Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 32: The Final Vision
7. The Awakener’s Vision
Learning is change. Awakening does not seek to use a means as yet too alien to your thinking to be helpful, nor to make the kinds of change you could not recognize. Conception is needed while perception lasts. And to change concepts is awakening’s task. For concepts must deal in contrasts, not in Truth, which has no opposite and cannot change.
Among this world’s concepts are the guilty “bad” and the innocent “good.” And everyone here holds a concept of themself in which they count the “good” in them to pardon the “bad.” Nor do they fully trust the “good” in anyone, believing that the “bad” must lurk behind. This concept emphasizes treachery, and total trust becomes impossible. Nor could this concept change while you continue to perceive “bad” in yourself or others. You will not recognize the nothingness of your “bad” or “evil” thoughts as long as you perceive value in attack.
When your concepts of the world and of yourself have fundamentally changed, you will still be aware of “bad” thoughts at times, but you will see them as meaningless. Until then they will continue coming in fearful form, with content still concealed, to shake your little concept of yourself, and darken it with yet another “wrong” or “crime” that has been committed.
You cannot give yourself your Innocence, for you are too confused about yourself. But should one brother or sister dawn upon your sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself will be fundamentally changed. Then your “bad” thoughts will have been forgiven along with those of your brother or sister because you let all such thoughts effect you not. No longer will you choose that anyone should be the symbol of bad and of guilt for you. And as you give your trust to what you conceive is “good” in them, you give it to the “good” in you.
In terms of concepts, it is thus that you perceive your sisters and brothers as more than just the body, for the concept of pure “good” is never what the body seems to be. In the old conception, the actions of the body are perceived as coming from the “baser” part of you, and thus of your sisters and brothers as well. By focusing upon the “good” in them apart from the body, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the “good.”
This will be your concept of yourself when you have reached the Real World, which is beyond the perception your body’s senses alone can offer you to perceive. For you will not interpret what you perceive without the Interpreter that the Divine has given you. In Its Sight there is another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for both are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged but never jointly held. The contrast between these two self-concepts is far greater than you think, for you will love this new concept of yourself because it was not made for you alone. Born as a gift for someone not perceived by you to be yourself, it has been given you. For your forgiveness offered unto your sisters and brothers has been accepted now for both of you.
Have faith in them who walk with you, so that your fearful concept of yourself may truly change. And see the “good” in them so that you may lose all fear of your “bad” thoughts, because these have stopped clouding your perception of them. And all that is required for this shift in self concepts and resulting perceptions of the world is that you be willing that this happy change occur. No more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself that you have held has brought you in its wake, and welcome the glad contrast offered you. Hold out your hand that you may receive the gift of kind forgiveness, which you offer one whose need for it is just as great as yours. And let your unkind concept of yourself be transformed to one that brings the Peace of the Divine.
The limited and fearful concept of yourself that you have held would guarantee that your function here remain forever unaccomplished and undone. And thus it would sentence you to a bitter sense of deep depression and futility. Yet it need not be unchanging, unless you choose to hold it past the hope of change, and keep it static and concealed within your mind. Give it instead to Spirit, Who understands the changes that your self-concept needs to let it serve the function given you to bring you Peace, that you may offer Peace to have it be yours. Alternatives are in your mind to use, and you can conceive and perceive yourself and the world clearly. Would you not rather see yourself as needed for the awakening of the world, instead of looking upon yourself as an obstacle to awakening?
The concept of the self you now hold stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the Truth, and hides It from your perception. All things you look upon are images because you perceive them as through a barrier that dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you perceive nothing with clarity. The Light is thus kept from everything you currently perceive. At most, you glimpse a hint of what is beyond. At least, you merely look on darkness, thinking it is light, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you look upon is a nightmare of hell, for fear is hell. Yet all that is needed to lead you out of your nightmare is given you for your Release: the vision of your holy Self, the beholding of your sisters and brothers, and the inner Guide: all of these, with those you love beside you, and the Universe with them.
Behold your role within the world! To every Part of Creation has the Creator of Love and Life entrusted all awakening from the misery of hell. And to each One has It given the Grace to be awakeners to the holy Ones especially entrusted to their care. And this they learn when first they see one brother or sister as they see themselves, and see the mirror of themselves in them. Thus is their self-image laid by, for nothing stands between their vision and what they behold, to judge what they perceive. And in this single vision do they see the Face of Divine Essence, and understand that they see everyone as they behold this One. And now there is Light where darkness seemed to be before, for now the veil is lifted from their sight.
The veil across the Face of Divine Essence, the fear of the Divine and of awakening, and the attraction of guilt and death all are different names for just one error: that there is a space or separation between you and your sisters and brothers. They are kept apart from you by an image of yourself, an illusion that holds them off from you, and you away from them. The sword of judgment is the weapon you give to the image of yourself, that with it you may fight to keep the space that holds your sisters and brothers apart from you from becoming occupied by Love. And while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself, for you are choosing to stay bound to separation, apart from the vision of them who hold the mirror to another view of what they are, and thus what you must be.
What is temptation but the secret wish to stay in nightmares and misery? And what could this give rise to but an image of yourself that can be miserable, and remain in separation and suffering? They who have learned to see their sisters and brothers, and thus to perceive them not as this, have awakened themselves, and thus are they awakeners to the rest. To everyone has the Divine entrusted all, because a partial awakener would be one who is only partly awakened. The holy Ones the Divine has given each to awaken include everyone you meet, or perceive not knowing who they are; all those you perceived an instant and forgot; those you knew a long while since and those you will yet meet; the unremembered and the not-yet born. For the Divine has given you Its Children to awaken from every false concept that they ever held.
Yet while you secretly wish and choose to stay in the nightmare of separation, how can you be the awakener of the Children of the Divine? How can you know their holiness while you perceive them apart from yours? For Holiness is seen through holy eyes that behold the Innocence within, and thus know that It is everywhere to be seen. And so they call It forth in everyone they behold, that who they see may be as they truly are. This is the awakener’s vision: that they see their own Innocence in all they perceive, and thus behold their own awakening everywhere. They hold no self-concept or self-image between their calm and open mind and what they perceive. They bring the Light to everything they perceive that they may perceive things as they really are. And this is the seeing of the spiritual eye.
Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always merely reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. And from that wish a self-concept rises, teaching you that you are the thing you wished to be. This will remain your image of yourself until the wish that gave rise to it is no longer held dear. But while you cherish it, you will look upon your sisters and brothers in the likeness of the self whose image the wish has made of you. For perception can only represent a wish seemingly made real, because it has no power to create. Yet perception can see with Love or look with fear and guilt, depending only on the simple choice of whether you would join with what you perceive or keep yourself apart and separate from it.
The awakener’s vision is as innocent of what your sisters and brothers truly are as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It perceives no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts, and prepared to behold only what the present holds. It cannot judge because it recognizes that it does not know. And recognizing this, it merely asks of Spirit, “What is the meaning of what I perceive?” Then is the Answer given, and the door held open for the Face of Divine Essence to shine upon the one who asks in innocence to see beyond the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear against the Vision of Divine Essence in you.
Be vigilant, then, against the temptation to remain in nightmares, remembering that it is merely a wish, insane and meaningless, to make yourself a thing that you are not. And think as well upon the thing that you have chosen to be instead of who you truly are. It is a thing of suffering, pain, and confusion, of madness and dark despair, of failing dreams and no remaining hope except to die and believe that this will end the dream of fear. This is temptation, nothing more than this. Can it be difficult to choose an alternative to this?
Consider what temptation is, and see the real alternatives you choose between. There are only two. Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There are nightmares or awakening. And of these you can truly choose only one.
Let the Light of the world, given unto you, be shared with all the world. It needs the Light, for it is dark indeed, and many despair because the awakener’s vision is withheld, and what they perceive remains a form of death. Their awakener stands, unknowing and unknown, looking on them with eyes unopened. And these sisters and brothers cannot see until their awakener perceives them with seeing eyes, and offers them forgiveness with its own. Can you to whom the Divine says, “Release My Children,” be tempted not to listen, when you learn that it is you for whom It asks Release? It is only this that this Course would teach. And what but this is there for you to learn?
