Section 8. From Perception to Knowledge
1. All healing is release from the past. That is why the Holy Spirit is the only healer. He teaches that the past does not exist, a fact which belongs to the sphere of knowledge, and which therefore no one in the world can know. It would indeed be impossible to be in the world with this knowledge. For the mind that knows this unequivocally knows also it dwells in eternity and utilizes no perception at all. It therefore does not consider where it is, because the concept “where” does not mean anything to it. It knows that it is everywhere, just as it has everything, and forever.
2. The very real difference between perception and knowledge becomes quite apparent if you consider this: There is nothing partial about knowledge. Every aspect is whole, and therefore no aspect is separate. You are an aspect of knowledge, being in the mind of God, who knows you. All knowledge must be yours, for in you is all knowledge. Perception, at its loftiest, is never complete. Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception can be, is without meaning in heaven. Perception can reach everywhere under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds everything in light. Yet no perception, however holy, will last forever.
3. Perfect perception, then, has many elements in common with knowledge, making transfer to it possible. Yet the last step must be taken by God because the last step in your redemption, which seems to be in the future, was accomplished by God in your creation. The separation has not interrupted it. Creation cannot be interrupted. The separation is merely a faulty formulation of reality, with no effect at all. The miracle, without a function in heaven, is needful here. Aspects of reality can still be seen, and they will replace aspects of unreality. Aspects of reality can be seen in everything and everywhere. Yet only God can gather them together, by crowning them as one with the final gift of eternity.
4. Apart from the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit has no function. He is not separate from either, being in the Mind of Both, and knowing that Mind is one. He is a Thought of God, and God has given Him to you because He has no thoughts He does not share. His message speaks of timelessness in time, and that is why Christ’s vision looks on everything with love. Yet even Christ’s vision is not His reality. The golden aspects of reality that spring to light under His loving gaze are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them.
5. This is the miracle of creation, that it is one forever. Every miracle you offer to the Son of God is but the true perception of one aspect of the whole. Though every aspect is the whole, you cannot know this until you see that every aspect is the same, perceived in the same light, and therefore one. Everyone seen without the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time by bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness and enabling the world to see. For light must come into the darkened world to make Christ’s vision possible even here. Help Him to give His gift of light to all who think they wander in the darkness and let Him gather them into His quiet sight that makes them one.
6. They are all the same; all beautiful and equal in their holiness. And He will offer them onto His Father as they were offered onto Him. There is one miracle, as there is one reality. And every miracle you do contains them all, as every aspect of reality you see blends quietly into the one Reality of God. The only miracle that ever was is God’s most holy Son, created in the one Reality that is his Father. Christ’s vision is His gift to you. His Being is His Father’s gift to Him.
7. Be you content with healing, for Christ’s gift you can bestow, and your Father’s gift you cannot lose. Offer Christ’s gift to everyone and everywhere, for miracles, offered the Son of God through the Holy Spirit, attune you to reality. The Holy Spirit knows your part in the redemption, and who are seeking you and where to find them. Knowledge is far beyond your individual concern. You who are part of it and all of it need only realize that it is of the Father, not of you. Your role in the redemption leads you to it by reestablishing its oneness in your mind.
8. When you have seen your brothers as yourself you will be released to knowledge, having learned to free yourself through Him who knows of freedom. Unite with me under the holy banner of His teaching, and as we grow in strength the power of God’s Son will move in us, and we will leave no one untouched and no one left alone. And suddenly time will be over, and we will all unite in the eternity of God the Father. The holy light you saw outside yourself, in every miracle you offered to your brothers, will be returned to you. And knowing that the light is in you, your creations will be there with you, as you are in your Father.
9. As miracles in this world join you to your brothers, so do your creations establish your Fatherhood in heaven. You are the witness to the Fatherhood of God, and He has given you the power to create the witnesses to yours, which is as His. Deny a brother here, and you deny the witnesses to your Fatherhood in heaven. The miracle that God created is perfect, as are the miracles that you established in His name. They need no healing, nor do you, when you accept them.
10. Yet in this world your perfection is unwitnessed. God knows it, but you do not, and so you do not share His witness to it. Nor do you witness onto Him, for reality is witnessed to as one. God waits your witness to His Son and to Himself. The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven and to Him. They witnessed to what you do not know, and as they reach the gates of heaven, God will open them. For never would He leave His Own beloved Son outside them, and beyond Himself.[1]
Our holiness, our Spirit is the only healer for Holy Spirit resides in our higher mind and teaches us that time and the tenses that we have made for it do not exist. The reality of this truth about time is baffling to us as humans for the past is very real to us – we base our present and our future upon the past – we would not be able to survive and thrive in the perceptual world without a keen reliance upon the tenses of time. It is only the part of our mind which understands that we dwell in eternity and are only dreaming of time and in time that relies on perception at all. To the divine, which is Everything and Everywhere, any idea of being at a particular location means absolutely nothing. Our flesh brains cannot fathom this concept because they were designed to live in time and to see the world of time, to keep us from Everything and Everywhere – but our higher minds which are holy and Spirit understand this concept perfectly and understanding it and applying it heals us completely from our ignorance, from our attachment to disease, decay, and death, and from our bondage to time and the things of time.
Perception and knowledge are two totally different things. Knowledge knows everything – it does not see in part, but it sees the whole picture from beginning to end. It understands the interconnections and relationships between everything. We are all aspects of knowledge – we are in the mind of God; we are known by God. God gives us all knowledge. There is no reason He would create us to keep us ignorant, to keep us in the dark, to keep us guessing and uncertain and full of questions. We have within us all knowledge. We know the truth about everything, it is there for us for God is with us and His Kingdom abides in us forever.
Perception no matter how sharp is never whole. All perception whether it is holy or unholy is without meaning in God’s Kingdom. For perception is finite. It does not last forever. Perception sees in part because it perceives in a realm of separateness. Perception focuses on the spaces and outlines between Creation whereas knowledge knows Creation as a whole. No matter how close we are in the world our perceptions will not give us the complete story of each other. Knowledge however goes beyond perception – I know you because you are part of me, and I am part of you and together we are part of the whole. There is no secret that you keep from me, nor I keep from you for we live in the light of knowledge.
Our holy and spiritual perception is perfect perception – and it is so close to knowledge that it prepares us for God’s Kingdom. Those who work with Holy Spirit to perfect their perception, achieve the real world, the final step before our welcome Home. Jesus tells us in paragraph three that this is the last step in our redemption and while we are in time, it feels like a future event, but we must relax and trust for this was already done for us in our Creation. We were not created for this world of opposition to Love, we were created for the Kingdom of God which is Love. The world we made, which preys upon Creation rather than loves Creation. has no effect at all.
Oh we think it has an effect. We think we are enemies of God, and He is jealous of us and goes into rages for our wrongdoing and plans for our destruction, but the truth of the matter is we are simply doing time, we are fantasizing, we are living out the dream where the Sons of God trade in the truth for fiction; where the Sons of God trade in their love for hatred and fear and greed; where the Sons of God bring death into a universe made to be eternal. The world we made where we suffer, bleed, die and go to war upon nature and God and one another is a nightmare world and we need a miracle to awaken from it.
Jesus tells us that reality is in everything, and reality is everywhere. In a world of separation these separate aspects of reality must be gathered together, they must be integrated, and they must be made whole again – and only God can do this for us through our holy Spirits within each one of us, calling to us through the dream, speaking to us, teaching us and guiding us.
There is absolutely no function for Holy Spirit apart from God and apart from us. Holy Spirit is one with us, Holy Spirit is one with God, Holy Spirit is us as Holy Spirit is God. God created us Holy, and God created us Spirit and we have no meaning without Him. Holy Spirit teaches us timelessness in time. In our devotional practices, Holy Spirit teaches us timelessness; in the physics lab, Holy Spirit teaches us timelessness; through our telescopes and through our microscopes, Holy Spirit teaches us timelessness. Holy Spirit does not speak of timelessness to only those who go to church, who read their bibles, who pray a certain way, who plead the blood of Jesus over everything. Holy Spirit speaks to all who seek truth, who welcome truth, who come to truth acknowledging that they cannot find it on their own. Christ’s vision looks on everyone with love – not just those who call upon His name or say the Lord’s prayer or obey the ten commandments. Accepting the vision of Christ is not necessarily knowing Christ for Christ is far more than His vision! However, it is only through the loving perception of Christ’s vision that we will see glimpses of the Kingdom which lies beyond the world of time and perception.
When we see others without their past, when we realize the unworthiness of judgment and condemnation, when we dedicate our minds to the loving perception of Christ’s vision – light comes to the nightmare. We are no longer about me, me, me. We understand the oneness of Creation and the eternal wholeness of every aspect. The only way we can understand this is to seek this and to seek this is to find this. We are called to bring light to those who wander in darkness; we are called to see oneness in separation, to understand that every single aspect of Creation is the same, perceived in the quiet light of healed perception, we are one.
Jesus tells us that every single aspect of Creation is equally beautiful and holy. This is not the way we see things now. In the separated state we see dregs, weeds, trash, and the unworthy. We make up stories about each other that make one a sinner and another a saint. We revere one Son of God and revile others. This is not the Vision of Christ. This is not the one miracle in which we are being taught: We are one. And we are God’s Son. At one with Creation and at one with God.
We are called to offer the Vision of Christ to everyone and everywhere. As we share the loving perception of Christ we are preparing ourselves for the Kingdom. We should not concern ourselves if we are doing enough for Jesus but be content with the healing perception of love for this is Christ’s gift to us that we can bestow no matter how young or old we are, no matter what nationality, no matter what gender. We need nobody’s permission to see with the eyes of love. We do not need a license. We do not have to join a church or a club or a political party.
Today my young grandson did not want to take his shirt off when we went to the rec center to go swimming. He felt ashamed of his body. I told him how handsome he is and what a strong body he has and how proud and happy I am to have him for my grandson. I did not lie to him and tell him that he was slender and fit, but I did not focus on his chubbiness – I focused on how nice he is, how polite and kind and helpful. This is how simple and uncomplicated practicing the loving perception is – all of us can do this and we have countless opportunities every single day to perform miracles of healing. It was such a joy to see him swimming about in his colorful trunks with his cousins, diving, and laughing and enjoying himself instead of sitting on the bleachers watching other people having fun.
You may ask how such a simple thing could possibly prepare us for God’s Kingdom but when we practice in small ways with our beloved family members, we are being attuned to the miracles that save the world – that prevent battles, that end arguments, that heal estrangements and family feuds. We can only enter God’s Kingdom as we were created – in love and goodwill and tenderness – at peace with one another, as one.
Our stint in time is over when we learn to unite rather than divide, when we love light and deny darkness, when we are unwilling to let one brother in the dark or any brother alone. Eternity will be ours when we simply learn to love each other and get along as God’s perfect Son. We do not see this without the vision of Christ for without His Vision we see ourselves as unworthy, we see our sinfulness and our shame. We despise each other and judge and condemn. But the Light of Christ is in you and the light of Christ is in me and it is in all Creation as it is in God.
The loving perception is the miracle we offer to each other and as you offer a miracle to me and I offer a miracle to you, we witness the Fatherhood of God in each other. When we deny a brother the loving perception, we deny ourselves the witness to our Fatherhood in heaven. This is the way it works – and it is perfectly just and perfectly holy and perfectly loving. When we accept the loving perception we accept it for all – we do not dole it out where we see fit, we give it to all. There is healing then, there is wholeness, there is sanity, and there is Light.
We are not in this world to show off how perfect we are, to boast about our “in” with God, to go about laying our hands on this one and that one and performing miracles of the flesh. Our loving perceptions are quiet and unnoteworthy to the ego. The ego could not care less that my grandson felt great today swimming in the pool with his cousins with no concern about his chubby tummy. But the loving perception that healed his angst was noted by all that is of God. Our loving perceptions give witness to our readiness for God’s Kingdom. And God notices each and every one. And when our loving perception is the only perception we have, we get to go Home!
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 13 The guiltless world. VIII. From perception to knowledge. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
For daily 2021 Workbook lessons visit www.i-choose-love.com courtesy of Linda R.
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