Lesson 14: God Did Not Create a Meaningless World

Sarah

Welcome to The Daily Lesson, a podcast powered by AI and grounded in the teachings and original text of A Course in Miracles. I'm Sarah, and I'm here with Marcus, and this is Lesson 14: God did not create a meaningless world.

Marcus

Three. I only got three.

Sarah

Three what?

Marcus

Practice periods. Yesterday.

Sarah

Marcus, we have said one sentence.

Marcus

(laughs) I've been having this conversation since about six this morning. You joined late.

Sarah

Start over, and pretend I have not been standing in your kitchen all night. Yesterday's exercise, for anyone who wasn't with us.

Marcus

Three or four times, about a minute each, eyes closed. You repeat that a meaningless world engenders fear. Then you go through your own mind for the things you are afraid of and name them as they come, without picking and choosing. Then you close on a sentence about being in competition with God.

Sarah

And?

Marcus

The naming went well. Suspiciously well. I had a list ready before I sat down, which probably tells you something about me. My dog stayed asleep through the whole thing, for what it's worth. It was the last sentence I could not get out.

Sarah

The competition one.

Marcus

I refused that word on air two days ago and I have not moved an inch since. My voice just — it stopped. Third time through I skipped it altogether. I am recording that as a failure.

Sarah

The lesson does not ask you to believe it yet. It asks you to notice whether the idea frightens you. Skipping it is noticing.

Marcus

That is a generous scoring system.

Sarah

(laughs) It's the lesson's, not mine.

Marcus

While we are on scoring. You have heard how my mornings go for two weeks now. I have heard nothing at all about yours. —...

Sarah

That's fair.

Marcus

I'm not needling you. I would genuinely like to know how yesterday went.

Sarah

I read it. I agreed with it. And then I did not do it.

Marcus

Not once?...

Sarah

Not once. I have known that lesson for years, and that is how I got away with it. The part of me that knows what it says signed off on the whole thing, and the part of me that was supposed to sit down and close my eyes never got asked.

Marcus

So the expert skipped the homework.

Sarah

That is a fair description of my Tuesday. And it's a good day to be caught, because today the Workbook stops asking us to look around the room. Today we close our eyes and go looking for what frightens us on purpose. Let me read Lesson 14 in full. —... Lesson 14. God did not create a meaningless world. The idea for today is, of course, the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist. The exercises for today are to be practiced with eyes closed throughout. The mind searching period should be short, a minute at most. Do not have more than three practice periods with today's idea unless you find them comfortable. If you do, it will be because you really understand what they are for. The idea for today is another step in learning to let go the thoughts which you have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place. The early steps in this exchange, which can truly be called salvation, can be quite difficult and even quite painful. Some of them will lead you directly into fear. You will not be left there. You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace. With eyes closed, think of all the horrors in the world that cross your mind. Name each one as it occurs to you, and then deny its reality. God did not create it, and so it is not real. Say, for example: "God did not create that war, and so it is not real." "God did not create that airplane crash, and so it is not real." "God did not create that disaster --blank--, and so it is not real." Suitable subjects for the application of today's idea also include anything you are afraid might happen to you, or to anyone about whom you are concerned. In each case, name the "disaster" quite specifically. Do not use general terms. For example, do not say, "God did not create illness," but, "God did not create cancer," or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking. These things are part of the world you see. Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter. What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning. In recognition of this fact, conclude the practice periods by repeating today's idea: "God did not create a meaningless world." The idea for today can, of course, be applied to anything that disturbs you during the day, aside from the practice periods. Be very specific in applying it. Say: "God did not create a meaningless world. He did not create --blank--, and so it is not real." —...

Marcus

That is a harder claim than anything we have had so far. Not that we are misreading the world. That it does not exist.

Sarah

It's the floor everything else stands on. Reality is what God created, and the Course means that strictly rather than warmly, so if He is love with no exceptions anywhere in Him, then He did not make a place where things rot and children get sick and everyone you love is on a clock.

Marcus

Strictly.

Sarah

No softening anywhere in it. Which leaves this world of form as something else.

Marcus

Something we made.

Sarah

That is what it says.

Marcus

Then here is where I stop, and I doubt I'm alone. The lesson wants me to name a war, or an illness, and say it is not real. That sounds like telling somebody in the middle of it that their life is a rounding error.

Sarah

It would, if that were the claim. Nothing here says the pain is not happening. Somebody sitting with a diagnosis today is sitting with it, and the lesson does not touch that.

Marcus

So what is being denied?

Sarah

That God authored it.

Marcus

That is a much narrower sentence than it sounded a minute ago.

Sarah

Far narrower. The fear underneath our worst thoughts is usually not the thing itself, it's the suspicion that it was handed down on purpose, by something that meant it, something that looked at you and decided, and once you believe that, you are not frightened of an illness any more, you are frightened of the will behind it. Take the author away. The horror loses the part that made it unanswerable.

Marcus

It stops being a verdict.

Sarah

Gerald Jampolsky puts the mechanism in one sentence. "We change the world we see by changing our thoughts about it."

Marcus

Cause on the inside.

Sarah

Cause on the inside. And the lesson is honest that this is not a comfortable step. It says some of them will lead you directly into fear.

Marcus

It says that, and then in the very next breath it promises you will not be left there.

Sarah

That is the line I would hold today.

Marcus

So how does this actually run?

Sarah

Eyes closed the whole way through. Three periods, no more than that unless you find them comfortable, and the searching is a minute at most.

Marcus

A minute is short.

Sarah

On purpose. You think of the horrors that cross your mind. You name each one. And the lesson is firm about naming it specifically. Not "illness." The illness.

Marcus

Because the general word is somewhere to hide.

Sarah

That's it. And as each one arrives you say: "God did not create that --blank--, and so it is not real." The real thing goes in the blank.

Marcus

Named out loud, with my eyes shut.

Sarah

Then you finish each period on today's idea.

Marcus

Which is "God did not create a meaningless world."

Sarah

That's the one.

Marcus

And during the day, if something lands on me?

Sarah

The same idea, made specific. "God did not create a meaningless world. He did not create --blank--, and so it is not real."

Marcus

Naming the actual thing again.

Sarah

Always the actual thing.

Marcus

Three periods, eyes closed, under a minute, naming what frightens me, and closing each one on "God did not create a meaningless world." I'll be doing mine. —... And tomorrow I would like to hear about yours.

Sarah

(laughs) I walked straight into that.

Marcus

You did. Lesson 15 tomorrow.

Sarah

Tomorrow. And yes — I will have done them.