LESSON 52.

Today's review covers these ideas:

W-52.1. (6) I am upset because I see what is not there.

2 Reality is never frightening. 3 It is impossible that it could upset me. 4 Reality brings only perfect peace. 5 When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. 6 The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. 7 Nothing in God's creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. 8 I am always upset by nothing.

W-52.2. (7) I see only the past.

2 As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. 3 I call this seeing. 4 I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies. 5 When I have forgiven myself and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. 6 There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. 7 And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before.

W-52.3. (8) My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

2 I see only my own thoughts, and my mind is preoccupied with the past. 3 What, then, can I see as it is? 4 Let me remember that I look on the past to prevent the present from dawning on my mind. 5 Let me understand that I am trying to use time against God. 6 Let me learn to give the past away, realizing that in so doing I am giving up nothing.

W-52.4. (9) I see nothing as it is now.

2 If I see nothing as it is now, it can truly be said that I see nothing. 3 I can see only what is now. 4 The choice is not whether to see the past or the present; the choice is merely whether to see or not. 5 What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. 6 Now I would choose again, that I may see.

W-52.5. (10) My thoughts do not mean anything.

2 I have no private thoughts. 3 Yet it is only private thoughts of which I am aware. 4 What can these thoughts mean? 5 They do not exist, and so they mean nothing. 6 Yet my mind is part of creation and part of its Creator. 7 Would I not rather join the thinking of the universe than to obscure all that is really mine with my pitiful and meaningless "private" thoughts?