[acimlessons_list] Lesson 28 - January 28

[Sue Roth]

Lesson 28 - January 28

"Above all else I want to see things differently."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

Purpose: to commit to really seeing, to commit to withdrawing your
preconceptions about things and opening your mind to seeing them with true
vision. You will make this commitment one object at a time. By committing to
seeing one thing truly, you are really committing to seeing everything
truly.

Exercise: 6 times, for 2 minutes
	*	Repeat the idea.
	*	Then apply it randomly to whatever you see about you, giving
each subject equal sincerity. Let your eyes rest on each one long enough to
say, slowly and thoughtfully, "Above all else I want to see
this______differently." Realize that in saying this you are making a
request, a request to withdraw the purpose you have laid on this object, and
to see the purpose that God has given it, "the purpose it shares with all
the universe" (5:3). By seeing this one object truly, then, you could see
the purpose of everything. You could gain total vision.

Remarks: Each application of the idea (to the table, to the chair, to the
foot) is the making of a commitment. So try to practice in this spirit. With
each repetition, try to mean what you are saying. Do not rush through the
words thoughtlessly. Try to say them with sincerity. Say them thoughtfully.
Do not worry about whether you will follow through with these commitments,
for that inhibits you from making them. And you will never keep them unless
you first make them.

COMMENTARY

The thought that I could gain vision from just a table, or any random thing
for that matter, if I could look on it with a completely open mind, is
staggering. It means that I have been surrounded all my life by people and
things any one of which could have brought me enlightenment, and I have not
responded. The computer screen I look at as I write, if seen without any of
my own ideas, could open up and show me "something beautiful and clean and
of infinite value, full of happiness and hope."

I still find that hard to believe. Oh, I don't doubt it, in one sense.
Somehow it makes sense to believe that an enlightened being, like Jesus for
instance, would see, as the poet put it, "the universe in a grain of sand."
But I guess what I doubt is that <I> could see that. I've looked at so many
tables in my life and none of them ever spoke to <me>. I look at my desk now
and I see--a desk.

"Hidden under all your ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it
shares with all the universe." Ah! A clue as to what this lesson is getting
at; we're talking about a shared purpose. We're asking to see a common
purpose that binds everything as one. I think a desk is for writing on, a
table is for eating on, a fork is for spearing my food, a computer is for
sending messages to folks on the Internet. I see a whole bunch of different
purposes, each thing with its own, separate purpose. But they all share a
purpose. As does my body, the sky, the moon, everything I can see. What is
that purpose? That is what I am asking to see.

That is something worth asking for.

"Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see the
light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you.
In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you
once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. How
beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in
bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can
you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And
it must be complete if you would recognize it" (T-23.Int.6).