Lesson 16: I have no neutral thoughts.
In every moment, I am thinking. Right now, I’m wondering what to type next. A moment ago, I was thinking that I didn’t want to do any writing today, then I thought that I had made a commitment to do this thing, so I need to get to typing. One thought led to another, and here we are: still thinking about thoughts.
There are no neutral thoughts – all our thoughts drive us to either do, or not do, something. They may drive us to call that friend we’ve been thinking about. They may drive us to judge the person in line in front of us for using a check (“I mean, really! What century is it?”) to buy their groceries. They may drive us to make up stories about other people and how they may feel about us. They may drive us ‘pert near (as we say in the South) insane if we let them.
This is the key to this lesson, and the beginning of the mind shift the Course is seeking to make within us with these lessons: We need to be more mindful of our thoughts – because they have the power to create and destroy worlds. Just look around if you want proof. We, collectively, believe might makes right – so we build a war-like culture that protects what’s “ours” against interlopers who may “steal” it. We, collectively, believe that there is a lack of resources to produce adequate shelter for everyone or provide enough food for everyone, so homelessness and hunger enter our experience of this world. We, collectively, believe that a person’s religion, race, age, sexual orientation or gender makes them either inherently more or less valuable in the world, so prejudice enters our experience.
None of these thoughts are idle – they have created a world in their likeness. Our beliefs have manifested a world of war, famine, poverty and prejudice.
“Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends the truth or it multiplies illusion,” the lesson says.
If you truly believed that every thought – whether fearful or loving – created the reality that you walk in every day, wouldn’t you be a bit more careful with your thoughts? Would it motivate you not just to blankly think positive, happy-slappy thoughts, but to truly look more closely at this world and focus on what’s going right instead of what’s going wrong?
If we pay closer attention to the thoughts that are creating more love, peace, generosity, kindness and compassion in this world, then we would manifest more of that in our reality. It’s not New Age, positive thinking, woo-woo. It’s spiritual law.
Our thoughts of lack, fear, anger, separation and greed have created this world we live in and we believe the illusion so thoroughly that any thought that challenges the status quo is treated as either an enemy or mocked as a ridiculous joke. The lesson acknowledges how difficult it is to make this shift in thinking – to withdraw our belief from the world of fear, war and hatred we have collectively created together.
Thoughts, as The Work founder and author Byron Katie says, can cause either suffering or salvation. We must relentlessly question the truth of every thought so that it will release us to the miracle of a Holy vision – a new perspective that rights the illusion of fear and brings us into Love.
What we discover in the Course, if we continue our study, is that ultimately, there is only one of us here – one mind, one heart, one consciousness. Our thoughts create the separation, but they can also create unity, as Katie points out:
“You are who you believe you are,” she says. “Other people are, for you, who you believe they are: they can be nothing more than that. If you realized that the mind is one, that everyone and everything is your own projection (including you), you would understand that it’s only yourself you’re ever dealing with. You would end up loving yourself, loving every thought you think. When you love every thought, you love everything thoughts create, you love the whole world you have created.”
We have created this world, simply through the power of our thoughts and beliefs. If that is so, we can uncreate it – we can correct our mistaken thoughts of fear and hatred and transform the world into one where love and compassion dominate.
That’s a thought, right there, which can cause many to immediately think thoughts of despair. “How can we get the world to believe in Love? It seems impossible. Hate and fear seem so strong.”
Yes, they do seem strong, but as Marianne Williamson often pointed out in her weekly talks, we don’t have to convince everyone that Love is stronger than fear. We only need enough people who are willing to try to be mindful to bring only their thoughts of love and compassion into the world and not their fearful and hateful thoughts.
You will never be rid of fearful and hateful thoughts and the Course isn’t asking you to do that. It’s asking that we become mindful creators with God – that we become willing to be instruments of peace and love, not just in deed, but in our thoughts as well.
There are no idle thoughts – so it behooves us to question what we think so that fearful and hateful thoughts find no comfortable place to land in our hearts and minds. Instead, we are called to cultivate the soil of our hearts and minds so that only thoughts of love, peace, joy, mercy and compassion can take root and grow.
Then, as the Muslim poet Rumi says, our lives become a “garden of Love.” Those who are willing to join us – to grow only seeds of love – will find it irresistible.
If you can’t smell the fragrance
don’t come into the garden of Love.
if you are unwilling to undress
don’t enter into the stream of
Truth. Stay where you are, don’t
come our way.
Photo by Shahbaz Akram on Pexels
Marvelous to read at the beginning of the day. May my thoughts be loving today.