answer, which I took as a concession. —...

Marcus

I took the sink, as advertised. Five periods, a minute each, and the first thing I looked at was grease on a frying pan, which made the perishable part easy. Here's my finding, and I'm not proud of it. Yesterday you said the lesson includes bodies, not only objects. A kitchen sink at nine at night contains no bodies whatsoever. I picked the one room in the building where the hard half of the assignment could not come up.

Sarah

You found the loophole and then reported yourself for it. (laughs)

Marcus

I did the four I was owed and one I wasn't. Seemed like the honest correction.

Sarah

That's more than the assignment asked of you, and going looking for the easy room and then handing me the evidence anyway is the part that lands us where today starts. Yesterday described the world. Today names its cause. And the only exit it says will work. Let me read Lesson 23 in full. —... Lesson 23. I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will succeed. Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed. If the cause of the world you see is attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want. There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically. The world you see is a vengeful world, and everything in it is a symbol of vengeance. Each of your perceptions of "external reality" is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. One can well ask if this can be called seeing. Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result? You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image-maker. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone. The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced. The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not. Your images have already been replaced. By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so. Besides using it throughout the day as the need arises, five practice periods are required in applying today's idea. As you look about you, repeat the idea slowly to yourself, and then close your eyes and devote about a minute to searching your mind for as many attack thoughts as occur to you. As each one crosses your mind, say: "I can escape from the world by giving up attack thoughts about--blank--." Hold each one in mind as you say this, and then dismiss that thought and go on to the next. In the practice periods, be sure to include both your thoughts of attacking and of being attacked. Their effects are exactly the same, because they are exactly the same. You do not yet recognize this, and you are asked at this time only to treat them as the same in today's practice periods. We are still at the stage of identifying the cause of the world you see. When you finally realize that thoughts of attack and of being attacked are not different, you will be ready to let the cause go. —...

Marcus

The second paragraph is an engineering principle and a good one. The world is an effect. There is no point in trying to change an effect. You go to the cause.

Sarah

That's the whole argument.

Marcus

Said out loud, that sounds like an instruction to do nothing. My landlord still isn't answering.

Sarah

The lesson doesn't say stop calling him. What it says is that lamenting the world and trying to change the world are not where anything actually moves, because the world is the effect and pushing there means standing at the wrong end of the thing. There is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world, and the effects change on their own.

Marcus

Then the third paragraph gets rude about it. It asks whether this can be called seeing at all, and offers hallucination as the better word.

Sarah

That one still startles me on the page. Not an insult. A diagnosis.

Marcus

I follow all of it up to paragraph seven, and there I stop. It says thoughts of attacking and of being attacked are the same. I don't accept that. If somebody hits me, I'm the one who got hit.

Sarah

You are. The Course isn't scoring the fight. It's saying both thoughts rest on the same assumption underneath, which is the part nobody in an argument ever stops to check. The Text puts it that assault can ultimately be made only on the body, and that if you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible.

Marcus

So both sides agree the body is what matters.

Sarah

Both positions agree, and that's the shared error. The Text's alternative is a phrase I love. Teach your own perfect immunity, which is the Truth in you, and know that it cannot be assailed.

Marcus

Strong claim, from where I'm sitting.

Sarah

It is. Gerald Jampolsky puts the practical end of it more plainly than the Course does. Our own attack thoughts are actually hurting us. Not the person we're aiming them at. Us.

Marcus

That I can check by hand. The sweater man has had a very pleasant three years.

Sarah

He has no idea he's in a queue. (laughs)

Marcus

One more thing. Paragraph five says the first two steps need my cooperation and the third doesn't.

Sarah

That's the most generous sentence in the lesson. Identify the cause, let it go. Those are ours. The replacement isn't. The Text says your part is only to offer a little willingness. My son asked me to hold the ladder this morning and did the rest himself.

Marcus

Then give me the sequence.

Sarah

Five practice periods, plus the idea through the day as the need arises. You look about you and repeat the idea slowly: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. Then you close your eyes. About a minute. Search your mind for as many attack thoughts as you find.

Marcus

Both directions.

Sarah

The lesson is firm about that. And for each one you find, you say: I can escape from the world by giving up attack thoughts about blank, with the actual thing in the blank. Hold it in mind as you say it.

Marcus

And when the same one keeps arriving first? I have experience there.

Sarah

The lesson answers that. Dismiss that thought, and go on to the next. It doesn't ask you to resolve it or win it. Just let it go and take the next one.

Marcus

Dismiss and continue. I can do that.

Sarah

Five periods today, about a minute each, both directions, and the line as often as you need it: I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. Lesson 24 tomorrow.

Marcus

I'll find a room with people in it.