Today I learn to give as I receive.
What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live.
You have received all this. No one who walks the world but has received it. It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave. All this cannot be learned. What, then, are you to learn to give today? Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. 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 is that time 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 your doubting has been set. 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.
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.
Here is the joining of the world of doubt and shadows made with the intangible. Here is a quiet place within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love. Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. Experience–unlearned, untaught, unseen–is merely there. This is beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished. Our concern is with Christ's vision. 7 This we can attain.
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 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.
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 you learn to give as you receive. And thus Christ's vision looks on you as well. This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself. If he be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been forgiven by yourself. Each brother whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ's vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God.
It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of time. 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. We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. And by the holy gifts we give, Christ's vision looks upon ourselves as well.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
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Lesson 158
"Today I learn to give as I receive."
When I look at everything that seems to cause me to lose my peace in any way, they all have one thing in common: They are all based on the perception of form. I think something did something or didn't do something I think it should have, be it a body, a machine, the weather or myriad other things. If I did not see the form or perceive it in any way, there would be nothing that could be the basis for the perception of harm, no cause for loss of peace.
The Course tells me that I have taught myself to see form. Form can only be seen in dreams, because form is not real. Today's lesson is teaching me how to undo the false lesson I have taught myself. By teaching me about Christ's vision, it is teaching me to learn to look past the form to the Light. Form does not matter. What is unreal cannot matter. The Light that is the extension of God is all that is real. It is this I am told to practice seeing.
As I learn to recognize that no form can have any real effect, forgiveness is automatic. If somebody did something that I don't know about, I don't have to forgive them, because in my thinking, there is nothing to forgive. That is what it will be like when I truly learn that nothing in form is real and therefore it has no effect. If there was no effect, there is nothing to forgive. This is what Christ's vision shows me. There is nothing to forgive. There is only innocence to be seen.
As I learn to see that innocence in my brother, I recognize it in myself. Holy Spirit, I put myself in your hands today. With your strength I can see past the form to the Light. With your help I will not mistake bodies for the Son of God. With your help, I will see the Light beyond all form. And I will be truly blessed, for I will know I am forgiven. I am innocent along with all my brothers. I give thanks.
Today is a day of practice. My practice is to be open to receive Christ's vision and give Christ's vision. Christ's vision has one law and that is to see past bodies to the Light that is eternally there. Today I practice opening to the Light, recognizing the Light that my brother truly is. Today I practice focusing on the truth in my brother and letting illusions go.
Receiving Christ's vision comes with the decision to accept Christ's vision, which is always there waiting for my acceptance. Either I accept the truth or I accept illusions. This is my choice today. Today I practice accepting the truth, accepting Christ's vision, accepting the one Light that is behind all bodies, all form of every kind.
Today I practice remembering that all is still mind and only mind, safe in the Mind of God. Nothing has changed from God's creation of eternal Love. Eternal Love is universal. Today is a day of practice. I am determined to practice seeing with Christ's vision today. Today I would give as I receive.
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