Together, We Light the Way

Lesson 22 2026

What I see is a form of vengeance.
1. Today’s idea accurately describes the way anyone who holds attack thoughts in his mind must see the world. ²Having projected his anger onto the world, he sees vengeance about to strike at him. ³His own attack is thus perceived as self defense. ⁴This becomes an increasingly vicious circle until he is willing to change how he sees. ⁵Otherwise, thoughts of attack and counter-attack will preoccupy him and people his entire world. ⁶What peace of mind is possible to him then?
2. It is from this savage fantasy that you want to escape. ²Is it not joyous news to hear that it is not real? ³Is it not a happy discovery to find that you can escape? ⁴You made what you would destroy; everything that you hate and would attack and kill. ⁵All that you fear does not exist.
3. Look at the world about you at least five times today, for at least a minute each time. ²As your eyes move slowly from one object to another, from one body to another, say to yourself:
³I see only the perishable.
⁴I see nothing that will last.
⁵What I see is not real.
⁶What I see is a form of vengeance.
⁷At the end of each practice period, ask yourself:
⁸Is this the world I really want to see?
⁹The answer is surely obvious.
(ACIM, W-22.1:1–3:9)
2025
In this lesson, Jesus is introducing us to the fact that the world we see does not actually exist. It is fiction written by us and maintained by belief. Our stories make us feel like victims and so we defend ourselves. Defense felt necessary because I believed perception itself could protect or punish me. In our fear, we attack others. These ‘others’ are not really separate from us, so in attacking them, we are attacking ourselves. It seems like we are trapped in our own web of self-deceit. But we are not.
As we read these lessons and study the Text, we discover our way out. We have a choice now. Of course, we cannot gain our freedom from reading, no matter how elevated the material. We must practice what we read until it is what we believe and so experience. Our experience of freedom awakens us to reality.
When I first started these lessons, I did as Jesus asked. I looked at everything around me and admitted that it was a lie. More than that, it was a form of vengeance. It didn’t make me feel any better. ~smile~ But, eventually, the truth that none of it is real and that I am responsible for its being in my awareness sank in. Not responsible in a guilty way, but responsible in the simple sense that it came from my own thinking. If I made it, I can choose to release it. I can choose to accept that it doesn’t actually exist.
Freedom from pain, suffering, and death is available to me, and all I have to do is suspend my ego judgment long enough for the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. I didn’t even have to fully accept any of this. I just had to trust my Brother’s words enough to do the little asked of me. Eventually, I accepted His help, and everything changed. I can still get briefly pulled into a story, and I am still aware of the ego’s thoughts, but I don’t believe them, and that is absolutely a miracle.
2026
Wow! How succinctly and clearly Jesus explains to us the world we seem to be in and how we turn it into a form of vengeance. For much of my life, I thought of myself as a victim and unfairly treated. Because this was what I believed, I saw proof of it even where there was none. And I unknowingly interpreted experience through that belief. My belief in victimhood convinced me that I was always being attacked. Some of it I can see so very clearly now that I am on the outside of that cycle of thinking. There were times I thought I was being mistreated, but in retrospect, I see it was just my screwed-up interpretation of what was happening.
Because I was always expecting to be attacked, I became very defensive, and this defensiveness was felt by others as an attack, and so the cycle just kept repeating. Defense and attack were not moral failures; they were simply the mechanics of a mistaken belief. Since I had no idea what I was doing to myself, it just continued to play out in this way. That is, until I found A Course in Miracles and slowly everything began to shift.
I cannot tell you what a surprise it was to discover that I was actually loved, appreciated, and even admired by others. I had no idea. When it first became clear, I cried. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I’ve adjusted to a new reality, but the old thinking sometimes still arises, and I am surprised all over again that it is all a ridiculous cycle of wrong-minded thinking.
I’m not saying that everybody loves and appreciates me, and I don’t feel special when they do. But I am seeing it all differently now that I am not turning everything into a form of vengeance. So that when someone disapproves of me, I understand. It isn’t about me. We all see what we expect to see, even if there is not a glimmer of truth in it, because the mind looks for itself. I understand because that used to be me.
These days, when I feel attacked, I ask the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking. When I attack someone else, I ask the Holy Spirit for correction. Everything I see and experience is a reflection of my own beliefs. The world and everything I believe about it is a story my mind tells me. I know that a healed mind sees only love, no matter what is apparently happening. Not because behavior always looks loving, but because love is no longer interpreted as attack. My mind isn’t healed to that degree, but I get glimpses of it, and so I believe what I haven’t yet fully experienced. Those glimpses are the motivation that keeps me willingly on the healing path. Little by little, I am learning that perception does not need to be corrected—only relinquished.
Video: https://youtu.be/C8bKjsdoCQg

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