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Lesson 19 2026

I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.
1. The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone. ²You will notice that at times the ideas related to thinking precede those related to perceiving, while at other times the order is reversed. ³The reason is that the order does not matter. ⁴Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate.
2. Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. ²This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an “invasion of privacy.” ³Yet it is a fact that there are no private thoughts. ⁴Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. ⁵And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God.
3. The minute or so of mind searching which today’s exercises require is to be undertaken with eyes closed. ²The idea for today is to be repeated first, and then the mind should be carefully searched for the thoughts it contains at that time. ³As you consider each one, name it in terms of the central person or theme it contains, and holding it in your mind as you do so, say:
⁴I am not alone in experiencing the effects of this thought about _____________.
4. The requirement of as much indiscriminateness as possible in selecting subjects for the practice periods should be quite familiar to you by now, and will no longer be repeated each day, although it will occasionally be included as a reminder. ²Do not forget, however, that random selection of subjects for all practice periods remains essential throughout. ³Lack of order in this connection will ultimately make the recognition of lack of order in miracles meaningful to you.
5. Apart from the “as needed” application of today’s idea, at least three practice periods are required, shortening the length of time involved, if necessary. ²Do not attempt more than four. (ACIM, W-19.1:1–5:2)
2025
I have been studying and practicing ACIM for over 43 years. I have read these lessons many times. I have done them as Jesus asks, or as close to it as I could, many times. But even so, sometimes, as I contemplate one, I can still understand it differently than I did before. Or notice that I overlooked something before.
When reading about private thoughts in the Text, I identified these private thoughts as ego thoughts. And yes, that is true, but this morning, I am seeing it a little differently. The point Jesus makes is that we want to believe that we have a private mind. We want to think that our thoughts belong to us and only us, and that what we think is a secret and has no effects outside our minds.
That is our error; it is not that we have private thoughts because we don’t, but that we believe we do. Our thoughts, all of them, affect all of us because our minds are joined.
The implications of this are enormous. We are in this together, literally. The idea of a world, of bodies, of the pretense of separation, all of it. It was once strange enough to think that what I did could affect people across the world. Nowadays, this is easy to believe. A disease starts in one country and quickly spreads to all countries. But to realize that what I think affects everybody everywhere.
I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing or my thoughts because the only thing remotely real about me is my mind, and —and mind is joined. How on earth did I ever believe that I was not my brother’s keeper? I keep him imprisoned within this ridiculous dream of separation, or I save him from this. And he, me.
2026
I woke up at midnight, and my mind started spiraling out of control, thinking about a problem I haven’t solved. It was all over the place with these thoughts. This happens sometimes but last night it was different. Instead of trying to find some way to avoid all this, I accepted it. I let myself notice what was going on. I was not solving a problem, that’s for sure. But I was feeling uneasiness turning into fear. I felt the fear in my stomach, in the clinching of my jaw, the tightening of the muscles in my neck and upper back.
I didn’t jump out of bed and find a distraction. I just let it be. I was still and quietly doing nothing as Jesus instructs us. I just looked at it with the Holy Spirit, waiting for Him to decide for me what was needed. The stress began to slowly ease, and the physical manifestations of the thoughts eased as well. I didn’t get a brilliant idea about solving my problem. I was just released from fear and the need to think about it. I was quite pleased that my intention to surrender all decisions to the Holy Spirit held even in the middle of the night, even with a problem that has huge ramifications.
So when I woke in the night with fearful thoughts running through my mind, I was not experiencing them alone. That fear was moving through the Sonship because it was moving through me. And when I relaxed my mind and allowed the Holy Spirit to decide for me what this meant and what was needed, that movement changed. The fear subsided, and with it the ripple it had set in motion. Perhaps peace replaced it somewhere I will never see. Perhaps a quiet correction occurred in a place I will never know. I don’t need to know. It is enough to recognize that choosing peace is never a private act.
Video: https://youtu.be/W7VKJ9cRpN0

© 2026, Pathways of Light. https://dev.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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