How Much Do Our Minds Influence the World, Part 1: Summary of a Class Presentation

We had a lively class yesterday on a topic which all of us seem to wrestle with. If you weren’t able to join us live, you may want to go and listen to the recording.

My main point was that we need two kinds of realism:

1. Being realistic about the true, ultimate power of our minds, which the Course says dream this world into existence.

2. Being realistic about how much direct influence our minds seem to typically have in this world—which is little or none.

If we aren’t realistic in the first sense, we slight the Course and our own true nature. If we aren’t realistic in the second sense, we step into a fantasy world, in which our minds are supposedly causing all sorts of magical things, most of which either don’t happen or have perfectly conventional explanations.

I said that the reason for our minds being apparently so powerless in this world are:

1. We are not in touch with the mind’s real power, not by a long, long way.

2. The daytime dream is a fantastically collective one, being dreamt by not only all human minds, but all animal, plant, and mineral minds, and even minds embodied in processes like wind, waves, and streams.

We had a lively discussion, and if you’d like to continue the discussion here, please do so.


If you enjoyed this article, you might like Part 2!
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