I do not perceive my own best interests.
This lesson introduces the theme of humility. We are so sure we know what is best for us, let alone what is best for others. In one sense, as this lesson makes clear, it is understandable we would think that way. In one way or another we have been taught that if we do not take care of ourselves, who will? We learn we cannot trust the world; it is not set up to meet our needs instantaneously – physically or emotionally. We cannot completely trust our parents either, for even the best of them, as judged by the world, are never there for us all the time. A part of us thus learns we must take care of ourselves: we cannot fully trust anyone. The context of this lesson, therefore, is the correction of the conviction that we know our best interests.
(1) In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy. Therefore, you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result. What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong. It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests. Yet they are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived. Otherwise, you will not recognize what they are.
No ego is going to read these lines without being highly insulted! Jesus is saying we have no guide because we have chosen ourselves as the guide, reminiscent of the lines from the text I frequently quote: “Resign now as your own teacher… for you were badly taught” (T-12.V.8:3; T-28.I.7:1). This, then, is a subtle plug for choosing him as our guide.
The reasoning behind this teaching is obvious, once we think of it. To know what is in our best interests presupposes that we truly know our needs, problems, and desires. Only then, it goes without saying, could we know how to meet our needs, solve our problems, and fulfill our desires. And yet, as we have already seen and have been clearly taught in the text, the world and body were literally made to keep the real problem of separation – in our minds – hidden from us. Therefore, our experience of our needs and problems is but a smoke screen, the purpose of which is to root our attention to our bodies – physical and psychological – thus distracting us from the mind, wherein is found both the problem and the answer.
Moreover, an inevitable result of our initial arrogance compounds it still further by asking Jesus or the Holy Spirit to help us with a problem that we have determined needs to be solved. Thus we expect Them to share our insane need to protect our separation from ever being undone. We shall return to this important theme below.
(2) If you realized that you do not perceive your own best interests, you could be taught what they are. But in the presence of your conviction that you do know what they are, you cannot learn. The idea for today is a step toward opening your mind so that learning can begin.
The humility required is the admission that you do not know what is best for you, and that there is Someone within you who does, and Whom you will ask for help. The next step is to realize how much you do not want His help, and when you do ask for it, how often it is for help on your own terms – in which case you are not giving up your investment in believing you know what the problem and the answer are.
Moreover, why are you going to learn something when you already believe you have the answer? How can he help you, then, if you already believe you know the answer to your question, the solution to your problem. That is why in A Course in Miracles Jesus needs you to understand that you do not know. Thus he teaches you that real learning is unlearning: you cannot be taught the truth until you first understand you do not know it. That is why Jesus always impresses on his students the undoing aspects of his correction (see, e.g., T-1.I.26:2-3; T-28.I.1:1-4; W-pII.2.3:1-3; M-4.X.3:6-7).
Jesus is asking here that you trust him enough to suspend all your beliefs, and then say with sincerity: “I do not perceive my own best interests.” His is a plea for total humility, and implied in that plea is that we choose him as our teacher instead of the ego. The beginning of the next paragraph echoes Jesus’ plea:
(3) The exercises for today require much more honesty than you are accustomed to using. A few subjects, honestly and carefully considered in each of the five practice periods which should be undertaken today, will be more helpful than a more cursory examination of a large number. Two minutes are suggested for each of the mind-searching periods which the exercises involve.
In expressing himself this way, Jesus is telling us we have not been all that honest up to now. This is why there is repeated emphasis on searching our minds. Part of the problem inherent in our mind searching is that we think we are searching our brains. At this point we really do not understand the distinction in A Course in Miracles between the brain and the mind, an understandable mistake when we consider our almost complete identification with the body. Thus we forget our brain is a defense. If the world were made as an attack on God, then certainly the body was made as an attack on God as well, and the brain is the principal organ of the body: governing what it thinks, perceives, says, and does.
Jesus is asking us to be able to come to him and say: “I do not understand anything. Please teach me.” We need to get in touch with how difficult that is. There is a part of us that truly believes we know what is best for ourselves.
(4) The practice periods should begin with repeating today’s idea, followed by searching the mind, with closed eyes, for unresolved situations about which you are currently concerned. The emphasis should be on uncovering the outcome you want. You will quickly realize that you have a number of goals in mind as part of the desired outcome, and also that these goals are on different levels and often conflict.
Note the use of the word uncovering in sentence 2, echoing our discussion of the centrality of undoing to the practice of forgiveness. It is also clear from Jesus’ instructions how we do not really know what is in our best interests. How could we? In case we had any doubts about this, the following exercise makes it crystal clear to us:
(5) In applying the idea for today, name each situation that occurs to you, and then enumerate carefully as many goals as possible that you would like to be met in its resolution. The form of each application should be roughly as follows:
In the situation involving __, I would like _________to happen, and __________to happen,
and so on. Try to cover as many different kinds of outcomes as may honestly occur to you, even if some of them do not appear to be directly related to the situation, or even to be inherent in it at all.
This sets the stage for the next paragraph, which contains the lesson’s central point:
(6) If these exercises are done properly, you will quickly recognize that you are making a large number of demands of the situation which have nothing to do with it. You will also recognize that many of your goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your goals, however the situation turns out.
The message of this lesson, therefore, is that if we are truly honest we would recognize the contradictory nature of much of our desires and goals. This is inevitable when you consider the impossibility of having non-conflicted goals when we do not recognize our own best interest. To our egos, this interest is self-preservation, but since this conflicted self is filled with guilt and fear, how could satisfaction of our goals be anything but conflicted and fraught with the same guilt and fear that led to them?
The lesson’s final paragraph emphasizes one more time the essential point to be learned if we are successfully to complete A Course in Miracles’ curriculum:
(7) After covering the list of as many hoped-for goals as possible, for each unresolved situation that crosses your mind say to yourself:
I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation,
and go on to the next one.
Jesus wants us to generalize this lesson to all situations in our lives. To be certain we did not miss the point, nor forget it, he continues this teaching in Lesson 25.
