My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 7, for January 7, 2024. An Entirely New Vision is Required

I see only the past.

* The past as we manifested it in our thoughts as a place of separation, guilt, and fear. (This is what I understand this to mean “today.”)

1. This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first. ²Yet it is the rationale for all of the preceding ones.

³It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything.

⁴It is the reason why you have given everything you see all the meaning that it has for you.

⁵It is the reason why you do not understand anything you see.

⁶It is the reason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the things you see.

⁷It is the reason why you are never upset for the reason you think.

⁸It is the reason why you are upset because you see something that is not there.

* It is why we want to allow the Holy Spirit to show us what to think, how to behave, what to say, and so forth. As an observer of that which could not be real and in looking to the Holy Spirit for Guidance this does begin to become “second nature” in our daily routine.

2. Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. ²Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. ³This first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first.

* Time is a construct as mortals we have believed to have meaning, yet this is not the case.

3. Look at a cup, for example. ²Do you see a cup, or are you merely reviewing your past experiences of picking up a cup, being thirsty, drinking from a cup, feeling the rim of a cup against your lips, having breakfast and so on? ³Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup, too, based on past experiences? ⁴How else would you know whether or not this kind of cup will break if you drop it? ⁵What do you know about this cup except what you learned in the past? ⁶You would have no idea what this cup is, except for your past learning. ⁷Do you, then, really see it?

* Isn’t this a good analogy of the principle of Time not being what we believe it to be? This is one of the Truths for which I am very grateful!

4. Look about you. ²This is equally true of whatever you look at.

³Acknowledge this by applying the idea for today indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye. ⁴For example:

⁵I see only the past in this pencil.

⁶I see only the past in this shoe.

⁷I see only the past in this hand.

⁸I see only the past in that body.

⁹I see only the past in that face.

* Wow! The implications here are incredible!

5. Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically. ²Glance briefly at each subject, and then move on to the next. ³Three or four practice periods, each to last a minute or so, will be enough.

* Brilliant! Thank you, Jesus, for not giving up on us!!!

(ACIM, W-7.1:1–5:3)

Till next time, God bless, debi.