Today we are really giving specific application to yesterday’s idea. In these practice periods you will be making a series of definite commitments. The question of whether you will keep them in the future is not our concern here. If you are willing at least to make them now, you have started on the way to keeping them. And we are still at the beginning of our awakening journey together.
You may wonder why it is important to say, for example, “Above all else I want to conceive and perceive this table clearly.” In itself it is not important at all. Yet what is by itself? And what does “in itself” mean? You perceive a lot of separate things around you, which really means you are not perceiving truly, or seeing, at all.
You either see or not. When you have seen one thing – when you have conceived and perceived it clearly and truly – you will see all things, conceiving and perceiving them all clearly and truly. The Light of the Divine you will see in any one of them is the same Light you will see in them all, and connecting them all.
When you say, “Above all else I want to conceive and perceive this table clearly,” you are making a commitment to withdraw your preconceived ideas about the table, and to open your mind to what it is and what it is for. You are not defining it in past terms. You are asking what it is, rather than telling it what it is. You are not binding its meaning to your experiences of tables, nor are you limiting its purpose to your personal thoughts.
You will not wonder about the meaning of something you have already defined. And the purpose of these exercises is to wonder with fresh eyes, ask real questions, and receive the answers. In saying, “Above all else I want to conceive and perceive this table clearly,” you are committing yourself to perceiving with wonder, and to seeing. It is not an exclusive commitment. It is a commitment that applies to the table just as much as to anything else, neither more nor less.
You could, in fact, gain true vision from just that table, if you could withdraw all your own ideas from it and perceive it with a completely open heart and mind. It has something to show you, something beautiful and clean and of infinite Value, full of Happiness and Hope. Hidden under all your ideas about it are its real Meaning and Purpose, the Meaning and Purpose it shares with all the Universe.
In using the table or any other thing as a subject for applying the idea for today, you are therefore really asking to see the Meaning and Purpose of the Universe. You will be making the same request of each subject that you use in the practice periods. And you are making a commitment to each of them to let their Meaning and Purpose be revealed to you, instead of placing your own judgment upon them.
We will have six two-minute practice periods today, in which the idea for the day is stated first, and then applied to whatever you perceive in glancing about you. Not only should the subjects be chosen randomly, but each one should be accorded equal sincerity as today’s idea is applied to it, in an attempt to acknowledge the equal value of them all in their contribution to your seeing and therefore to your awakening.
As usual, the application should include the name of the subject that your eyes happen to light upon. While resting your eyes on it, say:
“Above all else, I want to conceive and perceive this _____ clearly.”
Each application should be made quite slowly and as thoughtfully as possible. There is no hurry.