Lesson 11 - “My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”

Day - 11 ACIM Alex Puglia.pdf

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1. The Lesson

This idea is a continuation of the previous one, which was the basis for your perception of the world. It is the reason why you see only the past, why you see nothing as it is now, and why you are never upset for the reason you think. It is the reason why you are upset because you see a meaningless world. It is the reason why a meaningless world is intolerable to you.

Underneath your own meaningless thoughts and images, the truth is still there. But it cannot be seen until you learn to see that the form of error is meaningless.

The exercises for today, which should be done about three or four times for not more than a minute or so at most each time, are to be practiced in a somewhat different way from the preceding ones. With eyes closed, repeat the idea slowly to yourself. Then open your eyes and look about you slowly, saying:

“I am looking at a meaningless world.”

Repeat this statement to yourself as you look about. Then close your eyes and conclude with:

“A meaningless world engenders fear because I think I am in competition with God.”

You may find it difficult to avoid resistance, in one form or another, to this concluding statement. Whatever form such resistance takes, remind yourself that you are really afraid of such a thought because of the vengeance of the “enemy.” You are not expected to believe this statement at this point, and will probably dismiss it as preposterous. Note carefully, however, any signs of overt or covert fear which it may arouse.

This is our first attempt at stating an explicit cause and effect relationship of a kind which you are very inexperienced in recognizing. Do not dwell on the concluding statement, and try not even to think of it except during the exercise periods. That will suffice at present.

2. Explanation with Teachings and Science

This lesson confronts a dynamic we rarely admit:We live as if we are in competition with God.

Not because we want to rebel, but because our ego believes it must define meaning, control outcomes, and make sense of the world in order to survive.The voice within says: “I’ll define my world. I’ll be my own source.”Because only by doing that does the ego give itself permission to keep existing.

So it’s not us against God—it’s the ego, the false identity, that created the world we see. A world that feels unstable, heavy, and chaotic… not because it truly is, but because we look through a fractured mind, a mind that forgot it was still in Heaven.

That’s why Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)He wasn’t condemning the earth. He was pointing to a deeper reality—a world not built by fear, but by love. This world of form, time, and comparison is the ego’s attempt to build a kingdom that competes with the real one.

A Course in Miracles teaches that our thoughts are not passive—they project a reality. And when our thoughts are meaningless, based on separation and lack, the world appears meaningless too.

“Perception selects, and makes the world you see.” (T-21.V.1:1)

Dr. Joe Dispenza explains that your personality creates your personal reality. Your repeated thoughts, emotional habits, and unconscious behaviors construct the filter through which you see life. If your inner world is filled with fear and lack, your outer world will mirror it.

The only way out is consciousness. Joe teaches that in meditation, we become no one, nowhere, nothing. We drop the identity we’ve been protecting. And in that space of openness, we stop projecting our world and begin remembering the one God already created.

David Ghiyam, from the wisdom of Kabbalah, says the ego is always trying to receive for the self alone—to become the source instead of the vessel. But when we grasp at meaning, rather than surrender to it, we block the Light. True meaning flows when we open to receive, not when we demand to control.

This is the healing the Course invites us into.We stop competing.We stop pretending we are the authors.And we allow ourselves to remember:Meaning is not something we build—it is something we uncover.

3. Integration with Christianity

This lesson reflects a deeper layer of an ancient truth from the Bible:

“Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Traditionally, this verse is read as a call to obedience. But its deeper meaning speaks of union. The world becomes meaningless not because God left us, but because we’ve tried to define life without Him.

The idea that we are “in competition with God” traces all the way back to Eden—not as defiance, but as confusion. The serpent said,

“You will be like God.” (Genesis 3:5)And something in us believed that in order to become something, we had to take control. That was the moment we turned away from receiving truth and began inventing our own.

From that moment, humanity projected a world from the collective unconscious—a dream not created by God.And in that dream, we began to see life as scarce.When we chose to take the fruit instead of be the fruit—as God commanded, “Be fruitful and multiply”—we stepped into the illusion of duality.We began dividing experience into gain and loss, success and failure, light and dark.

But in God’s reality, there is no division—only abundance.There is no competition—only extension.

Jesus came to remind us:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

The “thief” is the ego. It steals peace by convincing us that we are not enough, that we are separate, that we must earn everything.Abundant life is the truth that we already have everything when we remember who we are.

Jesus wasn’t pointing to Heaven later. He was revealing the Kingdom that already is.A world not made by fear,but created by love.A world that exists right now—beneath the veil of our perception.

4. Message to Friends

Something always lingered in my heart back when I was in church:Why are we here? Why didn’t God just leave us in Heaven? And the only answer we were ever taught was “free will”—that God wanted us to choose Him over evil.

But now, I see something else. Something simpler. Something quieter.

There is no competition in God's world—because there is no lack.There is no duality in the truth—because truth doesn’t compare.Duality only begins when we believe that one thing is better than another.It only exists in a mind that forgot unity.

And it’s all right there in the verses we studied today.

The moment we believed the serpent, and chose to take the fruit instead of be the fruit—that moment we fractured our perception. We stepped into time and space.We began to dream of a world where we compete, strive, compare, fear.But that is not the world God created.

So maybe the answer to the question is clearer than we thought:God didn’t create this world.It is the only thing He didn’t create.He created us—in spirit. But we created this place, and we continue creating it every day with our thoughts, our stories, our fear.

That’s what it means to be in competition with God.Not because we are trying to fight Him—but because our ego keeps trying to prove the original lie:That we have authority over reality.And in a way, we do—we’ve become the creators of this world. Not the real one. But the one in our minds.

So we co-create every day. We co-create fear, anxiety, enemies, and scarcity. Or—we can pause. We can pray. We can remember.

We can start believing that we are not separate. And then we begin to project something else. Not a dream of fear, but a vision of unity. Not the kingdom of the ego, but the Kingdom within.

In the past few months, I’ve been able to practice this truth. It wasn’t hard to get here. And it wasn’t easy either. It took a big shake in my life and countless hours wrestling with my ego, learning methods, theories, and sitting with the discomfort of it all.

But in the end, what shifted everything was this: I stopped blaming people and situations for my feelings and outcomes.I realized I could shape the world I want not by controlling life, but by choosing my thoughtsand putting them out there every single day.

It required discipline. And I’ve been practicing discipline.

Many times, after a really bad news, I paused and I started to thank God for that bad news.Sometimes it took me twenty minutes just to say it and mean it. But every time—if I stayed there long enough, really thanking Him something would shift.A light would enter. And I’d begin to truly believe that even this is good.That even this is a gift. And when that happens, I start seeing differently—because in that moment, I shift my world by shifting my understanding of what just happened.

Yes, we are creating our world. But we can choose to stop competing with God and start co-creating with Him.

Only when we align with the real creation can we receive the abundant life Jesus spoke about. Either we build our own kingdoms in fear, or we surrender to God's Kingdom within.

And the second choice doesn’t require force. It only asks us to remember what we already know.