Lesson #53
Review of lessons 11 - 15
11. My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.
12. I am upset because I see a meaningless world.
13. A meaningless world engenders fear.
14. God did not create a meaningless world.
15. My thoughts are images that I have made.
Anxiety disorders are the most frequently diagnosed psychiatric illnesses in the United States. To what extent is anxiety caused by meaningless thoughts which show us a meaningless world and this lack of meaning causes fear? It makes one wonder to what extent anxiety disorders are a spiritual problem?
The first step of Alcoholics Anonymous is that we admit our life is unmanageable. You probably have heard the joke, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell God your plans.” Have we been looking for love in all the wrong places?
The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism is the affirmation and promotion of the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and where should this search take us if we are to find the peace and bliss we yearn for? The fourteenth lesson gives us a clue when it teaches that “God did not create a meaningless world.” Perhaps we have wandered from the path of Spirit onto the path of ego and it is the idols of the ego which are engendering anxiety because we are beginning to realize that obtaining them is not satisfying and seeking our happiness in them is futile. It is the growing futility and consequent distress which is causing the rise in our anxiety.
Perhaps not knowing yet where to search, we nonetheless have at least have learned that my meaningless thoughts being focused on the path of the ego are showing me a meaningless world and I would be well advised to seek elsewhere.
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