The instructions for Review 1 are fairly flexible. For example, you are told that “if any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one.”
The flexibility in the instructions allows you to develop a personal relationship with the review lessons.
When Helen scribed the review lessons, she also wrote a paragraph below each lesson. We do not know if this paragraph was fully scribed or if it is a reflection of her personal relationship with the lesson. In the instructions, you are asked to read these paragraphs, but you are also told that it is “not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea either literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather, to emphasize the central point, and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.” This might be because the comments are Helen’s personal relationship with each lesson. Rather than emphasizing her personal relationship, it is more helpful for you to develop your own personal relationship.
One way to develop your own personal relationship with the lessons is to contemplate each lesson and then write your own comments, comments that reflect your relationship with the lesson.
My intention for the review period is to spend time each morning contemplating the day’s review lessons and writing my own comments. Throughout the day, I will spend at least two minutes each hour deeply contemplating one lesson and the comments I wrote for that lesson. At the end of the day, I will reread the lessons and comments in the workbook along with my own comments.
If this feels right for you, please feel free to do the same. Developing your own relationship with the lessons as we do the review can be extremely, extremely helpful.
I will post my comments for Lesson 51 as an example.
Regina’s personal comments for Lesson 51:
1. Nothing I see means anything. I do not see with the body’s eyes. I see either with the mind or the heart. It is not what I see, but what I see with that gives meaning. When I see with the mind, I am lost in an individualistic illusion that has no meaning at all. When I see with the heart, I am in communication with my true Self. When I am in communication with my true Self, I know my real thoughts. My real thoughts are meaning.
2. I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me. This is true when I see with the mind. When I see the world through my individual point of view, I see an individual world. No one else sees a world exactly like the world I see when I see through the mind. When I see with the heart, however, it is different. When I see with the heart, meaning is not supplied from the outside or by thoughts. The meaning is my Self. What I am, I see. If I see anything that is not what I am, it is as thin as aging gauze.
3. I do not understand anything I see. When I see with my mind, my seeing is colored by my thoughts. Sometimes my thoughts are so dense, I walk about in the world without seeing the world at all; all I see are the thoughts in my mind. My thoughts are an obstacle; they hide or distort everything I see. Things that are hidden or distorted are not understood. Far from it. They are missed entirely.
4. These thoughts do not mean anything. My unique point of view is 1 out of 7,376,000,000 unique points of view in the world today. It is as if each of us is walking around with a box on our head. Our unique worlds are drawn on the inside of our boxes, and that is all we see. We argue that we are right about our points of view, but we are not right. We are blind. In order to see, we need to take the boxes off of our heads.
5. I am never upset for the reason I think. When I am upset, it is because of the box on my head. I will know peace-life-love if I remove the box, because peace-life-love is what I am.