Together, We Light the Way

Lesson 23

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.
1. The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will ever succeed. ²Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. ³But this way cannot fail. ⁴Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. ⁵It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed.
2. If the cause of the world you see is attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want. ²There is no point in lamenting the world. ³There is no point in trying to change the world. ⁴It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. ⁵But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. ⁶Here you are changing the cause. ⁷The effect will change automatically.
3. The world you see is a vengeful world, and everything in it is a symbol of vengeance. ²Each of your perceptions of “external reality” is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. ³One can well ask if this can be called seeing. ⁴Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result?
4. You see the world that you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image maker. ²You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. ³This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? ⁴Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. ⁵Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them, even though they were made of hate. ⁶For you will not be making them alone.
5. The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. ²This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced. ³The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. ⁴The final one does not. ⁵Your images have already been replaced. ⁶By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so.
6. Besides using it throughout the day as the need arises, five practice periods are required in applying today’s idea. ²As you look about you, repeat the idea slowly to yourself first, and then close your eyes and devote about a minute to searching your mind for as many attack thoughts as occur to you. ³As each one crosses your mind say:
⁴I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts about _________.
⁵Hold each attack thought in mind as you say this, and then dismiss that thought and go on to the next.
7. In the practice periods, be sure to include both your thoughts of attacking and of being attacked. ²Their effects are exactly the same because they are exactly the same. ³You do not recognize this as yet, and you are asked at this time only to treat them as the same in today’s practice periods. ⁴We are still at the stage of identifying the cause of the world you see. ⁵When you finally learn that thoughts of attack and of being attacked are not different, you will be ready to let the cause go. (ACIM, W-23.1:1–7:5)
2025
I include last year’s reflections in these lessons because they show how the lessons first met me, and how they have since deepened.
Jesus is perfectly clear as he reminds us that we make the world we see with our thoughts, and it is a vengeful world because our thoughts are of attacking and being attacked. He tells us that it will do no good to try to change the world. Our thoughts are the cause, and the world is its effect.
You cannot fix something by starting with the effect.
I was thinking about this, and I remember one time I made a cake from scratch. Yeah, I don’t know why I did this either, when you can buy perfectly good cake mixes at any grocery store. When the cake came out of the oven, it looked great. But when I tasted it, I realized I had dipped from the salt canister rather than the sugar canister. It was inedible. But it was so lovely, and I had worked so hard at it. Still, the cooking error was the cause, and the cake was the effect. Trying to fix the effect of the error would be a waste of time and energy.
Trying to fix the world, which is an effect of our thoughts, is the same error. It is a waste of time and energy and causes more suffering in the attempt. Just as I had to bite the bullet and toss the cake, it is time to do the same with the world we made of our attack thoughts. But unlike my cake, which would have to be cooked by me again to correct the problems with the world, I only need to identify the cause and then let it go. Vision will show us the real world that exists right now, unseen by us who are fixated on the world of our vengeance.
Looking at my attack thoughts this morning, I see that I did not agree with a decision of President Trump’s yesterday. I felt anger, contempt for the choice he made, and frustration that I could do nothing about it. All of those are attack thoughts. I won’t write him a letter about it or even talk about it with others, except as an example of this lesson. That would have been trying to change the effect without changing its cause.
But in my mind, I attacked and felt attacked. My angry thoughts were the cause of the world I was seeing. This is not, of course, the first time I have attacked someone, but this time, I recognized the error and happily let it go so that I could go back to seeing what stands in the place of our thought errors. As it happens, it is love and peace of mind. I will not spend my time here defending what I think should happen. I came for greater things. I came to heal the mind so that we can have an experience of a healed world rather than a world built on vengeance.
2026
There is so much in this lesson that has had a profound effect on me. From the first word, Jesus impresses on us the importance of what he is saying.
• the only way out of fear that will ever succeed.
• ²Nothing else will work;
• everything else is meaningless.
• ³But this way cannot fail.
I feel my body relax and my mind slip gently into peace as I take this in. In all of my life I had wondered why life didn’t come with an instruction book. It all seemed so random and uncontrollable with no way forward that offered certainty. Now, here is the promise that this lesson is the instruction manual I was longing to find.
It was with anticipation that I first read the next two sentences in which he described the cause and the needed correction.
⁴Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. ⁵It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed.
I’m not going to say that it was at that moment I knew what to do, and the rest is history. But it was then I knew I would find my way Home and I would not stop until I did.
As Jesus goes on to explain that it is not the world I must change to achieve peace, but the attack thoughts in my mind that must be relinquished. After all, the world is just the effect of those thoughts. It doesn’t matter if I attack or if I feel attacked, attack itself will shatter my peace. As often happens, I read a comment by someone that was so hate-filled that it hurt my heart. I felt uneasy afterward, but I went on with what I was doing. But it was like having a splinter in your finger, and each time it was touched, it hurt. So I stopped and talked to Jesus about it.
I wondered why this was so upsetting. It is not the first time I have heard this hateful rhetoric. Why did I need to look at this now? At first I thought I needed to forgive her or forgive the belief that something outside myself could hurt me. But that didn’t change the uneasiness. So, I asked the Holy Spirit to decide for me, since clearly I had no idea what to think that would give me peace. And then I waited, not doing anything, just allowing the feelings to run through me along with any thoughts I had.
Then I saw the problem. I felt attacked by her words. I could not imagine living in the world of her dreams, and yet she was trying to convince me that this was what was going to happen, and I should love it as much as she did. I felt endangered, and I wanted to defend myself from her vision of heaven. I am certain that my vision of how we should live with each other was just as upsetting to her as her’s was to me. I bet that’s why she had to express herself so forcefully. She was defending herself against me.
Once I understood the dynamics, I was able to let go of my defenses, and my mind was at peace. I had to laugh when I looked at today’s lesson. I appreciated the opportunity to get this clear example in my own mind before I even read the lesson. Trying to change the world is not ever going to work. I can’t go around Facebook trying to stop people from attacking me. When someone’s mind is fixed on an idea, and they don’t want to give it up, I can’t do anything about that. But I can change my mind, and that is where my power lies.
This morning, I practiced this lesson, letting the Holy Spirit decide for me, and went from distress to peace. I very much want to do this from now on because I am convinced this is the way out of the world we made. I bring this sister of mine to mind, and I feel nothing but love. I don’t agree with her, and I don’t have to. This isn’t about that. What I know about her is that she is on her path to God just as I am. She and I are part of the Sonship. I cannot hate her without hating myself. That’s all I need to know about this relationship.
My fear had been that if she got her way, I would be trapped in her world. But I discovered that I cannot be trapped in a world unless I choose attack as a means of salvation. Today I proved that to myself when I changed my mind. This is the paragraph that is my instruction manual for a peaceful life, and how wonderful it is that my part is so simple and that the outcome has already in place waiting for my acceptance.
²This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced. ³The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. ⁴The final one does not. ⁵Your images have already been replaced. ⁶By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so.
I still feel the ego trying to grab my attention with fear thoughts about the world, but I am not interested now that I have seen the outcome it has for me. I place my faith in God and in my brother, Jesus, who practices infinite patience with me as I learn to change my mind.
Video: https://youtu.be/vpXpr4V5H5g

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