Accepting the Vision of Christ

On seeing and being seen in A Course in Miracles . . .

We know so little about the other's internal state. It is their state; not ours. When I dip my hand in the river, your fingers don't get wet. When you smile, it has only the meaning I give it. My guesses might be quite accurate and informed but they are never perfect. I'm not you.

Therefore, when we reach conclusions about the other's internal state - their happiness, inner peace, motivations, goals, et cetera - it is always our projection. And projection always involves judgment, and judgement always involves ego (T-4.II.10:3).

For example, I might visit the local zendo, observer the head teacher, and conclude that she lives in total joy and peace, and commit to studying with her forever.

Fair enough. But because we never know the other's internal state with the same kind of intensity, immediacy and intimacy as our own, we can always be wrong. We aren't even right about ourselves all the time!

The problem here is that because we can't actually know the other's inner state, then we have to supply it through projection, and what we project we disown. So the Zen teacher down the road has inner peace and I don't. Tara Singh knows the joy of service and I don't. Or Thich Nhat Hanh is joyful and I’m not or Eckhart Tolle is awakened and I’m not or . . .

When I dissociate from the joy and peace that naturally abide in me - and it does so abide - then I naturally suffer.

A Course in Miracles is an invitation to become responsible for our own projections. We live in the world as if it were an outside picture of an inside condition (T-21.in.1:5). In this way, everything - from a headache to our marriage to global warming - becomes an opportunity to remember our shared innocence and thus our holiness. By forgiving it, we forgive ourselves and the world, which includes our brothers and sisters. For us, this is the better way.

Our holiness reflects our capacity to help others, which is simply to be fully consistently present to them, which we do first and foremost by becoming responsible for our own projections. We liberate our brothers and sisters from their fear by deciding to see them with the Vision of Christ rather than the judgment of ego.

The Vision of Christ includes no projection; the judgment of ego is all about projection.

The Vision of Christ is a gift of the Holy Spirit (T-12.VI.4:5) given to those who are ready to waken from the dream of separation by awakening their brothers and sisters. It is the means by which we remember that "reality is one with the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in Their Name" (T-12.VI.4:10).

When we are seen with the Vision of Christ we remember that we are innocent and become happy. When we see with the Vision of Christ, we awaken others from their own forgetfulness and thus make them happy. Awakening others is how we know that the Vision of Christ reflects our true identity in and as God’s creation.

The Vision of Christ looks with love on all things for the only things of value in the world are the ones that we look on with love. Hence the directive to "make the world real unto yourself, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it belongs to you" (T-12.VI.3:6).

Therefore, we look with love upon everything: our kids, the neighbor's dog, malted vanilla ice cream, moonlight and roses, roaches and ticks. Everything - we love everything. And if we can't love it, we at least notice that we can't love it and be grateful that somebody somewhere can.

Noticing with regret our failure to love is also a form of love. Being grateful for the spiritual gifts in our brothers and sisters is also a form of love.

As we do this, something softens in us. Love wants more of itself. We commit ourselves to its service and discover that "love transfers to love without any interference, for the two are one" (T-12.VI.6:4). Suddenly, loving the unlovable becomes possible. Suddenly there is no unlovable.

As you perceive more and more common elements in all situations, the transfer of training under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually you learn to apply to it everyone and everything, for its applicability is universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the laws of God (T-12.VI.7:5-7).

Nothing and nobody can be excluded from the loving gaze that is the Vision of Christ. "Every child of God is one in Christ for his being is in Christ as Christ's is in God" (T-12.VI.6:1). If we are even the tiniest bit willing to accept that this is true, then our lives will be transformed by love.

There is nothing to do but love, and nobody but us to do it, and now is the time for us to remember this! It is why we are here together, you and I. It is our shared mission and our unified divine purpose: to love one another as our brother Jesus loves us, which is to simply remember that our love for God is God's Love for us. Allow this love to come forth in you and teach you what you are in truth by making the whole world happy.

Love,

Sean