LESSON 52

Today’s review covers these ideas:

1. 1(6) I am upset because I see what is not there.

2Reality is never frightening. 3It is impossible that it could upset me. 4Reality brings only perfect peace. 5When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. 6The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. 7Nothing in God’s creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. 8I am always upset by nothing.

2. 1(7) I see only the past.

2As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. 3I call this seeing. 4I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies. 5When I have forgiven myself and remem­bered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. 6There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. 7And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.

3. 1(8) My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

2I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. 3What, then, can I see as it is? 4Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. 5Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. 6Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.

4. 1(9) I see nothing as it is now.

2If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. 3I can see only what is now. 4The choice is not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. 5What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. 6Now I would choose again, that I may see.

5. 1(10) My thoughts do not mean anything.

2I have no private thoughts. 3Yet it is only private thoughts of which I am aware. 4What can these thoughts mean? 5They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. 6Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. 7Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless “private” thoughts?