Lesson 18: I Am Not Alone in Experiencing the Effects of My Seeing

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 18: I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. Before we go anywhere near today, I want to note for the record that yesterday Marcus promised—

Marcus

My wall clock is an instrument of personal hostility. That's the finding. Volunteered, no extraction required. —...

Sarah

(laughs) You have been sitting on that all night.

Marcus

Since about four yesterday afternoon. Yesterday was Lesson 17, "I see no neutral things." Eyes open, and you rest your glance on each thing that catches your eye, long enough to say, "I do not see a neutral--blank--because my thoughts about--blank--are not neutral." Four periods. Sixty seconds each. One, three and four were unremarkable. A door, a stack of mail, the edge of a chair. Full marks, and I moved on.

Sarah

You're still grading them.

Marcus

I grade everything. It was period two that ruined the average.

Sarah

Go on.

Marcus

My glance landed on the clock, I said the line properly, and then I spent the remaining fifty-odd seconds explaining to myself that it ticks too loudly and has been making me late since the day I bought it.

Sarah

So the sentence went in, and the grievance came straight back out.

Marcus

In fairness, the exercise did want me to notice my thoughts about it were not neutral. I'd say I established that. My dog slept through all four periods without comment.

Sarah

(laughs) A tough room. And that's the right place to start, because today's lesson picks up the thing you just did to your clock and asks a question about it that has not come up yet: where do the effects of it stop? Let me read Lesson 18 in full. —... Lesson 18. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. The idea for today is another step in learning that the thoughts which give rise to what you see are never neutral or unimportant. It also emphasizes the idea that minds are joined, which will be given increasing stress later. Today's idea does not refer to what you see as much as to how you see it. Therefore, the exercises for today will emphasize this aspect of your perception. The three or four practice periods which are recommended should be done as follows: Selecting subjects for the application of the idea randomly, look at each one long enough to say: "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see--blank--." Conclude the practice period by repeating the more general statement: "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." A minute or so or even less will be sufficient. —...

Marcus

Minds are joined. That's a sizeable thing to set down in the second sentence of a lesson about looking at furniture.

Sarah

(laughs) It's a short lesson.

Marcus

It's a short lesson with a trapdoor in it.

Sarah

It is. And the lesson seems to know it. It says the idea will be given increasing stress later. Today it plants the flag. It doesn't argue for it.

Marcus

The first paragraph I can follow. If my thoughts are never neutral, my seeing isn't neutral, and something that isn't neutral has effects. That much is arithmetic. It's the word "alone" I keep catching on.

Sarah

Say more about that.

Marcus

I've always taken it as settled that whatever goes on behind my eyes is mine. Sealed. Whatever I think about that clock is between me and the clock.

Sarah

And today says the effects of that aren't yours alone. Not the clock's opinion of you. What your looking does.

Marcus

Which makes it either a figure of speech or a mechanism. I'd like to know which one before I start saying it out loud to a table.

Sarah

(laughs) That's the honest question, and I'd rather hand you what's actually on the page than my version of it. Kenneth Wapnick writes about this lesson, and these are his words rather than the Course's. He calls it the introduction of the idea that minds are joined, "a theme central to A Course in Miracles, the oneness of God's Son and, specifically here, the oneness of God's Son in his separated state." The lesson itself is more restrained than that. It says minds are joined, and that it will come back to it.

Marcus

So I'm asked to carry it today, not to sign it.

Sarah

Carry it, and look at your kitchen while you're carrying it. That's the entire assignment.

Marcus

I can manage that. I've been carrying things I don't believe for two and a half weeks.

Sarah

Seventeen days. And not one of them has asked you to believe it first. —...

Marcus

There's a second thing in there I nearly walked straight past. The lesson says today's idea doesn't refer to what you see as much as to how you see it.

Sarah

That's the line I'd underline. Everything up to now has been about the objects. The wall, the table, whatever your eye happened to land on. Today it moves to the way you're doing the looking.

Marcus

Which is the calibration, not the reading. If the instrument is off, every measurement it gives you is off, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the thing you were measuring.

Sarah

And the Manual for Teachers puts it about as flatly as it can be put. "The world does nothing to him."

Marcus

Nothing at all. Which is a harder sentence than it looks, because it removes the explanation I reach for first. So the effects run outward from me. I've spent my whole working life assuming I was downstream of the room.

Sarah

You're upstream of it. And if minds are joined, then you're upstream of a good deal more than the room.

Marcus

That's the part that arrives like a bill I didn't order. If how I look at a clock has effects past me, that's a considerable amount of responsibility for a Tuesday afternoon.

Sarah

(laughs) It is.

Marcus

I'll admit the shape of it is elegant. One shared record, and every copy of it updates the moment any one of them does. I can picture that clearly. Believing I'm one of the copies is a separate exercise entirely.

Sarah

That's honest. And I want to be careful right here, because I can feel myself about to hand you a tidy version of where all this goes, and the lesson doesn't go there today. It says minds are joined. It says it will have more to say later. That's the whole of what's on the page. —...

Marcus

You're leaving it open.

Sarah

I'm leaving it where the lesson leaves it.

Marcus

That's unusual for you.

Sarah

I know. Ask me again in a month.

Marcus

Then give me the mechanics. Eyes open again?

Sarah

Eyes open. Three or four practice periods. You look around, and you choose what you look at randomly. Selecting subjects for the application of the idea randomly, as it says.

Marcus

So nothing gets nominated.

Sarah

Nothing gets nominated.

Marcus

That's harder than it sounds. Yesterday I let my eye fall wherever it wanted, and it went directly to the one object in the room I hold a grievance against.

Sarah

Then today it can land on the mail. You rest on each one long enough to say, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see--blank--." With the actual thing in the blank.

Marcus

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see this table."

Sarah

That's the form. And you close the period out with the general one: "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing."

Marcus

And the length?

Sarah

A minute or so or even less will be sufficient. That's the lesson's own wording, and it's gentler than yesterday's, which wanted three periods out of you whether you liked it or not.

Marcus

Then let me say it, since I'm the one who has been getting it wrong all week. Eyes open, three or four times today. Look at whatever your eye lands on, at random, and say, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of how I see--blank--." Finish each one with, "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." A minute is plenty. Less is fine.

Sarah

That's the first time you've read me the instructions.

Marcus

I wouldn't get used to it.

Sarah

(laughs) Lesson 19 tomorrow. Go easy on that clock.