Today’s lesson says, “What I see is a form of vengeance.” As we’ve already learned, what I see comes from thought. Specifically, what I see comes from the thoughts I give believing-attention to. That means if I see attack, I must have given believing-attention to attack in my mind first.

That last statement is true, but it might not seem true since thought, perception and experience are created through a process that works like a loop.

A loop has no discernable beginning. It may appear that you see something, have an experience, and then think about what you’ve seen and experienced.

Nevertheless, since thought is the actual beginning of the loop, what you see and experience can change if you change how you give attention to thought.

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 23

In yesterday’s tip, I shared the loop of experience. That loop is a type of conditioning that runs on autopilot in the brain. It works like this:

We receive thoughts in the mind. Those thoughts are like thoughts we’ve given believing-attention to before. Out of habit, we give believing-attention to those thoughts again, which leads us to see and experience the world in a certain way.

If we want to experience true perception, the perceptual loop of experience needs to be healed, which means it needs to be corrected or put right. Fortunately, today’s workbook lesson gives clear instructions about how we can heal the loop of experience:

1. “You must learn that it is [attack thoughts] you do not want.”

In other words, you must learn that you want to heal the perceptual loop of experience. It is very good to put effort into increasing your desire to heal this conditioning. You can do that by noticing how much you suffer or by asking questions like, “Is this the world I want to see?”

The mind heals best when it’s given a positive goal. So, as you notice that you don’t want to suffer or don’t want the world you currently see, it’s helpful to restate those realizations as positive goals. For example:

I want freedom, or
I want consistent happiness, or
I want to be the presence of love, or
I want truth realization, etc.

Focus on a positive goal that motivates you to heal the perceptual loop.

2. “This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced.”The cause is giving believing-attention to attack thoughts when they show up in the mind. Therefore, instead of giving believing-attention, you need to give a different type of attention. That takes us to our next step.

3. “Hold each attack thought in the mind as you say [the workbook lesson for the day].”One challenge is that conditioning materializes as neural pathways in the brain. Those pathways are like waterslides that enable attack thoughts to slide by quickly without conscious awareness. It’s as if our brain is on automatic pilot, processing attack thoughts with believing-attention whenever they are received.

However, autopilot can be overridden by awareness. When you hold an attack thought in your mind as you say the workbook lesson, you are overriding believing-attention and giving the thought healing-attention instead.

Look at that for a moment and notice how simple the resolution is:

When an attack thought shows up in the mind, instead of believing it, simply look at it as you repeat the current day’s workbook lesson in your mind.

As it says in NTI Luke Chapter 5:

“Old habits must be let go, for old habits will not usher in a new day. With old habits, all things remain the same. But with new habits, all things are possible. …

“You will catch yourself practicing the old habits, for this has been your way until now. Slipping into old habits does not ruin the new ones. So when you find yourself doing this, forgive yourself your attraction to the old by stepping away from the old and stepping into the new. Each time you do this, you help yourself to unlearn the old and to learn the new.”

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 24

NTI Luke 5 begins by saying:

“Things are not as they seem. This is why I ask you to trust Me and follow Me. I know how things are. You are blind to these facts, for you only know what you think you know, and that is nothing but a deep and burdensome slumber.”

Similarly, today’s workbook lesson says:

“What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong. It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests.”

For a time, it is in your own best interest to trust NTI, these tips and the Workbook more than your own perception. That’s because your perception is determined by faulty thinking, which is giving believing-attention to thoughts that are received without adequately discerning the value or worthlessness of those thoughts.

Today, in addition to the exercises put forth in the Workbook, pause every time you notice an attack thought in your mind and hold that thought in the mind as you say, “I do not perceive my own best interests.”

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 25

Today’s Workbook lesson explains the foundation of misperception. The foundation of misperception is the ego.

Here’s a review from previous tips:

From the tip for Lesson 1 – “Mistaken perception is perceiving and interpreting the world through a self-centered mental filter, known as the ego. The ego is basically a mental program that has been built throughout your lifetime. It tells you who you are, what everything you experience is, and it gives self-referencing meaning to everything you perceive. Meaning that is created through self-referencing is mistaken perception, because it defines what you see and experience in terms of ‘you’ and what ‘that’ has to do with ‘you.’”

From the tip for Lesson 10 – “You are not who you think you are, and the thoughts that speak to you as if you are this person, are illusions. That is why your thoughts are meaningless. They appear to be self-centered, self-referencing thoughts, but the self they are centered on and referencing is not who you are.”

Since you view the world through self-referencing thoughts, but you are not the self those thoughts refer to, you do not know what anything is for. You think you know what it’s for in relation to who you think you are, but you are wrong about who you think you are. Therefore, you are wrong about everything.

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 26

Yesterday’s Workbook lesson said:

“Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. It is in recognizing this that your goals become unified. It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning.”

Your own best interest is realizing the truth of what you are. The purpose of everything is to help you remember. That is the only real purpose that the world can have.

What are you?

Today’s Workbook lesson points to the answer. It says, “My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.”

In other words, you are Invulnerable. However, you cannot know yourself as Invulnerable as long as you give believing-attention to attack thoughts. That’s because the perceptual loop of experience will lead you to see and experience yourself as vulnerable as long as you give believing-attention to the idea that you, or anyone, can be attacked.

In short, to believe in attack is to believe in vulnerability.

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 27

In the tip for lesson 23, we learned that it’s important to increase our desire to heal the perceptual loop of experience. Today’s lesson helps us increase that desire. In fact, it gives healing “priority among your desires.”

The Workbook lesson says:

“You may feel hesitant about using the idea, on the grounds that you are not sure you really mean it. This does not matter. The purpose of today’s exercises is to bring the time when the idea will be wholly true a little nearer.”

Chapter 18 of A Course in Miracles says:

“Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter.”

When you do today’s Workbook lesson, you do it because you are willing to make healing and true perception the priority in your life, even if they aren’t the priority now. As Chapter 18 says, “trust implicitly your willingness.” There is power in your willingness that you do not understand, nor do you need to understand it. Simply do today’s lesson, and let your willingness do the rest.

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 28

Today’s workbook lesson says:

“You may wonder why it is important to say, for example, ‘Above all else I want to see this table differently.’ … When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all.”

In the tip for lesson 15, I shared the story of a light episode when my awareness shifted into an apple, and I became the apple. I have seen everything differently since having that experience. Prior to that experience, I saw humans as very distinct and entirely from different fruit. After that experience, I realized that all living things are the same, because they are the same at their essence, which is life-awareness.

Sometime after that, while walking my dog, I looked down and saw a bug. However, I did not see a bug right away. Before my mind could retrieve the information that identified the form I saw as a bug, my awareness connected with that form as life-awareness. I didn’t have a mystical light episode or anything like that, but my essence connected with the essence in that form as the same essence.

That’s how I see now. I can identify a bug as a bug, an apple as an apple and a human as a human, because that learned information is stored in my brain, but at another level there is an intuitive connection with everything I see as life-awareness.

Immediately after the episode with the apple, I knew all living things are life-awareness, but I made a distinction between living things and inanimate objects. I did not see inanimate objects as life-awareness. About a week after the apple experience I had another mystical experience, which led me to see that everything is alive.

Please watch the following 2-minute video to hear about that mystical experience: