Ask: Does ACIM say the world is an illusion or my thoughts about it are?

             A confusion this mind had as a new student and that Liz here sometimes hears from clients and readers is, “Is A Course in Miracles saying the world is an illusion or how I’m seeing it is an illusion?” This mind loved the idea that the world isn’t real. This was radical, yes, but also completely liberating. However, this made ego uncomfortable, so there were times it asserted that, no, the Course is saying only your perceptions are illusions. This was not as liberating, but ego was a bit more comfortable.

Actually, the Course says both are illusions and it all comes together in Lesson 132 in the Workbook, “I loose the world from all I thought it was.” (For those confused by the word loose here, change it to release.) Paragraph 4 begins, “The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning.” This is the awareness that the Workbook of the Course fosters from the start. The world is a neutral appearance, so any meaning you see comes from you. Paragraph 5 goes on: “Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source.” Here, it seems like the Course addresses only how you see the world.

Then in paragraph 6: “There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.” Ah, here it states outright that there is no world and, moreover, that this is what the Course ultimately means for you to learn. In paragraph 7, it goes on to explain that you understand that the world is an illusion when you see something other than the world instead: “…the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.” Then in paragraph 8, it brings these two ways of seeing illusion together: “Today’s idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances.” Because the world is an illusion, you can release it from the meaning you saw in it and choose to see it another way.

The good news is, even if you have not yet seen truth and so do not see the world is an illusion, you can still practice changing your perceptions about the world by asking for another way to see it. In fact, the practice of doing so shows you that the world is neutral and the meaning you see in it comes from you because you can change your mind about it. In paragraph 7 it talks about learning the world is not real through near death and mystical experiences and then in paragraph 8: “And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today.” If you practice accepting a new way to look at things, it eventually sinks in that the world is only a neutral appearance—it is an illusion. 

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