 What a precious, precious opportunity we have as we open our hearts, open our minds to the love of God. And that's it. Jesus is calling us and we happily answer. We happily say yes to the call. There's a section in the manual for teachers of the Course of Miracles that talks basically answering the question, what is the real meaning of sacrifice? And Jesus defines sacrifice as the giving up of what you want. And then he turns it and he says, you have been called by God to the most holiest function that there is. Would you sacrifice the call? So you might think of it as you just have these intuitive nudges that are calling you to wholeness, calling you to completion, calling you to the Kingdom of Heaven within. And those little nudges, those little prompts, that calling goes on all the time, even though it's covered over by a lot of darkness, a lot of pursuing idols and pursuing illusions and images. And you know, the mind is very powerful, but you can't serve two masters. You can't serve the God of love and follow Jesus in the Holy Spirit and serve the greed and the desire for profit and possession and collecting things and ownership and all the different forms that illusions can take. Because if you follow them, then you're not following your inner promptings, which is to forgive the world and wake up. So today's workbook lesson is another big step in the direction inward toward the light. And today's lesson is lesson number nine. Yes, that's right. We're here on Tuesday, January 9th. We're on the ninth day of the year. Lesson nine is I see nothing as it is now. This idea obviously follows from the two preceding ones. But while you may be able to accept it intellectually, it is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet. However, understanding is not necessary at this point. In fact, the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing your false ideas. These exercises are concerned with practice, not with understanding. You do not need to practice what you already understand. It would indeed be circular to aim at understanding and assume that you already have it. It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there. This idea can be quite disturbing and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms. Yet that does not preclude applying it. No more than that is required for these or any other exercises. Each small step will clear a little of the darkness away. And understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind that has been cleared of the debris that darkens it. These exercises for which three or four practice periods are sufficient involve looking about you and applying the idea for the day to whatever you see. Remembering the need for its indiscriminate application and the essential rule of excluding nothing. For example, I do not see this typewriter as it is now. I do not see this telephone as it is now. I do not see this arm as it is now. Begin with things that are nearest you and then extend the range upward. I do not see that coke rack as it is now. I do not see that door as it is now. I do not see that face as it is now. It is emphasized again that while complete inclusion should not be attempted, specific exclusion must be avoided. Be sure you are honest with yourself in making this distinction. You may be tempted to obscure it. So I see nothing as it is now. That is the first step in opening our mind and just admitting that we do not understand. You would not expect a child to understand at birth or a little one-year-old or a two-year-old toddler. But in terms of spiritual awakening and enlightenment and self-realization, you cannot presume that you understand already because as we just read, it is a prerequisite that you acknowledge that you do not understand. Because when you say, I do not understand this, then you also include in your prayer, but I am willing to be shown the way. You can start with, I do not understand this. I do not understand anything. I see nothing as it is now. That is just an acknowledgement of fragmented perception. Maybe this wacky world of differences, of duality and multiplicity, of war and disease and pestilence and conflict and competition. Just maybe, oh maybe, that is not the way things really are. You could even start by saying, I am seeing a world that is fragmented and perhaps I am delusional. That is an opening. That is a little opening. Because then, if you admit that you are delusional and that you do not see things exactly as they are right now, then you are willing to be shown. You are open to be shown. And that is a crack of an opening that the Holy Spirit needs. And there is that see word again. I do not see. I see nothing as it is now. That basically means I perceive nothing as it is now. Because the perception of a fragmented world is not what is now. It is what is past and what is future. It is what is the veil that is covering over the light of truth. It is what has been perceived. I see nothing as it is now. It is basically an acknowledgement of that. Do you see how important it is? In fact, as you go through the workbook, understanding will not come until there is this consistent and lasting sense of peace. Because peace and understanding go together and cannot be found apart. I think intuitively that is understandable. Or at least the hint of it is something that resonates. That peace and understanding go together. If peace is reality and understanding comes with the awareness of reality through forgiveness, through letting go of illusions and false beliefs and false ideas and concepts, then you can see that the understanding will seem to come when the peace comes. So if you could say honestly, I am peaceful. I am consistently peaceful. Then the understanding is coming in very strong. So today I thought I would support our lesson with a reading from the text in chapter 12. And this is going to be section 6, The Vision of Christ. As I mentioned before, when we look at the course and the mind training, Jesus is basically saying, be still. Lay aside all thoughts you have about the world, all beliefs, all concepts. Empty your mind. Open your heart. And basically the vision of Christ is the light in which you truly see. And I mean see not with the body's eyes or perceive not with the body's eyes or ears or nose or touch or tongue or taste. It's not involving the five senses. The vision of Christ is light. It's the pure light that you may get a glimpse of in a revelatory experience which goes way beyond the perception of this world. As the Buckman Turner Overdrive song said, you ain't seen nothing yet. And then here's something that you're never going to forget. That's the vision of Christ. Because this whole world is based on the denial of love. That's pretty obvious. This world is based on the denial of eternity because time and eternity can't coexist. The time, linear time is a denial of eternity. And the present moment is the closest approximation of eternity that this world offers, Jesus tells us. So you can see that the present moment would take you into the light of Christ and the vision of Christ. The holy instant we'll call it. The present moment is the goal. So let's go through chapter 12, section 6, the vision of Christ. Because this is going to be backing for opening your willingness to basically claim lesson number nine today. I see nothing as it is now. We need a little context for this because he says you may be able to accept it intellectually. It is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet. But understanding is not necessary at this point. So here we go. The vision of Christ. The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your soul. You see that reference from the Bible. The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose your soul and there is no gain in the world. For of itself, it profits nothing. To invest without profit is surely to impoverish yourself. And the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost to you is enormous. For this investment costs you the world's reality by denying yours and gives you nothing in return. You cannot sell your soul, but you can sell your awareness of it. You cannot perceive your soul, but you will not know it while you perceive something else as more valuable. The Holy Spirit is your strength because he knows nothing but the Spirit as you. He is perfectly aware that you do not know yourself and perfectly aware of how to teach you to remember what you are. Because he loves you, he will gladly teach you what he loves, for he wills to share it. Remembering you always, he cannot let you forget your worth. For the Father never ceases to remind him of his Son, and he never ceases to remind his Son of the Father. God is in your memory because of him. You chose to forget your Father, but you do not really want to do so, and therefore you can't decide otherwise. As it was my decision, so is it yours. You do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you look upon with love. This gives it the only reality it will ever have. Its value is not in itself, but yours is in you. As self-value comes from self-extension, so does the perception of self-value come from the extension of loving thoughts outward. Make the world real unto yourself, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and so it belongs to you. He's giving us a hint of how to experience the real world, the forgiven world, the happy dream. Make the world real unto yourself, and he just told us you have to extend loving thoughts outward. Just radiate and extend loving thoughts, thoughts that come from God, from the Creator, via the Holy Spirit and Jesus, and that's how you come unto the real world. You make the world real unto yourself. You come into forgiveness by forgiving all the thoughts and beliefs in your mind, extending only thoughts of love, the real thoughts, and then you see what is called the real world or the happy dream as a transition to remembering the Kingdom of Heaven within. It's the stepping stone. It's one of those steps that you must go through. All prophets, all saints, all mystics, all avatars, all what doesn't matter what culture, what theology, all have to go through a forgiven world or a happy dream in which there's no judgment, and that was the basic teachings of Jesus, judge not lest you be judged. Judge not so that you can see the real world is basically what he's saying. Judge not so you can see the happy dream, the interpretation and the perspective of the Holy Spirit. It's very high, but what else is there to go for, except that merge or that joining with the Holy Spirit's perception of the world within. Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit's mission, for he knows that they have not lost their vision, but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting to the remembering of God. Christ's eyes are open, and he will look upon whatever you see with love if you accept his vision as yours. The Holy Spirit keeps the vision of Christ for every son of God who sleeps. In his sight, the Son of God is perfect, and he longs to share his vision with you. He will show you the real world because God gave you heaven. Through him your Father calls his Son to remember. The awakening of his Son begins with his investment in the real world, and by this he will learn to reinvest in himself. For reality is one with the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in their name. When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you will remember us. God, Christ, Holy Spirit, you will remember us, yet you must learn the cost of sleeping and refuse to pay it. Only then will you decide to awaken, and then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen, for he has never lost sight of you. He looks quietly on the real world, which he would share with you because he knows of the Father's love for him. And knowing this, he would give you what is yours. In perfect peace, he waits for you at his Father's altar, holding out the Father's love to you in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit's blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to his Father, where Christ waits as his capital self, his real self. Every child of God is one in Christ, for his being is in Christ as Christ is in God. Christ's love for you is his love for his Father, which he knows because he knows his Father's love for him. When the Holy Spirit has at last led you to the Christ at the altar to his Father, perhaps perception fuses into knowledge because perception has become so holy that its transfer to holiness is merely its natural extension. Love transfers to love without any interference for the two are one. 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 it to 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. What is one cannot be perceived as separate and the denial of the separation is the reinstatement of knowledge. At the altar of God, the holy perception of God's Son becomes so enlightened that life streams into it and the Spirit of God's Son shines in the mind of the Father and becomes one with it. Very gently does God shine upon himself, loving the extension of himself that is his Son. The world has no purpose as it blends into the purpose of God, for the real world has slipped quietly into heaven where everything eternal in it has always been. There is the Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God and of each other. Heaven is your home and being in God it must also be in you. So how beautiful that is giving us the incentive for our lesson today. That's our context. I see nothing as it is now. It's like a little child reaching up to a parent saying, I don't understand and I don't really understand what I'm seeing. But guide me, lead me, show me, illuminate me, illuminate my mind. That's what we're praying for. Illuminate my mind. So God bless you. Have a beautiful day. Remember this is a day to be dedicated to awakening. It is the day that we give to Jesus and the Holy Spirit and we started out by saying I see nothing as it is now. And in our hearts we're saying show me. Show me the way. Show me the way. Lead me. God bless you.