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 this 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
but takes 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 yet 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 which 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.
The 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 the 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. 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
which does not merely disappear when this
has been perceived. And this you give today;
see no-one as a body. 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 which has power to overlook
them all. In His forgiveness they are gone.
Unseen by One, they simply disappear
because a vision of the holiness
which 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
see but 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.
