"I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion."
Let's say the body is nothing more than an 3D IMAGE which the mind is projecting outward to make "visible." Like a movie projector. The image is shining outward and only shows up while the mind is projecting it.
Now.
Is the image alive?
Would you feed an image? Does it need water?
Would you try to protect an image from the weather?
Would an image be able to age or grow old or die?
Would you be able to attack an image?
Could an image become corrupted or broken or damaged?
Would an image be subject to laws of physics like gravity?
Is there any causal power in all the universe that could do anything to change that image?
If it's just an image, and if the mind is making it appear, and nothing you can do can affect the MIND ie you can't stop the movie projector from projecting, then surely the image of the body is absolutely unchangeable if the mind decides that this be so? And no matter what seems to happen, nothing affects the image because it only comes from the mind? Even if there's a nuclear explosion nearby, the next "frame" of the movie is simply projected in the next instant making the body seem totally unaffected?
The body is just an illusion. It is an image being projected by the mind. It has no real purpose, substance, reality, live, will, mind, causality, nothing. It's just an image. A hologram.
The last time you watched a movie, for the second time, did you get a different movie? Did the movie "age" and become sick? Did the movie need feeding? Or did you see the exact same movie? Because the SOURCE of the movie did not change the OUTPUT, right?
If you do not attack the image with your mind, and you do not make the image BE an image of sickness or death, is it possible for the image to be anything other than what you choose to project?
When you believe or think that the image you are projecting IS WHO YOU ARE, that it is your identity, that is when you have moved into the ego and are now confused and lost. It is in this identification with the image that you lose sight of your true self, become deluded and self-deceiving, and don't realize that nothing can affect YOU who are not a body, and start to fear that the body AS YOU is vulnerable. Yet the only thing that CHANGES the body is your mind - this is the secret of salvation - you do it all to yourself.
What you use the body for it becomes. Let's frame it differently. What intent you have behind projecting a body, determines what kind of body you project. If you want to attack, you create an image of an body with "attack in it", and this attack shows up as a different appearance than if you made a body just to communicate love.
When the body is ONLY showing a representation of Christ/love, it does not show up with any self-made attack or intentions or harm. Then the body seems "lovely", as Jesus refers to it. At least while it is useful to keep showing one. And when you are doing pretending to be a body, you will just stop projecting it, and it will disappear.
When the mind has become fully spirit identified and free from believing it is a body, it is now free from the delusion of form or separation, and yet CAN STILL project a body if it wants to. This is what Jesus demonstrated when he reappeared a body. "The mind that made the body can make another." Yet in the making of it, he is not deceived by it. This is also why you can still call upon the "image" of those who have gone beyond the body. The body simply becomes "optional", and unnecessary, except for teaching purposes.
"It is because the thoughts you think you think ****appear as images**** that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your "seeing" was made. ****This is the function you have given your body's eyes.**** It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions."
Consider a photograph. A photograph appears to be an image of something. Maybe it's an image of a city, which you took while on vacation. As you look at the photograph it appears to you to be a city, and you think there is a city there. Just as when you look at people on the TV you think you're seeing people, and even react as if they were real sometimes. This is because the images are very convincing and lifelike.
However, consider the difference between the photograph and the actual place. The photograph is not really a city, it just looks like one. And the real city is somewhere else. Well, how about we suggest that this physical world, planet Earth etc, is in fact not a real world, but is in fact like a photograph of a world? It LOOKS LIKE a world, but isn't an ACTUAL world. It's an IMAGE OF a world, or what a world would LOOK LIKE, but isn't one.
A tree that you look at, isn't actually a tree. It is a three-dimensional "hologram" of a tree. It sure looks like one, feels like one, moves like one. It even seems alive. But it is still just an image of a tree. A kind of 3D animated picture. Like a movie clip. As it plays out, it sees to sway in the wind and drop its leaves and sprout new ones, but all the while it's not an ACTUAL tree. It's just a picture of one.
This is because everything in this world is not actually a world. It's an IMAGE of a world. A collection of pictures. The body is a picture. The trees and houses and cars are just images. The planet is in fact just a PROJECTED IMAGE from the mind, which has tried to depict what such things would look like if they existed. It is a representation or symbol of such things, but is not really those things.
The body's eyes were designed to "see images" of a world made of images. To reflect back those images into the mind, to form some kind of "sight". And so now you look upon images. And the body can only see images, it cannot see real actual places.
Recognizing that this world is really just a collection of pictures, imagining a world, visualizing forms that don't really exist, you can better understand why this world is a dream or hallucination. The mind is "seeing" what it thinks it wants to see. It is picturing a world of bodies. And these images are made to block true vision. You look upon them thinking you are surrounded by an ACTUAL world, when all you are surrounded by is a hollow empty picture.
"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."
"You see the world which you have made, but you do not see yourself as the ****image-maker****. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can ****light your images****, and so transform them that you will love them even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone."
"What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real, and guarded as one's own."
"All the images His Son appears to make have no effect on what he is. They blow across his mind like wind-swept leaves that form a patterning an instant, break apart to group again, and scamper off. Or like mirages seen above a desert, rising from the dust."
"These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love. He must be joy."
"You ARE as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, REGARDLESS of the images you see."
"That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself which you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. It is not vision. Images cannot see."
"To be told that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult to become convinced that it is insanity not to see what is there, and to see what is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light."
This is key to understanding what this world of spacetime is. The mind makes IMAGES of things. Pictures of things. Visual thoughts. They are along similar lines to imagination, or visualization. We produce pictures in the mind. This is also the same process as dreaming, and as hallucination.
We imagine things and imagine their form and appearance and picture them mentally. And as Jesus is saying, this same process was used to make physical bodies, and therefore also the physical universe.
This means that this world we're in, it's not really an "actual existence", or containing any real objects. It's in fact just a 3D thought-driven PICTURE, an image, like a 3d hologram, pictured and maintained in the mind, which LOOKS LIKE a world.
But a world that is merely an image, is imagined. A world which shows up as visual objects, is really just a collection of pictures. It's not at all the same as a real creation, which has substance and existence. It's a manufactured, wishful-thinking, hallucination, dream, projected visualization, taking on the shape of a planet in a galaxy. As a result of wanting to see it, and therefore of "daydreaming" it.
Obviously the things that you daydream don't really exist, although they seem to exist while you are dreaming them. The mind is basically inventing a world, picturing it, imagining what such a world might be like IF it really existed. But this is not the same as causing it TO exist. It's really just a blueprint or photograph of such a world. A "what if". Like if you were to imagine a pink elephant and see it in your mind.
The body was formed to use precisely this kind of seeing, focusing on images and believing them to be real. When in fact it's a form of hallucination. The body forms pictures and presents them like little photographs to the mind. Like a realtime 3d movie feed of an imagined artificial world.
This is how the world is nothing, even though it appears to be something. This is how the body is nothing, even though it seems to show up as a picture of form with a shape. It's not REALLY there, because dreaming of something is nowhere near the same as it actually existing permanently in reality. The whole world is just a mad idea.
"And what you SEE there, YOU will recognize as what it is; a picture of what YOU THOUGHT WAS REAL, and nothing more. For, BEHIND this picture, YOU WILL SEE NOTHING."
"The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is NO pain and NO reproach at all."
"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured."
"The picture of your brother that you see means nothing."
"The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent, and has never been."
"The world I see is hardly the representation of loving thoughts. It is a picture of attack on everything and by everything."
"Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense."
"The picture of Heaven and eternity grows MORE convincing, as you look at it. And now, by REAL comparison, a TRANSFORMATION of both pictures can at last occur."
"It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition."
"Do you LIKE what you have made? A world of murder and attack, through which you thread your timid way through constant dangers, alone and frightened, hoping at most that death will wait a little longer, before it overtakes you, and you disappear. YOU MADE THIS UP. It is a picture of what you think YOU are; of how you SEE yourself."
"This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it IS and which it loves, and placed OUTSIDE you, in the world." "Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within."
"The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining."
"No-one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it."
"And what are YOU who live within the world, except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?"
"Perception seems to TEACH you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what YOU taught. It is the outward picture of a wish, an image that you WANTED to be true."
"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
"Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell."
"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him."
"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief."
"It is my own attack thoughts which give rise to this picture."
"Seen through understanding eyes the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself."
"Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see."
"What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real, and guarded as one's own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth"
"And when you think you see some value in an aspect or an image of the world, refuse to lay this chain upon your mind"
"Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction."
"If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind."
"An idol is an image of your brother, which you would value MORE than what he IS. Idols are made that HE may be replaced, no matter what their form. "
"Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness."
"Parents do not create the image of the
ir children, though they may perceive images which they do create." "It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing."
"My thoughts are images which I have made."
"The images I see reflect my thoughts."
"Let graven images you made to be the Son of God instead of what he is be worshipped not today."
"If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist."
"Once again, images are perceived, NOT known."
"Images cannot see."
"You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. "
"Images are symbolic, and stand for something else."
"The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity."
Every system of thought MUST have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference which we have already covered. Both are acts of will, except that making involves doing, and creating involves active willing. Their resemblance lies in their power as FOUNDATIONS. Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which men live.
It is a mistake to believe that a thought-system which is based on lies is weak. NOTHING made by a child of God is without power. It is absolutely essential that you realize this, because otherwise you will not understand why you have so much trouble with this course, and will be unable to escape from the prisons you have (made) created for yourselves. (The use of creative here was an error. You should have said made for yourself.)
You have both made the error of the psychotherapist we described in some detail before, and it is particularly serious at this time. You cannot resolve your authority problem by depreciating the power of your minds. It CAN hurt you if you misuse it, because you KNOW its strength. You also know that you CANNOT weaken it any more than you can weaken God.
The devil is a frightening concept ONLY because he is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. He is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling Him for possession of Souls. He deceives by lies, and builds kingdoms of his own, in which everything is in direct opposition to God. Yet, he ATTRACTS men rather than repels them, and they are perceived as willing to "sell" him their Souls in return for gifts they KNOW are of no real worth at all.
This makes absolutely no sense. The whole picture is one in which man acts in a way he HIMSELF realizes is self destructive, but which he does NOT WILL to correct, and therefore perceives the cause as beyond his control.
We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.
The fruit of only ONE tree was "forbidden" to man in his symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it, or it could not have BEEN eaten. If God knows His children, and I assure you he does, would he have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible? The "tree" which was forbidden was correctly named "tree of knowledge." Yet God created knowledge, and gave it freely to His Creations. The symbolism here is open to many interpretations, but you may be SURE that any interpretation which perceives either God OR His creations as if they were capable of destroying their own Purpose is wrong.
Eating of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for incorporating into the self the ability for self-creation. This is the ONLY sense in which God and His souls are NOT co-creators. The belief that they ARE is implicit in the "self concept," a concept now made acceptable by its WEAKNESS, and explained by a tendency of the self to create an IMAGE of itself. Its fear aspect is usually ascribed to the "father figure," a particularly interesting idea, in view of the fact that nobody means the physical father by the term. It refers to an IMAGE of a father in relation to an IMAGE of the self.
Once again, images are perceived, NOT known. Knowledge cannot deceive, but perception CAN. Man can perceive himself as self-creating, but he CANNOT do more than BELIEVE it. He CANNOT make it true. I told you before that when you finally perceive correctly, you can only be GLAD YOU CAN'T. But until then, the belief that you CAN is the central foundation-stone in your thought-system, and all your defenses are used to attack ideas which would bring it to light.
You and Bill still believe you are images of your own creation. You are split with your own Souls on this point, and there is NO resolution, because you believe the one thing that is literally INCONCEIVABLE. That is why you CANNOT create, and are afraid to make or produce.
You, Helen, are CONSTANTLY arguing about the authorship of this course. This is NOT humility; it is a REAL authority problem. You, Bill, really believe that by teaching you are assuming a dominant or father role, and that the "father figure" will kill you. This is not humility either. Castration fears are a particularly distorted reflection of the real basic anxiety, or Separation fear.
The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie.
Your creation by God is the only foundation which cannot be shaken, because the light is IN it. Your starting point IS truth, and you MUST return to this Beginning. Much has been perceived since then, but nothing else has happened. That is why your Souls are still in peace, even though your minds are in conflict.
You have not yet gone back far ENOUGH and that is why you become so fearful. As you approach the beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought-systems upon you, as if it were the fear of death. There IS no death, but there IS a belief in death.
The Bible says that the tree that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. Be glad! The light WILL shine from the true Foundation of Life, and your own thought-systems WILL stand corrected. They CANNOT stand otherwise.
You who fear salvation are WILLING death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception are irreconcilable. To believe that THEY can be reconciled is to believe that God and man can NOT. Only the Oneness of Knowledge is conflictless. Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world. Only IN this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth CAN be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.
26) "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."
How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will teach me what it is.
27) "Above all else I want to see."
Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision I will look upon the world and upon myself with charity and love.
28) "Above all else I want to see differently."
The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.
29) "God is in everything I see."
Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged. Behind every veil I have drawn across the face of love, its light remains undimmed. Beyond all my insane wishes is my will united with the Will of my Father. God is still everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part of Him will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them all.
30) "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of who I am because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has not left His Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and with Him.
It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your "seeing" was made. This is the function you have given your body's eyes. It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.
This introductory idea to the process of image-making which you call seeing will not have much meaning for you. You will begin to understand it when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now. That is the beginning of real vision. You can be certain that real vision will come quickly when this has occurred.
As we go along, you may have many "light episodes." They may take many different forms, some of them quite unexpected. Do not be afraid of them. They are signs that you are opening your eyes at last. They will not persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and they are not related to knowledge. These exercises will not reveal knowledge to you. But they will prepare the way to it.
In practicing the idea for today, repeat it first to yourself, and then apply it to whatever you see around you, using its name and letting your eyes rest on it as you say:
"This ____ is an image which I have made."
"That ____ is an image which I have made."
It is not necessary to include a large number of specific subjects for the application of today's idea. It is necessary, however, to continue to look at each subject while you repeat the idea to yourself. The idea should be repeated quite slowly each time.
Although you will obviously not be able to apply the idea to very many things during the minute or so of practice that is recommended, try to make the selection as random as possible. Less than a minute will do for the practice periods, if you begin to feel uneasy. Do not have more than three application periods for today's idea unless you feel completely comfortable with it, and do not exceed four.
"Father, I made an image of myself, and it is this I call the Son of God. Yet is creation as it always was, for Your creation is unchangeable. Let me not worship idols. I am he my Father loves. His holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. Is not what is beloved of You secure? Is not the light of Heaven infinite? Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?"
Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us. And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with all the world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.
This is salvation's keynote. What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real, and guarded as one's own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him and find the way to Heaven and to God.
"Our Father, Your Ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but makes up dreams. Let me behold what only Yours reflect, for Yours and Yours alone establish truth."
If there’s a video projector sitting on the table, projecting an image of a person dancing, does the person exist?
How about as the image moves around, the projector makes it seem like the person is, what, alive? Animated? That it’s doing some things?
Afther a while, the mind perceiving this makes a very slight, subtle shift, from knowing that this is just an image, to starting to believe, there is really a person there.
The observer might start to think, this isn’t just an image. They might forget for a moment that the projector is sitting there. Somehow the projector becomes obscured or is outside awareness. The person forgets for a moment what is true.
Instead of remembering that every single movement, appearance, every part of that dancing body, is entirely coming from the projector, has no life of its own, no will, no mind, no power, no purpose, no identity... it takes but a very slight forgetting in order to start to believe, this projected image is actually... a thing, in its own right. When awareness of the projector is blocked, it seems *possible* that the body image has created itself, and is independent.
Then they’ll start believing, there’s really a consistent body there. It seems to have a life of its own. It seems to persist over time. It looks much the same from moment to moment, creating the illusion that instead of being completely projected anew by the projector 30 times a second, it actually keeps its own state over time, remembering what it used to be, and maintaining an existence independent of the projector.
It’s not far from there to perceive, that this projected image is a living, breathing, "thing", an end in itself, a life form, with a will and a mind and power and decision-making. Pretty soon we start to see it as independent of the projector entirely.
This is what we’re doing with our human bodies. As soon as we start to lose sight of where the body is coming from, who is putting it there (the mind), how it got there (projection), the fact that it NEVER has its own inherent existence, we’ll lose sight of the truth and start to believe the illusion.
Suddenly the body seems real, it seems like it is living, it seems independent and as if a continuation from how it was a moment ago, as a real object, persisting over time, occupying space, having an identity of its own. Body-identification is exactly this, believing the body has an identity and that it is alive, has a will, thinks for you, determines what happens, and has power over the mind.
"That the body cannot heal the mind but the mind can heal the body, is proof the mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this."
The body is an illusion. "At no time does the body exist."
Literally, like a projected image, it only SEEMS to have an existence, to be a "thing" with its own past and future. It is not really there. There is no human being. There is no ape man. It’s just a projected dream.
So is the world we made. Just an image.
Today's idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. It does, however, describe what vision will show you. It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is in this world to believe this of himself. Yet the reason he thinks he is in this world is because he does not believe it.
You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself which you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. It is not vision. Images cannot see.
The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your Source it establishes your identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth. We will use a somewhat different kind of application for today's idea, because the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what he perceives.
For each of the three five-minute practice periods today, begin by repeating today's idea to yourself, and then close your eyes and search your mind for the various kinds of descriptive terms in which you see yourself. Include all of the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. All of them are equally unreal because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness.
In the earlier part of the mind-searching period, you will probably emphasize what you consider to be the more negative aspects of your perception of yourself. Toward the latter part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may well cross your mind. Try to recognize that the direction of your fantasies about yourself does not matter. Illusions have no direction in reality. They are merely not true.
A suitable unselected list for applying the idea for today might be as follows:
"I see myself as imposed on."
"I see myself as depressed."
"I see myself as failing."
"I see myself as endangered."
"I see myself as helpless."
"I see myself as victorious."
"I see myself as losing out."
"I see myself as charitable."
"I see myself as virtuous."
You should not think of these terms in an abstract way. They will occur to you as various situations, personalities, and events in which you figure cross your mind. Pick up any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriptive term or terms which you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them in applying today's idea. After you have named each one, add:
"But my mind is part of God's. I am very holy."
During the longer exercise periods, there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you. Do not strain to think up specific things to fill the interval, but merely relax and repeat today's idea slowly until something occurs to you. Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing should be "dug out" with effort. Neither force nor discrimination should be used.
As often as possible during the day, pick up a specific attribute or attributes which you are ascribing to yourself at the time, and apply the idea for today to them, adding the idea to each of them in the form stated above. If nothing particular occurs to you, merely repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.