A Course In Miracles - Lesson 5 - I am never upset for the reason I think.

 

"I am never upset for the reason I think." (ACIM, Workbook, Lesson 5).

This lesson leads on from the previous lessons in coming to the realisation that we don't actually understand anything, and know anything - in the sense of actually experiencing the reality of what we perceive vs perceiving through our conditioned responses.

Today's idea branches out into the emotional/feeling area, and follows the same lines, in that we seem to be upset (or experiencing negative, painful emotions) with some object/person/situation. There is intimated here, in the text, that there is a reason for this.. and the reason or cause that we ascribe to the situation isn't correct or the true reason for why we are upset.

The benefits in this approach, like in Lesson 3 (I do not understand anything I see in this place etc.) become apparent if we are able to relax and let go of the egoic tendency to think we are right, correct, knowledgable, and can grasp our experience within the realms of intellect and intellectual understanding-- all of which are false.

If we can let go of a situation and the need to grasp it, because we realise and see that we don't actually understand or properly know anything, then we become open to things just as they are.. a sort of space of not-knowing or "peace that passeth all understanding" (Phil 4:7, and ACIM Text Ch.13)

Mind and body like space, and simply the nature of existence.

From Dudjom Lingpa’s commentary to the Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra:

Identifying the Creator of All Phenomena as the Mind: 

“Here is the way to examine the agent, or sovereign, that creates all phenomena as the mind, which is primary among the body, speech, and mind. During the daytime, nighttime, and the intermediate period, due to the mind’s self-grasping, the body and speech appear to the mind. Over the course of a lifetime, it is the mind that experiences joy and sorrow. Finally, when the body and mind separate, the body remains as a corpse. When the speech disappears without a trace, the mind follows after karma and is the agent that wanders in saṃsāra. From one perspective, for those three reasons, among them recognize the mind as primary. From another perspective, none of those three is anything other than the mind; therefore, by ascertaining them as the mind alone, among them recognize the mind as primary. The former perspective is determined in accordance with their conventional mode of appearances, while the latter perspective is determined in accordance with their conventional mode of existence.”

Establishing the Mind as Baseless and Rootless: 

“By examining in that way whether the mind that is the all-creating sovereign of the body, speech, and mind—or of all phenomena—is really existent or really nonexistent, the mind is found to have no basis or root, so it is not established as having any shape or color. The five elements and five [sensory] objects appear like objects of the mind, and your own body appears as its base. But if all these are investigated from an ultimate perspective, they are found to be like space, not truly established as either one thing or many. Ascertaining the origin, location, and destination [of the mind] as object-less openness is the spontaneous actualization of the essential nature of the path of cutting through. This is not something freshly achieved, but is simply the knowledge of the mode of being of the nature of existence.”