October 20, 2015
The Course describes the two emotions as follows:
I have said you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights that are not seen, and sounds that are not heard. They make up a private world that cannot be shared. For they are meaningful only to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only their maker perceives them. T-13.V.1.1-9
We each make up our own private world as we journey through life believing we are separate. This private world has nothing to do with a physical world, for our private world exists only in our mind. Everything we think about our world is based on the perception our mind projects on it. Perception is burdened by our past as we continually again and again bring our perception of the past into the present and the future. After a time there is so much past projected on everything in our life that what is real is completely hidden from our mind. The same is true of each one we encounter in our life. Our perception of another consists of so many layers of perception projected from the past that we can no longer see the real One behind the layers of perception. I think that this is one of the most difficult ideas the Course presents to us – that we each people our private world with figures from our individual past yet these figures we see were never real. Everyone in our lives certainly appears real.
How could this possibly be? Everyone in my private world seems to be acting of their own volition. We can’t even begin to understand this idea from our current perspective. We must begin by having faith that there is something to this idea. First of all, if we are all one, then each one in my private world is me – or an idea of me. Since I have made an isolated mind, I project an idea on each of those ideas of me and give them autonomy to act seemingly on their own. I am projecting my perceived ideas of each one’s personality and identity on each part of me that seems not to be part of me. It’s like I am the director of a play or movie directing all these seemingly separate ideas of me to act out my perceptions and make my private world. Does all this sound insane? The Course calls all this insane, but it also tells us it’s not real and can be changed and healed into love at any time we choose to allow ourselves to be guided in that change. Our private worlds are based in fear, the one emotion that can take on so many forms that it becomes unrecognizable. However, fear is basically a fear of the joining of love. It is a fear that we are not separate, that our private world, no matter how unpleasant, is not real and that those shadowy figures in our private worlds are really us! Fear separates and limits where love joins and increases.
Our body’s eyes will never see anything but our private world. But we have within us spirit eyes, spiritual vision, that can see beyond our perceptions and the private world we have made. As we allow our higher Holy Spirit Self within us to open our spiritual eyes, we will find the willingness to open our minds and our eyes to the truth about ourselves and our private worlds. The Course tells us this:
As we look with open eyes upon our world, it must occur to us that we have withdrawn into insanity. We see what is not there, and we hear what makes no sound. Our manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are. We communicate with no one, and we are as isolated from reality as if we were alone in all the universe. In our madness we overlook reality completely, and we see only our own split mind everywhere we look. God calls us and we do not hear, for we are preoccupied with our own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in our sight, for we look upon ourselves alone. T-13.V.6.1-7
Understanding what our private world is and how it came to appear so powerful to us is key in returning to the awareness of who we really are. What we really want is to rest in the love and Oneness of who we really are and let go of all the fear we carry in our minds. Let Love come forward in your mind and show you how to live in this world and allow it to be transformed into the real world – Heaven on earth. Are you ready to let go of fear and let love rise up within you? Then let it be so right now. It is your choice.
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