Lesson 6: I am upset because I see something that is not there

Following up on A Course in Miracles Lesson 5 that we are never upset for the reason we think – we think we get upset because of something that happened. Someone did something we didn’t appreciate. Or something happened that we’re not happy about.

But all that pre-supposes that what we see and experience is reality.

What A Course in Miracles is teaching us is that it’s not. Everything we see and experience around us is an illusion.

So, we are wrong to think that anytime we are upset that it’s because of something going on in the world (or with our body).

Just like dreams we have at night. Imagine in your dream, someone did something that upset you. And in the dream, you get really angry.

Now, when you wake up in the morning, would it make any sense to call the person up and complain about what they did in the dream? Of course not – it was just a dream. It was all made up. After the faze of the dream recedes, we realize that nothing happened. There was nothing to be upset about.

What we’re learning in A Course in Miracles Lesson 6 is that we’re upset because we are identifying with the contents of a dream. Not reality. Hence we’re seeing things that aren’t really there.

This is not an easy concept to accept, particularly because our senses say otherwise.

But what we’re learning here that what we think of as “reality” is just like our dreams at night. They might seem real, but that’s only because we’ve identified with the dream figure instead of the dreamer.

As we practice applying the Course principles in our daily life, the illusory nature of the dream becomes more and more evident. And we begin to experience more and more peace.