29.06.08
The World as a Place of Freedom
Posted in Musings at 11:35 am by Linda 
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In Workbook Lesson 57 there is a review of the lesson: There is another way of looking at the world, Jesus teaches that insofar as we are presently seeing the world upside down, if we are seeing the world as a prison for God’s Son, then it must be a place where he can be set free.
In the review of the lesson that directly follows: I could see peace instead of this, Jesus states:
“When I see the world as a place of freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules I made for it to obey. I will understand that peace , not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me.” (W.57:4)
What extraordinary statements! The question then becomes: how am I seeing the world? The way I see the world reflects what I am choosing to believe and therefore choosing to make real for myself. Contemplate this- seeing the world as a place of freedom. The heaviness and darkness implied in both our superficially accepted and deeply ingrained assumptions are the opposite of what Jesus would have us learn and teach.
Beware the temptation to harbor thoughts such as these: the world is a rat race, all politicians or policeman or used car salesmen are corrupt, damning thoughts about the United States or Arab nations and their figureheads, judgements about any minority group, drug addicts, heads of corporations, rich people, people on welfare etc. You get the general idea. Any thought that suggests that the world is something other than a place in which the Son of God has another opportunity to choose whose voice he will listen to about His true nature, is a limiting and therefore damning thought. Unquestioned, thougths such as these foster the underlying assumption that error is very real and therefore has real and heavy effects. This is not the joyfulness and peace of the miracle- minded. In fact when we feel this darkness and heaviness, however mildly or apparently justifiably, we know that we are the ones in need of a miracle!
Beware also of the temptation to use even apparently spiritual ideas to damn. I have heard people use the idea of the world being an illusion to support the overall attitude that it is therefore really “shitty” and dark here. Any hint of impatience, disgust, weariness, resignation and belief in the reality of corruption and victim/victimizer are signs that we are looking from the point of human judgement, even if we seem to be seeing from a higher moral or spiritual perspective. All that is egoic and that partakes in the selfishness, cruelty and destructiveness of the egoic is not the truth and is the very veil that hides the face of Christ’s true nature. That veil, Jesus teaches us, is inherently neutral and ultimately nothing.
To see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil is in fact the Course way. We as mere mortals cannot attain that way of Being and in fact we as the very idea of mortality represent the obstruction to that way of Being. The way out is clear. Release all that you think you know and all beliefs and concepts about who you think you are, others are and what the purpose of the world is. Release and allow for a state of mind that looks past of all appearances. Releasing and finding the place of peace within ourselves is the only way we can recognize that that peace must abide in what appears to be “other”. We all abide in the peace of God, whether we realize it or not. As we enter into this more deeply the words of Jesus ring more and more distinctly with the clarity of truth:
“Now is the question different. It is no longer, “ Can peace be possible in this world? but instead, “ Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?” (M.11.4:11-12)