ACIM Workbook
Healing Perspectives

Lesson 9

“I see nothing as it is now.”

When I go to a movie and sit down and watch the story unfold, someone next to me may say to me, “The events you are seeing on the screen are not really happening now. The movie was made several years ago and you are just viewing it now.” While in the middle of watching the movie, it appears as if the story is not over. It appears as if the scene being enacted in that moment is really happening right now.

I am learning through the Course that my life experiences are like watching a movie that was over long ago. The Course speaks of the “tiny tick of time” in which the Son of God forgot to laugh at such foolish ideas. When I watch a movie, I often get very wrapped up in the story, and laugh or cry at the events that seem to be happening at that moment.

I am learning to look at my life experiences in the same way. The Course is telling me that what I am seeing is not there now. It is over. That tiny tick of time is over. We all are in Heaven now. The Son of God is one. The millions of bodies that seem to dance on the stage of separation are seen clearly now for the nothingness that it always was.

Reminding myself often, “I see nothing as it is now,” will help to jog my mind out of taking this movie of separation so seriously. I need this help, because it does appear that this moment in the dream is happening now, just like when I watch the movies. As I practice again and again, stepping back and taking what appears to be happening now to the Holy Spirit, I am shown what will help me in the moment. I came from Love, I am Love now and Love is all that could ever be real.

A world of separation, a world of differences and bodies, a world of time a space, is a movie that is over. It was always just a movie of separation that could never be real. I can relax now. I can let my mind be healed of all my delusions of separation, minute by minute, day by day. I can forget and make the world real again and again, but it means nothing. No one has lost their innocence. Separation from God, from Love, could never be. I am grateful that this is so.

As I was doing today’s exercise, I was struck by the fact that even to do the exercise, I had to rely on my past learning. In order to name the object that I do not see as it is now, I look to my past learning to give it a label. It shows me how the past permeates all my thinking through the day.

In the process of waking up, I do not need to try to totally erase my past learning. I do need to learn that all my thoughts from the past are not here, and are therefore not real. It is only my belief that the thoughts from the past are true that engenders fear, loss, guilt and all the other myriad emotions of the ego. As long as I still seem to be seeing through the body’s eyes, there will still be memories of the past, my past learning coming up to give meaning to what I think I am seeing.

What is important is that I give these meanings in the moment to the Holy Spirit and ask for His reinterpretation. It is this moment by moment practice that will free me from my investment of reality in what is not here. It is this process that provides the means to escape from the past I have held on to in my mind.

My job is to develop the moment by moment practice of recognizing thoughts from the past, turning them over to the Holy Spirit and receiving the blessing of His perception. From this comes peace and joy eternal. It will bring me to the gate of Heaven, where I will have wholly forgiven myself and all the world.

It is important that I have great compassion for myself and my brothers as I begin to recognize the unreality of the dream, and allow Holy Spirit to gently loosen the chains that shackle my mind. There will be blocks of resistance. This is part of the process. As I recognize resistance it is important to be patient and gentle and loving with myself and others as I practice my lessons and experience a world as a loosely veiled dream.

It is important that I be present with what is in my mind, even the moments of resistance, the moments of grace, the miracles that unfold in giving every moment to Spirit. I heal as I am present with each moment and know that I am loved beyond measure and safe at Home in Heaven now.

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