Lesson 157
Today I learn to give as I receive.
p1. What has been given you? 2 The
knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever,
wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. 3
Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. 4
This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. 5
It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does
it live.
p2. You have received all this. 2 No
one who walks the world but has received it. 3
It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave.
4 All this cannot be learned. 5
What, then, are you to learn to give today? 6
Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. 7
Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can. 8
The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to
every mind. 9 Yet is that time determined by
the mind itself, not taught.
p3. The time is set already. 2 It appears
to be quite arbitrary. 3 Yet there is no step
along the road that anyone takes but by chance. 4
It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it.
5 For time but seems to go in one direction.
6 We but undertake a journey that is over. 7
Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.
p4. Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which
figures come and go as if by magic. 2 Yet there
is a plan behind appearances that does not change. 3
The script is written. 4 When experience will
come to end your doubting has been set. 5 For
we but 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.
p5. A teacher does not give experience, because he did not learn
it. 2 It revealed itself to him at its appointed
time. 3 But vision is his gift. 4
This he can give directly, for Christ’s knowledge is not lost, because He
has a vision He can give to anyone who asks. 5
The Father’s Will and His are joined in knowledge. 6
Yet there is a vision which the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Christ
beholds it too.
p6. Here is the joining of the world of doubt and shadows made
with the intangible. 2 Here is a quiet place
within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love. 3
Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. 4
Experience-unlearned, untaught, unseen-is merely there. 5
This is beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished.
6 Our concern is with Christ’s vision. 7
This we can attain.
p7. Christ’s vision has one law. 2
It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created.
3 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. 4
It sees no separation. 5 And it looks on everyone,
on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest
fading of the light it sees.
p8. This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve
it. 2 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.
3 And this you give today: See no one as a body.
4 Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging
that he is one with you in holiness.
p9. Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision that
has power to overlook them all. 2 In His forgiveness
are they gone. 3 Unseen by One they merely disappear,
because a vision of the holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their
place. 4 It matters not what form they took,
nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them.
5 They are no more. 6
And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never
to be done.
p10. Thus do you learn to give as you receive. 2
And thus Christ’s vision looks on you as well. 3
This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you
but see yourself. 4 If he be lost in sin, so
must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been forgiven by yourself.
5 Each brother whom you meet today provides
another chance to let Christ’s vision shine on you, and offer you the peace
of God.
p11. It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of
time. 2 Yet time has still one gift to give,
in which true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares
its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its immortal love. 3
We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. 4
And by the holy gifts we give, Christ’s vision looks upon ourselves as well.
Posted on June 6, 2008 :: Print This Post
Comments
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Email Version
Archives
Syndicate
Recently
- Lesson 190
- Lesson 189
- Lesson 188
- Lesson 187
- Lesson 186
- Lesson 185
- Lesson 184
- Lesson 183
- Lesson 182
- Lesson 181