LESSON 79
March 20
"Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved."
PRACTICE SUMMARY
Longer: 2 times for 10-15 minutes.
- Try to free your mind of the belief you have many problems. Try to recognize you have only one.
- Then ask what that one problem is (do not assume you know) and wait for the answer. You will be told.
- Then ask what is the answer to it. And you will be told.
Remarks: You will succeed to the extent you do not define the problem. You need not let all your preconceived notions go, only entertain some doubt about what you think your problems are.
Response To Temptation:
- Whenever you see a problem try to recognize there is only one problem and one answer. Say immediately: "Let me recognize this problem so it can be solved."
- Then try to lay aside what you think the problem is. If you can, close eyes and ask what it is. You will be told.
COMMENTARY
This lesson, with the next, presents one of the clearest statements of an important Course principle: "One problem, one solution," as it is stated in Lesson 80 (1:5). They merit repeated re-reading until the concept they teach become imbedded in our thought processes.
I seem to be faced with a multitude of problems, overwhelming in number and complexity, ranging from tiny to titanic, constantly shifting, changing, appearing and disappearing in the moments of my life. If I pause to consider things objectively from this viewpoint the only possible response is blind panic. Attention paid to one problem obliterates dozens of others, equally deserving of my attention, from conscious consideration. Like Lucy and Ethel on the pie conveyor, as things speed up I can only start stuffing some of the "pastries" down my shirt, trying to hide them before my failure to handle them becomes evident.
Seen from the perspective of specialness, our problems doom me to failure after failure, with every moment increasing my overwhelming sense of inadequacy.
What if all of these problems were really just one? What if I already had the solution to that one problem? I can scarcely imagine the universal sense of relief that would run through my being if I could grasp that this were true: All of my problems are one, and that one has already been solved.
Could this be? Yes. If I think my problems are many and separate, if I have failed to recognize the one problem in them all, I could already have the answer and not know it. I could even be aware of the answer without realizing its application to what seem to me to be very different problems. "This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. Yet the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized" (1:3-5).
To break free of this illusory imprisonment, then, my first step must be to recognize the problem in every problem. I have to become aware of what the problem is before I can realize that I already hold the solution to it. As long as I think the problem is something other than my separateness from God (which has already been so completely resolved that it has become a non-issue), I will continue to think I have problems and lack the solution. I will look for "salvation" from my problems everywhere but where the answer is because I have already discounted the answer as irrelevant to the problem at hand. "Who can see that a problem has been solved if he thinks the problem is something else?" (2:3).
The seeming complexity of the world is nothing more than my mind's attempt to not recognize the single problem, thus preventing its resolution (6:1). My greatest initial need, therefore, is to perceive "the underlying constancy in all the problems" (6:3). If I can see the separation at the root of every problem I would realize that I already have the answer, and I would use the answer. I would be free.
Again, this lesson is so wonderfully forgiving. Even the idea of seeing all my problems as variations on the theme of separation may seem an impossibly daunting task. So the lesson tells me, "that is not necessary. All that is necessary is to entertain some doubt about the reality of your version of what your problems are" (8:2, 3). The only thing I have to do is to doubt? Hey, I can handle that; I'm pretty good at doubting.
All I am being asked to do is to "suspend all judgment about what the problem is" (10:4). "Suspend" means to temporarily abate; the lesson does not even ask me to lay aside my judgments forever. Just for an instant. Just allow myself to doubt my personal perspective on things and consider that there might be another way of looking at it.
So today I am called to doubt. To doubt my version of what my problems are. To think to myself, I'm probably not seeing this with complete clarity. I'm probably muddling the issues here somewhere." And then to ask, "What is the real problem here?" That kind of practice even I can handle. Thank You, God, for such a simple Course!
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Arizona, USA.
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