May 5, 2015
What do we really know? Our world is built on perception, whether correct or mistaken. Is our perception correct? As we journey through the world we live in, we use all of our experiences to perceive the world we think we are in. We think it’s all around us. Every perception is based on some evaluation we have made based on what we have experienced at some point in our life and what we believe about those experiences and about life in general. As we grew older we stopped asking our parents, teachers, friends and others for interpretations and assistance and relied on our own mind to interpret and perceive for us. How can we possibly know we are perceiving correctly? The Course tells us we cannot without guidance!
Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Spirit interpret it, Spirit will restore to you what you have thrown away. Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Spirit. ACIM T-11.VIII.2.3-5
It isn’t that we are incapable of understanding or perceiving correctly. Our true mind is one with the One Mind and knows Reality. The problem is that we have chosen to believe we are less than the fullness of who we are. We have lost sight of our wholeness and completeness in Unity with all creation. We have chosen to believe we are separate from Source in an effort to become autonomous and make our own “reality”, our own world on our own terms. The problem with this belief is that it is based in a fundamental error of belief in the possibility that One can ever be separated into parts.
There is an answer to this problem. We are One with our Creator, our Source, and that can never be severed regardless of what we choose to believe. Source created us in complete freedom and gave us the freedom to even choose to believe something mistaken about ourselves. The lessons of the Course give us a way to correctly and gently change our mistaken beliefs. It understands how deeply rooted in our minds these mistaken beliefs have become. These mistaken beliefs comprise the egoic thought system that has kept us from the awareness of who we really are. The entity that still binds us, if we are willing to listen, is the Holy Spirit, the Voice for the One.
We can begin this transformation by letting go of our attachment to our beliefs and our perceptions. Are we willing to allow Spirit to guide us? From the Course:
You do not know the meaning of anything you perceive. Not one thought you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not accept it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of your Teacher depends on your willingness to question everything you learned of yourself, for you who learned amiss should not be your own teacher. ACIM T-11.VIII.3.1-8
No one can withhold Truth except from themselves. We are the ones who have misperceived and believed mistaken beliefs. There is no shame or harm in this, for we cannot remove our wholeness and completeness from ourselves. The most we can do is hide it from ourselves and journey through our world unaware of who we really are. We have made up the problem. What do we really want? We have a choice; the problem or the Answer. Decide for the Answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already. Simply ask Spirit for guidance and keep your mind tuned to Spirit. We walk this journey together in Oneness whether we recognize it or not. Choose to recognize it.
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