We explore Workbook Lesson 132: “I loose the world from all I thought it was.” in this video recording of a class given for the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise, as Bruce Rawles reads related supporting content from other places in the Course. ACIM makes a (wonderfully) radical departure from the thinking of the world by reminding us that we made it up! Here are a few of the passages from its pages that offer the antithesis of the ego’s apocalyptic prophecy by shifting our identity from dream figure beleaguered by unconscious, unfounded guilt to the lucid dreamer, seeing through the façade to the underlying innocence we all share in eternity.
The world is the place we use to unload our unconscious, unfound guilt: ego’s toxic dumpsite…
The world is the ego’s repository of our unconscious, unfounded guilt.
It is an enormous relief to realize that we don’t have to heal the world outside us, just the one inside us, and we have all the help we need for that if we merely ask. The two thought systems (ego and Holy Spirit) have two completely opposite outcomes for the end of the world; ego’s projection is a fearful apocalypse beyond our worst nightmares; Holy Spirit gently suggests that waking up from the nightmarish dream of this world will be beyond our sweetest dreams.
Here is the glossary entry for the word “world” from FACIM.org:
level I: the effect of the ego’s belief in separation, which is its cause; the thought of separation and attack on God given form; being the expression of the belief in time and space, it was not created by God, Who transcends time and space entirely; unless specifically referring to the world of knowledge, refers only to perception, the post-separation domain of the ego.
level II:
- wrong-mind: a prison of separation which reinforces the ego’s belief in sin and guilt, perpetuating the seeming existence of this world.
- right-mind: a classroom wherein we learn our lessons of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit’s teaching device to help us transcend the world: thus the purpose of the world is to teach us that there is no world.
“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. ⁹The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. ¹⁰When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. ¹¹It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. ¹²It will merely cease to seem to be.” M-14.2:8-12
“If this were the real world, God would be cruel.” (T-13.in.3:1)
“The branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. ²Be glad! ³The light will shine from the true Foundation of life, and your own thought system will stand corrected. ⁴It cannot stand otherwise. ⁵You who fear salvation are choosing death. ⁶Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception, are irreconcilable. ⁷To believe that they can be reconciled is to believe that God and His Son can not. ⁸Only the oneness of knowledge is free of conflict. ⁹Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world. ¹⁰Only in this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. ¹¹The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth can be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.” T-3.VII.6:1-11
“The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. ²Knowing this perfection is shared He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. ³Instead of anger this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion. ⁴Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. ⁵This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. ⁶To perceive yourself this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in the world. ⁷That is because it is the acknowledgment that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy.
6. How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? ²You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of Him. ³That is both where you are and what you are. ⁴It is completely unalterable. ⁵It is total inclusion. ⁶You cannot change it now or ever. ⁷It is forever true. ⁸It is not a belief, but a Fact. ⁹Anything that God created is as true as He is.” T-6.II.5:1–6:9“Perceived without your part in it, God’s creation is seen as weak, and those who see themselves as weakened do attack. ²The attack must be blind, however, because there is nothing to attack. ³Therefore they make up images, perceive them as unworthy and attack them for their unworthiness. ⁴That is all the world of the ego is. ⁵Nothing. ⁶It has no meaning. ⁷It does not exist. ⁸Do not try to understand it because, if you do, you are believing that it can be understood and is therefore capable of being appreciated and loved. ⁹That would justify its existence, which cannot be justified. ¹⁰You cannot make the meaningless meaningful. ¹¹This can only be an insane attempt.” T-7.VI.11:1-11
The Holy Spirit will always guide you truly, because your joy is His. ²This is His Will for everyone because He speaks for the Kingdom of God, which is joy. ³Following Him is therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the only thing that is easy, because it is not of the world. ⁴It is therefore natural. ⁵The world goes against your nature, being out of accord with God’s laws. ⁶The world perceives orders of difficulty in everything. ⁷This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable. ⁸By demonstrating to yourself there is no order of difficulty in miracles, you will convince yourself that, in your natural state, there is no difficulty at all because it is a state of grace.” T-7.XI.1:1-8
“I am come as a light into a world that does deny itself everything. ²It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. ³It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same loneliness that is its illusion. ⁴I said that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. ⁵That is why I am the light of the world. ⁶If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. ⁷You cannot maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are not alone. ⁸My purpose, then, is still to overcome the world. ⁹I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it is. ¹⁰Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away. ¹¹If my light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with me. ¹²The light becomes ours, and you cannot abide in darkness any more than darkness can abide wherever you go. ¹³The remembrance of me is the remembrance of yourself, and of Him Who sent me to you.” T-8.IV.2:1-13
“My mission was simply to unite the will of the Sonship with the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father’s Will myself. ⁵This is the awareness I came to give you, and your problem in accepting it is the problem of this world. ⁶Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I am the salvation of the world. ⁷The world must therefore despise and reject me, because the world is the belief that love is impossible. ⁸If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are denying the world and accepting God.” T-8.IV.3:4-8)
“Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? ²Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it?” T-8.IV.4:1-2
“There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as a curriculum he cannot learn. ²His sense of adequacy suffers, and he must become depressed. ³Being faced with an impossible learning situation is the most depressing thing in the world. ⁴In fact, it is ultimately why the world itself is depressing. ⁵The Holy Spirit’s curriculum is never depressing, because it is a curriculum of joy. ⁶Whenever the reaction to learning is depression, it is because the true goal of the curriculum has been lost sight of.” T-8.VII.8:1-6
We need HS’s help to wake gently from the dream of separation and it’s elaborate sound stage, the material universe; we’re so deeply “in character” as actors, we’ve forgotten that we’re acting and that the world is an elaborate holographic hoax!
“Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because they enable you to change your mind and help others to change theirs. ²Refusing to change your mind will not prove that the separation has not occurred. ³The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming is not really healing his split mind. ⁴You dream of a separated ego and believe in a world that rests upon it. ⁵This is very real to you. ⁶You cannot undo it by not changing your mind about it. ⁷If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I will correct it very gently and lead you back to God.” T-4.I.4:1-7
“In this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. ¹¹That is why you should be of good cheer.” T-4.I.13:10-11
“The whole value of right perception lies in the inevitable realization that all perception is unnecessary. ⁴This removes the block entirely. ⁵You may ask how this is possible as long as you appear to be living in this world. ⁶That is a reasonable question. ⁷You must be careful, however, that you really understand it. ⁸Who is the “you” who are living in this world?” T-4.II.11:3-8
“I have assured you that the Mind that decided for me is also in you, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. ²This Mind is unequivocal, because it hears only one Voice and answers in only one way. ³You are the light of the world with me. ⁴Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. ⁵The Holy Spirit is the Call to awaken and be glad. ⁶The world is very tired, because it is the idea of weariness. ⁷Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call for God. ⁸Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship cannot be as One.” T-5.II.10:1-8
“The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home. ²The Holy Spirit must perceive time, and reinterpret it into the timeless. ³He must work through opposites, because He must work with and for a mind that is in opposition” T-5.III.11:1-3
“The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is not as you see it. ²God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. ³Therefore, there must be another world that you do not see.” T-11.VII.1:1-3
“Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. ²The loving thoughts his mind perceives in this world are the world’s only reality. ³They are still perceptions, because he still believes that he is separate. ⁴Yet they are eternal because they are loving. ⁵And being loving they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die.” T-11.VII.2:1-5“For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. ⁸The end of the world is not its destruction, but its translation into Heaven. ⁹The reinterpretation of the world is the transfer of all perception to knowledge.
2. The Bible tells you to become as little children. ²Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ask what it means. ³Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. ⁴Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Him interpret it, He will restore to you what you have thrown away. ⁵Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him.” T-11.VIII.1:7–2:5“To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor. ²That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. ³What he experiences then is depression or anger, because what he did was to exchange Self-love for self-hate, making him afraid of himself. ⁴He does not realize this. ⁵Even if he is fully aware of anxiety he does not perceive its source as his own ego identification, and he always tries to handle it by making some sort of insane “arrangement” with the world. ⁶He always perceives this world as outside himself, for this is crucial to his adjustment. ⁷He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him.
7. If only the loving thoughts of God’s Son are the world’s reality, the real world must be in his mind.” T-12.III.6:1–7:1“The world you perceive is a world of separation. ²Perhaps you are willing to accept even death to deny your Father. ³Yet He would not have it so, and so it is not so. ⁴You still cannot will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. ⁵It is not a world of will because it is governed by the desire to be unlike God, and this desire is not will. ⁶The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless “laws,” and without meaning of any kind. ⁷For it is made out of what you do not want, projected from your mind because you are afraid of it. ⁸Yet this world is only in the mind of its maker, along with his real salvation. ⁹Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing where it is will you gain control over it. ¹⁰For you do have control over your mind, since the mind is the mechanism of decision.” T-12.III.9:1-10
“Leave, then, your needs to Him. ²He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them. ³What 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. ⁴Under His guidance you will travel light and journey lightly, for His sight is ever on the journey’s end, which is His goal. ⁵God’s Son is not a traveller through outer worlds. ⁶However holy his perception may become, no world outside himself holds his inheritance. ⁷Within 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.” T-13.VII.13:1-7
“The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world.” T-12.VII.9:1
Here are some counts of the number of instances of world-related words in ACIM:
realm: 3
earth: 117
universe: 133
hell: 157
heaven: 570
world: 1986
chain: 40
belief/believe: 449+837= 1,286
14. How Will the World End?
“Can what has no beginning really end? ²The world will end in an illusion, as it began. ³Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. ⁴The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. ⁵So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone. ⁶The father of illusions is the belief that they have a purpose; that they serve a need or gratify a want. ⁷Perceived as purposeless, they are no longer seen. ⁸Their uselessness is recognized, and they are gone. ⁹How but in this way are all illusions ended? ¹⁰They have been brought to truth, and truth saw them not. ¹¹It merely overlooked the meaningless.” M-14.1:1-11“Without the idea of death there is no world. ⁴All dreams will end with this one.” M-27.6:3-4
“O my child, if you knew what God wills for you, your joy would be complete! ²And what He wills has happened, for it was always true. ³When the light comes and you have said, “God’s Will is mine,” you will see such beauty that you will know it is not of you. ⁴Out of your joy you will create beauty in His Name, for your joy could no more be contained than His. ⁵The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven, and into the Presence of God. ⁶I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your heart is not ready. ⁷Yet I can tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for you, and what He wills for you is yours.” T-11.III.3:1-7
Richard:“I can do that, but that’s all that is, that’s just my imagination.” …
Don Shimoda:“Just your imagination? Of course it’s your imagination! This world is your imagination, have you forgotten? Your imagining doesn’t change the Is one whit, doesn’t affect reality at all. But we are talking about Warner Brothers worlds, MGM lifetimes. All dreams with the symbols we waking dreamers conjure for ourselves.”
– Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Here are the first 3 paragraphs of Workbook Lesson 132: “I loose the world from all I thought it was.” (emphasis in bold added to highlight variations of the word world:
“1. What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? ²And what can save the world except your Self? ³Belief is powerful indeed. ⁴The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. ⁵A madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it. ⁶Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts’ effects. ⁷It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.
2. Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. ²Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think. ³You free the past from what you thought before. ⁴You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find.
3. The present now remains the only time. ²Here in the present is the world set free. ³For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. ⁴You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. ⁵Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind.”
W-132.1:1–3:5
This class was recorded on January 17, 2021.