Much of what I’ve been led to write about over the past year or so is related to this idea:
We do not see the world the way it is,
We see the world the way we are.
The quote has a murky origin. It can be found in several sources, including in passages from Anaïs Nin and the Talmud – and variations appear in many other places.
However, the sentiment is clear: We perceive the world in a unique way. As we consciously change our perception, our beliefs, and reactions – the world will fall in line behind our new vision.
And this is the only way to truly change the world!
Coming into alignment with his concept transforms the whole ball game.
Instead of circumstances dictating my life: how I am, what I do, my emotions and my reactions, a new perception grounded in Reality reverses the appearance of the world.
This puts the power, the responsibility for the world and its condition clearly in my lap.
I am not a victim of the world I see is Lesson 31 in A Course in Miracles. It is an early lesson that awakens us to the concept that we do not have to be victims of circumstances. We do not have to quietly submit to hopelessness and futility.
We are powerful beyond our wildest imaginings because we superimpose our viewpoints on the blank screen of the world, and then we see what we are projecting.
I often use my dogs as an easily understood example of this phenomenon.
Let’s say that my two little Yorkie dogs are “the world,” aka blank slates.
People see them. They say, “Awww, cute.” “Adorable.” “Can I pet them?” They are soooooo sweet!”
Yet not everyone!
Sometimes someone will say, “Please get the dog away from me.” “Do they bite?” “I don’t like little dogs.” Or “I don’t like dogs.”
So, the question in relation to our concept (that I create the world I see from my perceptions) is this:
Are the dogs “Awww, cute?” or “Awww-ful?”
The answer is that they are nothing! They are blank slates. You decide.
You superimpose your perception, your beliefs, on the dogs and then that way of seeing flashes back at you so fast, you don’t even know that you made the dogs super-cute or super-scary.
We do that with everything we see – everything we experience. We call it what it is and then – it is exactly that.
Lesson 31 says, “Today’s idea is the introduction to your declaration of release. Again, the idea should be applied to both the world you see without and the world you see within.” (ACIM, W-31.1:1-2)
All philosophical and spiritual searching is at heart a search for Truth. The world doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense. Some things are wonderful, beautiful, rapturously sublime and approaching perfection. But other things are horrifying, maddening, confusing or just plain wrong.
How to make sense of something that makes no sense? How to right all these wrongs? How to sustain and increase the good and get rid of the bad?
Can anyone hold back the tide?
Obviously, no. The answer is not to try and change the world, but to change the focus, change the perspective, seek to changing our inner world.
Then, miraculously, the outer world will change – for us. Little dogs will become cute, not scary.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
(Romans 12:2)
This is the only way, the hopeful way, the way of power and possibility. Thinking this way, it turns out that I have agency. I have a choice. I am in charge – of myself.
Is this simple? Yes.
Is this easy? No… and yes!
All we must do is to begin. Life, ever on our side, will gladly help us.
Life is constantly giving us opportunities to “be transformed” by changing our minds.
Don’t like what you see? Change your mind about it.
This does not mean that we must stay in situations that are abusive, destructive, dysfunctional, or depressing. A big part of changing my mind in recent months has been to remove myself from those people, places and things that bring me down.
Gently as I can. Lovingly as I can. Firmly as I can.
Open-minded and open-hearted as I can, I see it right. And by that I mean that I see that this is not the place for me; these are not people I can safely be around. This is not an activity that makes me happy or feeds my soul.
I don’t blame them. I forgive them – and myself – and quietly shift my perspective.
A softened gaze is a marvelous thing to see it right. I try to replace the harsh glare of an insensitive light with a gentle and compassionate viewpoint.
My A Course in Miracles lesson for today is #313: Now let a new perception come to me. It talks about love coming in to replace a vision of fear and sin. It asks God to, “let true perception come to me, that I may awaken from the dream…” to see a world forgiven and innocent.
Then we see each other truly, “How beautiful we are! How holy and how loving!”
In his amazingly beautiful work, As A Man Thinketh, published in 1903, James Allen writes,
"... [dealing] with the power of thought, and particularly with the use and application of thought to happy and beautiful issues. I have tried to make the book simple, so that all can easily grasp and follow its teaching, and put into practice the methods which it advises. It shows how, in his own thought-world, each man holds the key to every condition, good or bad, that enters into his life, and that, by working patiently and intelligently upon his thoughts, he may remake his life, and transform his circumstances.
(Emphasis added)
Our thoughts create our circumstances. They color how we see the world. They are the place where we can make change, lasting change, change that creates miracles – in our lives and in the lives of others.
Change your mind, change your life!
Happy Sunday,
Johnny
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