 Today we continue on with Chapter 1, the section Holeness and Spirit. The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they become unnecessary. When spirit's original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While you believe you are in a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression. You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing, but you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential. You did not create yourself. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is not to wait on time any longer than is necessary. Time can waste as well as be wasted. The miracle worker, therefore, accepts the time control factor gladly. He recognizes that every collapse of time brings everyone closer to the ultimate release from time, in which the son and the father are one. Equality does not imply equality now. When everyone recognizes that he has everything, individual contributions to the sonship will no longer be necessary. When the atonement has been completed, all talents will be shared by all the sons of God. God is not partial. All his children have his total love, and all his gifts are freely given to everyone alike. Except you become as little children means that unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father. The specialness of God's sons does not stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. All my brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the sonship, is impaired in its relationships. Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls him to return because it blesses and honors him, even though he may be absent in spirit. God is not mocked, is not a warning, but a reassurance. God would be mocked if any of his creations lacked holiness. The creation is whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness. Miracles are affirmations of sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance. Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is already perfect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. The only limit put on its choice is that it cannot serve two masters. If it elects to do so, the mind can become the medium by which Spirit creates along the lines of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creative potential, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, it imprisons, because such are the dictates of tyrants. To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true authority. The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by me in Christ's service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow Him. All shallow roots must be uprooted because they are not deep enough to sustain you. Illusion that shallow roots can be deepened, and thus made to hold, is one of the distortions on which the reverse of the golden rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable. However, nothing is less stable than an upside down orientation. Nor can anything that holds it upside down be conducive to increased stability. And from the workbook for students, lesson number four. These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room, on this street, from this window, in this place. Unlike the preceding ones, these exercises do not begin with the idea for the day. In these practice periods, begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minute. Then apply the idea to them. If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts, use them as subjects for the idea. Do not however select only the thoughts you think are bad. You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called good or bad. This is why they do not mean anything. In selecting the subjects for the application of today's idea, the usual specificity is required. Do not be afraid to use quote good thoughts as well as quote bad. None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them. The good ones are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult. The bad ones are blocks to sight and make seeing impossible. You do not want either. This is a major exercise and will be repeated from time to time in somewhat different form. The aim here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful. It is the first attempt in the long range purpose of learning to see the meaninglessness as outside you and the meaning full within. It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different. In using your thoughts for application of the idea for today, identify each thought by the central figure or event it contains. For example, this thought about blank does not mean anything. It is like the things I see in this room, on this street, and so on. You can also use the idea for a particular thought that you recognize as harmful. This practice is useful, but not a substitute for the more random procedures to be followed for the exercises. Do not, however, examine your mind for more than a minute or so. You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied. Further, since these exercises are the first of their kind, you may find the suspension of judgment in connection with thoughts particularly difficult. Do not repeat these exercises more than three or four times during the day. We will return to them later. These thoughts do not mean anything. Today, we begin a practice of meditation. The workbook lessons are guiding us, helping us train our minds to meditate. And the first three lessons, which are nothing I see means anything. I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me. I do not understand anything I see. These first three lessons are the very beginning of letting go of all meaning of what is perceived. All meaning of the linear, perceived world of time and space. It's like the first three lessons are opening the lid of a can. And then as we peel that lid off, we are told these thoughts do not mean anything. So today's lesson is the first lesson from Jesus that is addressing thoughts. The first three lessons addressed perception. And now lesson number four addresses directly the thoughts that cross the mind of a sleeping mind. And initially he says this lesson will be different in the sense that it's not beginning with the idea for the day. It's just beginning with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind. Just noting them. Whereas our first three lessons were looking around, letting our eyes rest on anything that they seem to light on. And using that as a way of seeing that they, images, they just don't have meaning. And that everything that seems to be a meaning has been assigned by the mind. The mind that is asleep and dreaming has assigned every single image, every single sight, every single sound, every single smell, every single touch, every single taste. The sleeping mind has assigned that meaning. And now the focus shifts to thoughts. Because thoughts seem to be very intimate when you attempt to share your thoughts. By using words, there's a feeling of sharing something that seems to be very, very intimate. More intimate than the images themselves. Thoughts arising in consciousness seem to be possessed by the mind that is asleep. And as we begin to see the meaninglessness of the thoughts that we think we think, the thoughts that are crossing through our consciousness, through our awareness, and we begin, just begin to see the connection between these thoughts that we think we think and the world of time and space that we think we see, we are taking our first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful. Because these thoughts that are just crossing awareness seemingly all day long, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, these thoughts and the world of images that seems to be there are actually connected. They are actually the same. And these thoughts are not real thoughts. These thoughts don't have any meaning because they were invented. They're fiction. They're fantasy. They aren't created by God. They don't come from our source. Our real thoughts are underneath them, are buried underneath them. These glorious, glorious thoughts that we think with our Creator, these thoughts of pure, pure love are real thoughts. And so today's lesson is the first, the first attempt here in the workbook where Jesus is joining with us and saying, I want to convince you, I want to convince your sleeping mind that the thoughts that you think you think all through the day are not really what you think because they're not real, because they don't have any meaning. Children who are asleep play with false concepts of the self, false thoughts, false images. And it's no wonder that Christ is beckoning to us, calling to us through every upset, through every perception of pain or fear, guilt, shame, doubt. The Christ is calling to us saying, this need not be. They aside these tories of unreal thoughts and come within, come within to find meaning, come within to find purpose, come within to find your true identity as the living Christ. Not a man, not a woman, not a human being, not a character with a role to play. These thoughts do not mean anything. And as we look around in our mind we see that there seems to be only one station playing initially and that's the past future channel. If our thoughts were a radio station that was broadcasting, they could call the radio station past future. That's the broadcast going on every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade, every century. And these thoughts do not mean anything. Some of you are familiar with Zen Buddhism. Form is empty, empty is form. And why is form empty except these thoughts of form, these thoughts of past, these thoughts of future do not mean anything. Now we can relax as we give our mind over to this beautiful thought for the day. These thoughts do not mean anything. And we can trust that we are being gently worked with, that the realization that this lesson points to is absolutely profound. And yet nothing is taken away. It's just a call to realize, to recognize what has no meaning. And the ego may tempt the mind during the day to put some meaning back on the thoughts. It's as if there's a reason for these thoughts. It's as if there's a value for these thoughts. As if some of these thoughts can help you, protect you. As if these thoughts that cross the mind all day, these fleeting thoughts. As if these thoughts can be you, which is the farthest thing from the truth. The very, very farthest thing from the truth. So we now make the attempt to stop and watch and sink within, toward, be still, and know that I am God toward the truth of our being, away from the temporary, the ephemeral, the fleeting, and inward toward certainty, practice, with focus on this idea for today. These thoughts do not mean anything.