PART II. SECTION 5: WHAT IS THE BODY?
Lesson 269 My Sight Goes Forth To Look Upon Christ’s Face
- I ask Your blessing on my sight today. It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes and look beyond them. It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.
- Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.[1]
Notes and Personal Application Today Jesus leads us in a prayer that authorizes us to visualize past the world of form, of bodies, of ego to the world in which all separation is forgiven; unity is restored, and we are one in Christ. In this prayer we use our holy imaginations as a telescopic device to transcend this world of form, of bodies, of time, and death, and decay to a world where all is forgiven. We choose to pray this prayer on a moment-to-moment basis, for when we pray the Face of Christ prayer, we are simply asking God the Father, to enlighten our consciousness, to take the blinders from our eyes, to help us see not the spaces between us, but His Holy Son which unites us and makes us one and whole.
This is a powerful prayer and one in which we should ask the Lord to reveal to our minds through personal application in our relationships, observations, and circumstances from daily life. When we ask our Father to show us our mistakes, we are saying, We are not going to blame others anymore for that which You want us to take responsibility. We are not going to tell of the sins of others but now we are ready to focus on our own mistakes, so that we can see beyond them for correction and to return to truth. When we are willing to pray this prayer, we are ready to accept that this world is not real. We may not be quite ready to give up our bodies, our world of form and physicality, but we are ready to look at the world in a forgiven state, we are willing to say bless my sight so that I may see the face of my Redeemer, so that I can recognize my oneness with Him, so that I can see Him in all of creation.
Throughout my life there are many instances where I contributed to separation rather than unity. When I allowed the ego to choose my response to the dramas that played out on the stage of my life, I put my nose where it did not belong. I thought it my right to boss people around and tell them how to live their lives. I worked too hard to maintain a facade of love, tradition, and togetherness with a bunch of individuals who did not share the same goal. In my efforts to fulfill ego’s mission, I put myself out for undeserving others who did not express gratitude, respect, or reciprocation. I became resentful, indignant, and reproachful in turn. I made harsh judgments. I said and did mean things.
Just as I allowed the ego to give me false missions, I allowed the ego to choose my response to the fallout – to feel dirty, ashamed, not good enough, left out, lonely, and in despair. In text reading (Chapter 19, 4A) Jesus refers to the ego’s messengers as hungry, fearful, devouring dogs. That is what they seem, pouncing upon us for the mistakes in which they lead us, raking us over the coals, dragging us back to their master, yipping and howling in perverted pleasure, loving the guilt and shame and suffering of it all, while offering no correction, no chance of recovery, no forgiveness, no clean slate. Who would choose those wild dogs over the gentle love of Holy Spirit?
When I asked God to bless my sight so that I could see my mistakes and look beyond them, it became very clear to me that it was not my job or my calling to help those who should be helping themselves. All the things that I thought I was doing in love and for love were revealed to me as having been done in a spirit of wanting to be the big “I am.” Holy Spirit showed me that my desire to lift others from a history of poor decisions, poverty mentality, and estrangement was my way of projecting how I felt about myself on them. As long as I was “helping” them, I did not have to look at my own mistakes and work on the only one that I was sent here to correct.
My misdirected good intentions, my failures, my mistakes are no cause for shame, guilt, or dismay. I am here for correction, just as you are here for correction. Our egos will never correct us. Jesus tells us in our Course that our egos form special relationships for projection and as excuses for sin. And we hear it everyday and in every way from our coworkers, our family members, and our friends – listen carefully and you will begin to hear the projection and the excuses for an unloving, unforgiving, and condemning mindset.
As we pray for the Face of Christ, we are praying for the oneness, the unity, the wholeness that can only be found in Him. This is a prayer of correction for the world of variances, separateness, and incompleteness. This is a prayer of acceptance and for letting things be.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 269. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
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