Day 158

Today's Lesson:

Today I learn to give as I receive.

What has been given to us? The knowledge that we are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because we were created out of love. We have not left our Source, remaining as we were created. This was given us as knowledge, which we cannot lose. It was gives as well to every living thing, for by the knowledge only does it live.

We have received all this. Everyone who walks the world has received it. It is not this knowledge which we give, for that is what creation gave. All this cannot be learned. Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can. The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. Yet that time is determined by the mind itself, not taught.

The time is set already. It appears to be quite arbitrary. Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. For time but seems to go in one direction. We but undertake a journey that is over. Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.

Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written. When experience will come to end our doubting has been set. For we only see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.

A teacher does not give experience, because he did not learn it. It revealed itself to him at its appointed time. But vision is his gift. This he can give directly, for Christ's knowledge is not lost, because He has a vision He can give to anyone who asks. The Father's Will and His are joined in knowledge. Yet there is a vision which the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Christ beholds it too.

Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.

This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it. It requires but the recognition that the world can not give anything that faintly can compare with this in value; nor set up a goal that does not merely disappear when this has been perceived. And this we give today: See no one as a body. Greet him as the Son or God he is, acknowledging that he is one with us in holiness.

Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision that has power to overlook them all. In His forgiveness are they gone. Unseen by One they merely disappear, because a vision of the holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their place. It matters not what form they took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them. They are no more. And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.

Thus do we learn to give as we receive. And thus Christ's vision looks on us as well. This lesson is not difficult to learn, if we remember in our brother we but see ourselves. If he be lost in sin, so must we be; if we see light in him, our sins have been forgiven by ourselves. Each brother whom we meet today provides another chance to let Christ's vision shine on us, and offer us the peace of God.

Miracles I'm noticing:

I'm in Florida this week and next week, so this will be a great opportunity for me to really practice the lessons I'm reading because I will be around people I don't know, for the most part. I am staying at a cousin's house last night and today, and am meeting a friend I have never met in person tomorrow (we received our coaching certifications together, so we had lots of deep phone conversations, but have never met in person, so it will be great to finally meet tomorrow). But every person I come into contact with on this trip will provide me a great opportunity to see everyone as a Son of God.

Last night, as I was talking with my cousin's wife, I thought about what I've been learning regarding the law of attraction and how I attract into my space everything I see. I wondered, as I was listening to her tell about all her adventures as a parent and business owner and teacher (she owns a dance studio), how she also attracted all the adventures she told me about into her own space - and then how I attracted her adventures into my space.

I remember a question a friend of mine asked of a teacher we have both been studying with for the past couple of years. She asked what it meant for her if someone showed up in her space with lots of drama and trouble but it didn't affect her. The teacher said it must be a mirror for something in her own life. I thought about that last night and tried to analyze my own reactions to all the drama I was hearing about. I'm not quite sure yet what that meant for me, but as I read today's lesson, I wonder if I can merely give her peace and love as I have received and for that to be my lesson.

I think in the past I may have joined in the drama, perpetuating it and keeping it going. But I don't seem to be able to do that anymore. Maybe as I listen without judgment and without trying to fix or offer advice (which is also my tendency), I can allow that peace that seems to be lacking in those parts of her life which she told me about. I can offer that peace and love without "doing" anything.

That recognition in itself seems to be a shift in perception from fear to love, so that's a miracle for me.

What do you notice in your own life where you've shifted your perception? What results are showing up in your own life?