LESSON 15  JANUARY 15
"My thoughts are images that I have made."
Practice instructions
Purpose: To introduce you to the process of image making, by which your inner thoughts appear as outer images.
Exercise: Three times (four if comfortable), for one minute (less if you feel uneasy).
 Repeat the idea to yourself.
 Then look about and apply it randomly to whatever you see, saying quite slowly, "This [name of object] is an image that I have made." Let your eyes rest on the object the whole time you are repeating this.
Response to temptation: Optional-whenever you are upset.
You may want to use this form: "This [name of situation] is an image that I have made." This will remind you that the "upsetting" situation you are seeing is not objectively real, but is just your own thoughts appearing in image form.
Commentary
Our perception is composed of images made from our thoughts. Because the thoughts appear as images, we do not recognize the thoughts as nothing. Physical sight is nothing more than this, and this is the purpose of physical sight. We gave our body's eyes the function of seeing these thought images, in order to validate the thoughts we think we are thinking. 
It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.	(1:5-7)
The Course is quite consistent in its view of our physical sight. It says, for instance: 
Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would give.	(T-22.III.4:3) 
The body's eyes see only form. They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. And they were made to look on error and not see past it.	(T-22.III.5:3-5) 
What our eyes show us is a mistake. What our eyes show us is an image we have made, and does not portray the truth. They were "made to look on error and not see past it." Part of what we must begin to learn is to look past the bodily level, to begin to realize that what our eyes are showing us is not necessarily the truth. Our eyes are showing us only the errors of our own minds.
There is something beyond the physical that vision can show us. That is the meaning of the "edges of light" (2:2) the lesson refers to. In a workshop I attended, Ken Wapnick remarked that this mention of "light episodes" (3:1) was included in part as an answer to a friend of Helen's who was seeing light around people and wondering if there was something wrong. The lesson explains that such experiences "merely symbolize true perception" (3:5). The lesson is not trying to say that everyone should have such experiences. It is saying merely that, if such experiences do occur, we should not be disconcerted by them; they are a sign of progress. It is not the symbol of true perception we seek, however, but true perception itself. The meaning of "edges of light" is simply that there is something there to be seen that is beyond the physical. It is to this realization that the lesson is leading us.

LESSON 16  JANUARY 16
"I have no neutral thoughts."
Practice instructions
Purpose: A beginning step in learning that every thought has effects and that each one produces either fear and war or love and peace.
Exercise: Four or five times (three if there's strain), for one minute each (reduce if there's discomfort).
 Close your eyes and repeat the idea. 
 Then search your mind for any thoughts present. Try to make no distinctions among them. Try especially not to overlook any "little" thought. As each thought crosses your mind, hold it in mind and say, "This thought about ______ is not a neutral thought."
Response to temptation: Whenever you are aware of an upsetting thought.
Apply the idea to it using this specific form: "This thought about ______ is not a neutral thought, because I have no neutral thoughts." The point is to make you realize that, by entertaining this thought, you are actively causing yourself fear.
Commentary
This could seem like a scary idea, but the main intent is for us to realize how effective our thoughts are. This is an empowering idea, not a threatening one, unless we choose to see it that way.
Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact.	(1:2-3) 
Like many of the ideas the Course presents, this one is difficult to believe at first because we are so convinced that our thoughts have nothing to do with most of the things we see. Just in case we let the idea slip by, the lesson adds that there are no exceptions. True thoughts create true things; false thoughts make false things, or illusions. There is nothing to be afraid of here because only the true thoughts create realities; false thoughts only make illusions.
No thought, however, is "idle." "What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle" (2:2). Every thought in our mind is producing something all the time, contributing to truth or to illusion. The Course is a mind-training course. Its aims to make us aware of our thoughts and their effects. It desires us to be intimately involved in the process of choosing the thoughts that occupy our minds and produce their effects in the world around us.
We are asked to recognize that no thought is neutral, no thought does nothing to affect the growth of truth or illusion. Every thought expresses either love or fear; there is no in-between. If I look at the way I treat my own thoughts I can see the lesson is correct: I really do tend to slough off certain thoughts as unimportant and not worth bothering about. Every thought is worth bothering about; all fear thoughts are equally destructive. They are also equally unreal. Thus, we need not be guilty about them.
Some students of the Course are quick to latch on to the "unreal" part but very slow to acknowledge the "destructive" side; the Course always maintains this balance. Just because something is unreal or illusory does not mean it is unimportant and can be ignored! For instance, at one point the Text says that delay is impossible in eternity but is tragic in time (T-5.VI.1:3). The Course is not advocating an attitude of indifference to the world simply because it is an illusion. Remarks such as "AIDS? It's only an illusion" or "What starving children? It isn't real," are not representative of the true spirit of the Course, although you may hear them in some circles. If AIDS and starvation are in our perception, the thoughts that manifest them must be in our minds, individually or collectively, and therefore we are responsible for healing those thoughts. But I digress from the lesson; time to step off the soapbox.
The lesson is pointing out that no thought can be dismissed as trivial, and no thought is neutral. As you practice the lesson there will be some thoughts that will easily be seen to be "not neutral." If someone steals your car it is fairly easy to acknowledge that your thoughts about it are not neutral. But if you are thinking of which breakfast cereal to eat it is a bit more of a stretch to believe that "This thought about Wheaties is not a neutral thought," that it is expressing either love or fear. Believe it; it is. As the instructions say, do not "make artificial distinctions" (4:3).
The mind is like a light bulb, which is either on or off and never in-between; our minds are expressing fear or love, and never something in-between, never both, and never nothing.