You are the World, and the World is You

Much of what Krishnamurti said cannot be directly related to A Course in Miracles. K appears to be emphasizing the perception of the world, whereas the Course is emphasizing forgiveness, although admitting that even forgiveness is an illusion. But from time to time the messages of both seem to coalesce on the major point we cover today. Eckhart Tolle is also in this mix directly, relating from his main focal point of the ‘Now’. But both K and the Course speak of the ‘Now’, with their own words.

The section below is from Krishnamurti’s ‘The First and Last Freedom’, page 36-37. While it’s easy to gloss over this as figurative language, consider taking it very literally when he says ‘you are the world, and the world is you’. I think he’s not being figurative here, but very literal, as hard as that is for us to accept.

From Krishnamurti ‘The First and Last Freedom’

“What you are within has been projected without, onto the world: what you are, what you think and what you feel, and what you do in your everyday existence, is projected outwardly, and that constitutes the world. If we are miserable, confused, chaotic within, by projection that becomes the world, that becomes society, because the relationship between yourself and myself, between myself and another is society – society is the product of our relationship – and if our relationship is confused, egocentric, narrow, limited, national, we project that and bring chaos into the world.

What you are, the world is. So your problem is the world’s problem. Surely this is a simple and basic fact, is it not. In our relationship with the one or the many we seem somehow to overlook this point all the time.”

Using a similar analogy, A Course in Miracles is clear that we retain the same creative power as God himself, and this power we use to project the illusory world we see around us.

From A Course in Miracles, Workbook Lesson 132

“What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A madman thinks the world he sees is real, and does not doubt it.

The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. (ACIM, W-132.3:1-2)

The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. (ACIM, W-132.4:1-3)

There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source.

There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.”

Quote From Eckhart Tolle

“Now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.”

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Thinking that we’ve abandoned God and are cursed by him, the guilt was so great we had no option but to project it outward into this world we see. This world, being the repository for our hate, appears hateful. But the source of the world, which doesn’t in reality exist, is our own thoughts, and from this level we can work move to reverse our thoughts. This is a subtle but critical point. If we ‘work’ to reverse our thoughts we’ve fallen into the game of the ego, thought. Working or effort only builds the centre, the ego, stronger, regardless of whether one is working to be a good Christian or to build nuclear bombs. Krishnamurti impels us to ‘see the truth of it’, not through thought but through direct observation that is not distorted by thought.

The Course in Miracles guides us to do this through ‘forgiveness’, K does it through a perception of ‘choiceless awareness’ (which implies not only ‘forgiveness’ but being in the ‘Now’, and Eckhart Tolle does it via being in the ‘Now’…which implies forgiveness. But through all of these three ‘systems’, which are not systems at all but for which our limited language lacks a word, thought is not only not needed but is the active impediment to success. Therefore, the need for thought reversal. It’s not something you can ‘do’ but perhaps something you can ‘see’.