6. What is Christ?
1. Christ is the Son of God as He created Him.I
²He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another and with God as well.
³He is the Thought that still abides within the Mind that is His Source.
⁴He has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created.
⁵He dwells forever changeless in the Mind of God.
2. Christ is the link that keeps you one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair.
²For hope forever dwells in Him.
³Your mind is part of His, and His of yours.
⁴He is the part in which God’s Answer lies, where all decisions have already been made and dreams are over.
⁵Nothing the body’s eyes perceive can reach Him.
⁶For though His Father placed in Him the means for your salvation, He remains the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
3. As the home of the Holy Spirit, and at peace only in God, Christ dwells serenely in the Heaven of your holy mind.
²He is the only part of you that is truly real.
³All else is but illusion.
⁴But these dreams will be surrendered unto Christ, to fade before His glory, and reveal to you at last your holy Self, the Christ.
4. The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth.
²He will exchange them for the final dream that God appointed as the end of all illusions.
³For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could remain to keep things separate, when what is seen is only the Face of Christ? II
5. And how long will this holy Face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last?
²So let us seek the Face of Christ and look on nothing else.
³As we behold His glory, we will know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
I I perceive only what is concrete, and to that I give the name “reality.”
The “reality” that surrounds me seems composed of an almost infinite number of things—some larger, some smaller—which I can fragment to the infinitesimal or combine to the immeasurable. As I group or separate them, I assign them different names and treat each one in a particular way.
Yet everything I perceive is changing. Nothing remains still or identical to what it was before. Everything moves, transforms, and takes on different appearances in an unceasing flow. The concrete does not “exist”; it is merely “being” something only to cease being it a moment later. Everything is born and dies in each instant. If I am honest, I realize that what I call “things” are in fact processes—and it is those processes that I have elevated to the category of “reality.”
But I am not like that. I am always myself. I do not change. I can change the idea I have of myself, but my being does not change. I have no limits, I occupy no space, I am unaffected by time. I am not concrete. I am an abstraction.
If I consider myself real, then I must reexamine my notion of reality. Is reality something concrete or abstract? Is it permanent or changing? Is it one or many? Only one of these alternatives can be true; the other is an illusion.
God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and my true Self are one, and they belong to the realm of the abstract—the only realm that endures. That is Reality. Words are symbols, attempts to make the abstract concrete—but that is impossible. The abstract cannot be enclosed in definitions nor grasped by a mind that identifies itself with what is concrete.
Reality is abstract, eternal, and unchanging. The concrete is but a fleeting illusion, a story I tell myself. My task is not to cling to these stories, but to remember what I have always longed for: the Reality I have never lost and that still awaits me.
II 2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Father, teach me to see beyond the forms that change.
Lead me to Your Christ, my true Self, where there is only permanence, unity, and Love.
LESSON 271
Today I will use the vision of Christ.
1. Each day, each hour, and every instant, I am choosing what I want to see, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me.I
²Today I choose to behold what Christ would have me see.
³Today I choose to listen to the Voice of God.
⁴And today I choose to seek the witnesses to what is true in His Creation.
⁵In Christ’s eyes, the world and God’s Creation meet, and all perception fades.
⁶His gentle gaze redeems the world from death.
⁷For everything He looks upon is alive, and calls back to the Father and the Son—Creator and Creation joined as one.
2. Father,
Christ’s vision is the way to You.
²What He beholds invites Your memory to come again to me.
³And this I choose to be what I would look upon today.
I You are not aware of the role your will plays in what you call “my personal life.” Your will is everything. It is the conductor that directs your perception and grants you exactly what you want. What prevents you from recognizing this is your legendary lack of honesty—you are an expert at deceiving yourself. You have the life you want to have, and yet you deny all responsibility for it. You think you are a victim of circumstances, and in a sense that is true: you are a victim of yourself.
For a moment—if only for a brief instant—accept that it is you who grants yourself all your thoughts and, consequently, all your emotions. That is true. And then, if only for a brief instant, conceive of something different from what you now think; evoke it in your mind and tell yourself that it is as true for you as the former. You will not be mistaken—it is as false as the other. You have absolute control over your lies, but none over the Truth. The Truth simply is, no matter what you think. And the Truth is that you are the holy Son of God, and your opinions about that are utterly irrelevant except to yourself.
Try it. You cannot grant yourself the Vision of Christ, for that was given you when you were created, but you can choose whether or not to use it. To enjoy that gift, it is enough that you want it and that you do not replace it with your own interpretations. Look upon the world without expectations, for if you project your desires onto it, you will contaminate your perception. Desire the Vision of Christ and do not interfere—that is enough.
Each day, each hour, and each instant you decide what you wish to behold, what sounds you wish to hear, and what witnesses you want to confirm what you hold to be true. That means your entire experience depends upon your will. Today you can choose to behold what Christ would have you see, to hear the Voice of God, and to seek the witnesses of truth.
The eyes of the body show you effects—passing shadows that reveal nothing. The eyes of Christ, on the other hand, show you causes—the Love that underlies all appearances. While the senses of the body merely bear witness to a dream, the Vision of Christ translates everything you perceive into a forgiven world. Thus your mind learns to release judgment and to see innocence everywhere.
This is your true work—not yet to awaken, for that final step is taken by God—but to allow your world to be transformed into a forgiven world. That is your mission, and it lies fully within your reach. Each time you choose to see with the Vision of Christ, you heal a part of your mind, and with every moment in which your will joins His, your world grows lovelier and more joyful.
Father, today I place my will in Your hands.
May my eyes not judge, may my mind not distort, may my heart desire only to see with the Vision of Christ.
Amen.