H. Attainment of the Real World


1. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself:

“The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.”

2. This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you is unequal.

3. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world.

4. Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you. LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE.

5. You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love.

6. No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out. Love leads so gladly! And as you follow Him, YOU will rejoice that you have found His company, and learned of Him the joyful journey home. You wait but for YOURSELF. To give this sad world over, and exchange your errors for the peace of God, is but YOUR will. And Christ will ALWAYS offer you the Will of God, in recognition that you share it WITH Him.

7. It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything. The world about him shines with love, because God placed him in Himself where pain is not, and love surrounds him without end or flaw. Disturbance of his peace can never be. In perfect sanity he looks on love, for it is all about him, and within him. He MUST deny the world of pain, the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of safety, he looks quietly about him, and recognizes that the world is one with him.

8. The peace of God passeth your understanding ONLY in the past. Yet here it IS, and you CAN understand it NOW. God loves His Son forever, and His Son RETURNS his Father’s love forever. The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with Him.

9. You will first DREAM of peace, and THEN awaken to it. Your first exchange of what you made for what, you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where ALL perception is. Knowledge needs NO correction. Yet the dreams of love lead UNTO knowledge. In them you see nothing fearful, and BECAUSE of this they are the welcome that you OFFER knowledge. Love waits on welcome, NOT on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have NOT lost. Praise, then, the Father for the perfect sanity of His most holy Son.

10. Your Father knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so, for what could you need in eternity? In YOUR world you DO need things, because it is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself BECAUSE you are lacking. But CAN you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit, the answer would be no. But BECAUSE of Him, the answer is a joyous YES. As mediator between the two worlds, He knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU. Ownership is a dangerous concept, if it is left to you. The ego wants to HAVE things for salvation, for possession is its law. Possession for its OWN sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself. And at ITS altar, it demands you lay ALL of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.

11. EVERYTHING that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For, although it urges you again and again to GET, it LEAVES you nothing, for what you get it will DEMAND of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation IT SEES SEPARATION, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name. Therefore, ask not of yourselves what you need, FOR YOU KNOW NOT, and your advice unto yourself WILL hurt you. For what YOU think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world AGAINST the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can REALLY hold for you.

12. Only the Holy Spirit KNOWS what you need. For HE will give you all things that do NOT block the way to light. And what else COULD you need? In time, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. He will take nothing FROM you, as long as you have ANY need of it. And yet He knows that EVERYTHING you need is temporary, and need but last until you step aside from ALL your needs, and learn that all of them HAVE BEEN fulfilled. Therefore, He has no investment in the things that He supplies, except to make certain that you will NOT use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming.

13. Leave, then, your needs to Him. He will supply them, with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind, and kept to hurt you. Under His guidance, you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. God’s Son is not a traveler through OUTER worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world OUTSIDE himself holds his inheritance. Within HIMSELF he HAS no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace. And from ITSELF, to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity.

14. Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead AWAY from light, remember what you REALLY want, and say:

“The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ,
and where else would I go?
What need have I but to awake in Him?”

15. Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through all dangers to your peace of mind that this world sets before you. Kneel not before the altars to sacrifice, and seek not what you will surely lose. Content yourselves with what you will as surely KEEP, and be not restless, for you undertake a quiet journey to the peace of God, where He would have you be in quietness.

16. In me, you have ALREADY overcome EVERY temptation that would hold you back. We walk together on the way to quietness that is the gift of God. Hold me dear, for what EXCEPT your brothers CAN you need? We will restore to you the peace of mind that we MUST find together. The Holy Spirit will teach you to awaken unto us, and to yourself. THIS is the only REAL need to be fulfilled in time. Salvation FROM the world lies ONLY here. My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of me, in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to TAKE AWAY. And we will spread it, like a veil of light, across the world’s sad face, in which we hide our brothers FROM the world, and it from them.

17. We cannot sing redemption’s hymn alone. My task is not completed ‘til I have lifted every voice with mine. And yet it is NOT mine, for as it is my gift to you, so was it the Father’s gift to me, given me through His Spirit. The sound of it will banish sorrow from the mind of God’s most holy Son, where it cannot abide. Healing in time IS needed, for joy cannot establish its eternal reign where sorrow dwells. You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams, while safe at home. Give thanks to every part of you that you have taught how to REMEMBER you. Thus does the Son of God give thanks unto his Father for his purity.

12-H-paragraph 1


"1. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself:

“The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.”"


In the preceding paragraphs another world was mentioned. This section and this paragraph now focus on this other world called, "the real world". From my previous experience with studying the course, this world can only be hinted at. The Course does this throughout. I do not think it can be fully described from where we are now, it can only be pointed at. It is like trying to describe color vision to a blind person.

The real world does not appear to be a physical world seen with the body's eyes and other senses. We are no longer alone and separate. The light is not physical light but another kind of light mentioned in the paragraphs before, which may be love. There is no loss in the real world.

12-H-paragraph 2


"2. This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you is unequal."


It appears to say here that the physical world that we see now must be denied in order to see the real world. We cannot see both at once. The one we see is the one we more dear.

I may be mistaken, but it seems that later in the Text a borderland is described where we still see the physical world but it is totally forgiven and guiltless.

12-H-paragraph 3


"3. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world."


We are told that we do not really want this world. It always disappoints us. Our homes do not protect us and the roads led nowhere. All cities crumble with time (New Orleans being a recent example). Everything in this world we make has death on it. This world is old and tired and returning to dust. This world cannot touch the real, living world. "...although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world."

12-H-paragraph 4


"4. Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you. LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."


This seems clear. I find this important: "LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it...". We may feel alone and it may seem like we are alone but love is always with us and waiting for us.

"The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

12-H-paragraph 5


"5. You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would judge reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away."

The reason we have been wrong about the world is related to ourselves. "All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER...". Because we have misjudged ourselves, we are a twisted reference point. We judge what is true and what is false. What we judge as false we cannot see. When we judge reality, we cannot see it.


"The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."

Although we deny reality and cannot see it, it is still here. Christ is here now, within us in the quiet present. Christ "waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."

12-H-paragraph 6


"6. No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. Yet while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out."

We have all had glimpses of the real world. As long as we continue to see value in this world, however, we will deny the real world. We maintain that we love this world when we do not. Therefore, we do not follow "...the road that love points out."


"Love leads so gladly! And as you follow Him, YOU will rejoice that you have found His company, and learned of Him the joyful journey home. You wait but for YOURSELF. To give this sad world over, and exchange your errors for the peace of God, is but YOUR will. And Christ will ALWAYS offer you the Will of God, in recognition that you share it WITH Him."

Love is just waiting to guide us. The Course then refers to Love as Him. This seems to make an identity between Love and an aspect of God, either Christ or the Holy Spirit. "And as you follow Him, YOU will rejoice that you have found His company, and learned of Him the joyful journey home." We are told that we wait for ourself. It is our will to "give this sad world over, and exchange [our] errors for the peace of God". "And Christ will ALWAYS offer you the Will of God, in recognition that you share it WITH Him."

12-H- Paragraph 1

I don’t think we can understand “the real world” from this opening paragraph because there are other places (many of them in earlier sections of the Course) where the real world is described as more than just light shining.

For example, in “The Problem and the Answer” we are told that the real world can be perceived and then connected to the idea of looking at the world we think we see but seeing “only the good.” Later on it is connected to seeing God in our brother. Here I think is a quote that is most telling. We are told, “In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no-one is WITHOUT your help the Help of God goes with YOU everywhere..”

Okay, if we are “going somewhere” then clearly we are seeing the perceptual world in terms of physical objects. And although we do not “see” sickness, we recognize that others need help and that we have the Help of God to offer. Later we are told that the real world can be seen only by understanding there is no situation to which miracles do not apply and then applying them to all situations.

Given all that went before and will come after regarding "the real world" my initial sense of it is that the real world is not unlike the world we see when we have lucid dreams. When we stand there in the dreamscape and see people who are ill or angry, we are not fooled into thinking that anger or sickness is REALLY going on. We are not in doubt as to whether all that we see we are projecting. We understand that this is a dream and therefore all things are possible and in that understanding, many people choose to fly which they do. What we will choose is to heal by knowing that there is no sickness of any form possible to the Son of God.

12-H- Paragraphs 2-6
These next two paragraphs mostly encourage us to understand we want to DENY the world we see. Honestly, I think this section should not be read until making sure that we understand the entire section on “true denial.” You get a telephone call and are told your house just burned down. What does true denial do? The doctor gives you a bad report? What does true denial do? You wake up in the morning to find that your business partner has stolen all your money and you are without funds. What does true denial do? Understand what to do in these situations and others like them and we will understand what Jesus is talking about when he says the world we see MUST BE DENIED. Jesus helps us to understand in Paragraph 4 when we are told that the world we made (the one where we are sick or without abundance or robbed) is FALSE. Our mission (should we decide to accept it) is to stop projecting that false stuff by using true denial.

This is our first introduction to the real world in the material we have studied thus far. There are different perceptions of what the Course tells us about the real world. We could discuss this another time in General Course Discussion.

For now, what I mainly get from this is that there is another world that is far better than the world offered to us by the ego.

I think we also need to remember that God will never take from us what we want. He will never ask us to sacrifice. I think the Course will help us to learn about the world of the ego and the world that God offers us. We will eventually decide that we do not want the ego's world but want God's instead.

12-H-paragraph 7


"7. It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything. The world about him shines with love, because God placed him in Himself where pain is not, and love surrounds him without end or flaw. Disturbance of his peace can never be. In perfect sanity he looks on love, for it is all about him, and within him."

We are told that, "It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself...". We are safe from pain as God is constantly watching over us. We are surrounded by love. We are in constant peace. Why does this not seem to be the case? I believe that it is because we have created a will in opposition to God, that of the ego. Since God has given us His power, we are able to create a will able to oppose God.


"He MUST deny the world of pain, the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of safety, he looks quietly about him, and recognizes that the world is one with him."

Once we do perceive God's love surrounding us then we will choose to deny the ego's world of pain. Then we will be in a place of safety and quiet recognizing that we are one with the world.

12-H-paragraph 8


As long as we live in the past we will not understand God's peace. The only time we can understand it is NOW.

"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true...".

It appears that the real world is not an endpoint but a way-point that leads us to reality where we are one with God.

12-H-paragraph 9


"You will first DREAM of peace, and THEN awaken to it."

I think our dreams of peace are the real world. We exchange our nightmares in the ego's world for the happy dreams of love. We are still in a world of perception but it is true perception.

The happy dream of the real world leads us back to the reality of knowledge.

The only thing love and the real world are waiting on is our welcome.

12-H-paragraph 10


In Heaven we need nothing.

"In YOUR world you DO need things, because it is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself BECAUSE you are lacking. But CAN you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit, the answer would be no. But BECAUSE of Him, the answer is a joyous YES. As mediator between the two worlds, He knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU."


"Ownership is a dangerous concept, if it is left to you. The ego wants to HAVE things for salvation, for possession is its law. Possession for its OWN sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself. And at ITS altar, it demands you lay ALL of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them."

Ownership is dangerous if left up to us and our ego. Possession is a law of the ego. It wishes to own just for the sake of ownership. This is another cornerstone of the ego thought system. The ego first sends us out to get things and then demands that everything be given to the ego, leaving us with no joy in them.

12-H-paragraph 11


"EVERYTHING that the ego tells you that you need will hurt you."

"For, although it urges you again and again to GET, it LEAVES you nothing, for what you get it will DEMAND of you. And even from the very hands that grasped it, it will be wrenched and hurled into the dust. For where the ego sees salvation IT SEES SEPARATION, and so you lose whatever you have gotten in its name."

The ego urges us to get but leaves us nothing. Everything will turn to dust. The ego see separation as salvation.


"Therefore, ask not of yourselves what you need, FOR YOU KNOW NOT, and your advice unto yourself WILL hurt you. For what YOU think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world AGAINST the light, and render you unwilling to question the value that this world can REALLY hold for you."

Once again, what we think we need will hurt us. What the ego tells us we need acts to further block the light from us. We become "unwilling to question the value that this world can REALLY hold for [us]."

12-H-paragraph 12


"Only the Holy Spirit KNOWS what you need."

"For HE will give you all things that do NOT block the way to light. And what else COULD you need? In time, He gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. He will take nothing FROM you, as long as you have ANY need of it. And yet He knows that EVERYTHING you need is temporary, and need but last until you step aside from ALL your needs, and learn that all of them HAVE BEEN fulfilled."

"Therefore, He has no investment in the things that He supplies, except to make certain that you will NOT use them on behalf of lingering in time. He knows that you are not at home there, and He wills no delay to wait upon your joyous homecoming."

12-H-paragraph 13


"Leave, then, your needs to Him."

"He will supply them, with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of Him comes safely, for He will ensure it never can become a dark spot, hidden in your mind, and kept to hurt you. Under His guidance, you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. God’s Son is not a traveler through OUTER worlds. However holy his perception may become, no world OUTSIDE himself holds his inheritance. Within HIMSELF he HAS no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace. And from ITSELF, to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity."

12-H-paragraph 14


Whenever you are tempted to undertake a foolish journey that would lead AWAY from light, remember what you REALLY want, and say:

“The Holy Spirit leads me unto Christ,
and where else would I go?
What need have I but to awake in Him?”

12-H-paragraph 15


"Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through all dangers to your peace of mind that this world sets before you. Kneel not before the altars to sacrifice, and seek not what you will surely lose. Content yourselves with what you will as surely KEEP, and be not restless, for you undertake a quiet journey to the peace of God, where He would have you be in quietness."


We are advised that sacrifice is NOT in our best interest. We should not seek anything that will be lost to time. We are advised not to be restless, as our journey to the peace of God is a quiet one.

12-H-paragraph 16


"In me, you have ALREADY overcome EVERY temptation that would hold you back. We walk together on the way to quietness that is the gift of God. Hold me dear, for what EXCEPT your brothers CAN you need? We will restore to you the peace of mind that we MUST find together. The Holy Spirit will teach you to awaken unto us, and to yourself. THIS is the only REAL need to be fulfilled in time. Salvation FROM the world lies ONLY here."

"My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of me, in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to TAKE AWAY. And we will spread it, like a veil of light, across the world’s sad face, in which we hide our brothers FROM the world, and it from them."


It is pointed out that our only need is our brothers. Together we will find and restore our peace of mind. The Holy Spirit will teach us to awaken to one another and ourselves as this is our only real need in time. It is only here that we will find salvation from the world.

12-H-paragraph 17 (final paragraph)


"We cannot sing redemption’s hymn alone. My task is not completed ‘til I have lifted every voice with mine. And yet it is NOT mine, for as it is my gift to you, so was it the Father’s gift to me, given me through His Spirit. The sound of it will banish sorrow from the mind of God’s most holy Son, where it cannot abide. Healing in time IS needed, for joy cannot establish its eternal reign where sorrow dwells. You dwell not here, but in eternity. You travel but in dreams, while safe at home. Give thanks to every part of you that you have taught how to REMEMBER you. Thus does the Son of God give thanks unto his Father for his purity."

I doubt there is anything "more" than light. I think our judgments of what is good and what is not good deter our understanding of what good means here. God is good, God is light, therefore good is light. Even here in this world, that light can be perceived. We were told in the workbook lessons that we would have "light episodes" as our mind is healed. Those light episodes are glimpses of the real world.

I am glad Santa is coming.

It looks like this topic may be on hold until we finish our "What is a miracle?" question. Or, maybe not.

Santa may have come and gone before we finish the 'What is a Miracle?' section but I am sure he would approve of our taking the break in order to understand miracles.

Hi neo, yes I think you're doing a good thing to study the Course in this way. I think the way you stay with the page and make the discussion based on what the Course's words can be interpreted as, and not like so many Course students, at a certain other set of message boards so often do, protect favourite non-Course related ego-ideas, and suggests that anyone who disagrees with them, whether based on the Course or not, is stupid, selfish, and has never read the Course. Anyway, here is my take on this particular section:

H. Attainment of the Real World


1. Sit quietly

--We must look at this world from a place of QUIET, since it is a world of TUMULT, of angry ego noise. Only whilst we are not ENGAGING with its illusions, on their own terms, can we hope to see it for what it really is.

and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself:

“The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.”

What a lovely passage! It shows the world's contradictions from the simple standpoint of listing aspects of its perception, and showing their futility. It makes the example of the world we see in quite specific terms. Nowhere could there be a clearer, more well-animated description of what is meant by the ego's world - the world we make, and that we see...

2. This world you see MUST BE DENIED,

--You would be amazed just how HARD this is for some people. For every Course student, it seems, there is a different way of interpreting this to fit their own ideas. Yet it is pretty clear really, isn't it? The world you see must be denied. Of course, the problem most people have with this is that they interpret it very precisely as "I must accept my own personal, physical body as a reality, and deny everything else physical that interacts with it". Which, of course, makes absolutely no sense.

What it's really saying, as I see it, is PERCEPTION must be denied. I know that's pretty controversial, but since the Course teaches us that only knowledge is reality, and all perception will pass away, what else could there really be to believe? Our perceptions are simply pictorial representations of our attack thoughts (wkbk L23). We cannot DENY the ego's world, the world we see, and try to believe in the real world, since we do not yet SEE the real world, and therefore have absolutely NO idea, whilst looking at the world through our fear-tinted spectacles, what it will look like when we see it, except perhaps that "Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.”


for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other. Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you is unequal.

--Clearly, it is the Holy Spirit's world that holds the "real attraction" for us here. By "real attraction", what I believe is meant is that we would be attracted to it IF WE SAW IT, which clearly we don't, yet.

3. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world.

--Absolutely unequivocal! And yet nobody will even SEE this passage who puts value upon the world they see. I guess, to some people, this passage may well cause offence, and yet, is it not easier, at the end of the day, to be told "there is no hope of happiness here" than to be told "you have never yet tried hard enough. You really need to get your finger out. You WOULD find happiness if only you would try yet a little harder to do this, that or the other". Only the first, it seems to me, can prepare a person to take the next step towards reality. The second, surely, can only lead to depression!

4. Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you. LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE.

--Again going back to the first paragraph about denying the world you see. In fact, the real world, here is described as coming in two ways

1)You must call to it with love.
2)You must learn the one YOU made is false.

However 2) is described as "the only effort you must make", and so, presumably, 1) is a natural consequence of 2). I never saw it like that before. Of course, the Course says that every response is either "love" or "a call for love", and that the Holy Spirit cannot mis-interpret the question we must ask to learn His answer. And so, when we learn the world we made is false, whether we then produce a call of love, or a call which is a call for love, we still get the Real World.

5. You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false.

--Very basic Course teaching that. It is repeated OVER AND OVER so MANY times in the first five chapters of the Course that when Course students disagree with it, I can only assume they must have found some better use for their copy of the Course than actually READING it.

All seeing starts by deciding what you want, seeing it within, and then projecting it out, making the world a witness to what the mind wants. Indeed, the world will only ever be a witness to that, never to anything else, and the Course assures us that seeing something in the world is the most blatant proof possible that we wanted it to be there in the first place. Not always so our egos could always get what they consciously placed at the top of their wish-lists of course, but so our conflicted minds would not see something which denied the reality of all their thoughts, when taken as a compound or conglomerate, and needing a witness.

Yours,

Jim E.

Hi Jim

I think this is one way to study the Course. I do not find that it is a popular way on the internet as I do not see it elsewhere. I find that sometimes when people talk about the Course without referring to the Course it is often like the old game of 'telephone'. Our memory of what the Course says is not what it actually says.

We do have a section for general Course discussion as well.

Calling someone stupid or selfish is simply an attack. To say someone has never read the Course when they have is attack as well.

Unfortunately, it seems that any discussion (which to me is meant to be mutually beneficial) often degenerates into attack because of the ego. We must be vigilant during discussions to try not to let the ego reign.

neo

Hi neo

I think this is one way to study the Course.

-It certainly is, neo! And frankly, it bugs me that so many people who pretend to be Course students get so offended when you share your greater understanding of it with them. Like you, I need these forums to talk about the Course, bot to help myself, and hopefully others too.

I do not find that it is a popular way on the internet as I do not see it elsewhere. I find that sometimes when people talk about the Course without referring to the Course it is often like the old game of 'telephone'. Our memory of what the Course says is not what it actually says.

-Yeah, and it strikes me that a lot of people are kind of trying to hang onto their own opinions rather than take on board anything as radical as ACIM. That has never been my approach. I NEED ACIM. I know full well that this world of ego perception is a place of misery. And my interest in ACIM was never half-hearted or secondary to Ram Dass, Seth or Peter Pan. But I guess, effort invested will always rest on enthusiasm for that in which it is invested, and a feeling that it is important.

We do have a section for general Course discussion as well.

-Thanks, I'll have to check it out.

Calling someone stupid or selfish is simply an attack.

-And all too often, it is just the pot calling the kettle black anyway...


To say someone has never read the Course when they have is attack as well.

Unfortunately, it seems that any discussion (which to me is meant to be mutually beneficial) often degenerates into attack because of the ego. We must be vigilant during discussions to try not to let the ego reign.

-Maybe I can be guilty of that at times as well, neo. But to me, the Course is all important. Too many people who have it at their disposal are still trying to make bargains with the world and hope that some path will yet offer them something true and wonderful.

yours

Jim.