I see only my present happiness.
1. Unless I am looking at what is not there, all I will see is my present happiness.I
²And then, the eyes that are at last beginning to open can truly see.
³I want Christ’s vision to come to me today.
⁴For what I see with the way of seeing I invented is frightening and painful to behold without God’s correction.
⁵But I will not let my mind deceive itself one moment longer by believing that the dream I made is real.
⁶Today I seek only my happiness in the present, and I will look upon nothing else.
2. With this resolve I come to You,
and I ask that Your Strength sustain me today,
as I do only Your Will.
²You cannot fail to hear me,
Father,
for what I ask You have already given me.
³And I am certain that today I will see my happiness.
I The present is the only aspect of time that is real; everything else is imaginary. And since the only reality is Happiness, the present is a happy time, overflowing with joy. Yet the egoic mind does not perceive it, for it has no interest in happiness and has chosen not to see it. It prefers to lose itself in its own imaginings—a personal world painted upon the pristine canvas of the present with the inks of fear and desire. That picture is not real; those figures that appear there are ones you have placed yourself, and they obscure the flawless reality of what always is.
The mind absorbed in its interpretations is forever occupied in a perpetual doing. It even believes that salvation will come as the result of its efforts. And yet your contribution to the process of Atonement is not your doing, but your not-doing. What does forgiveness mean if not letting the past pass? What does it mean to live in the present if not to abandon the judgments that replace it with what no longer exists? Happiness belongs to those who have ceased striving to manufacture a self, for to love is not to do, but to be. And being is Happiness Itself—the natural extension of an eternal, unlimited, and wholly satisfying Being.
The past has two effects: one is the dead weight you carry like a pack on your back, filled with resentments, definitions, and useless memories. The other is the veil that this same past places before your eyes, preventing you from seeing the joy the present already holds. Only through forgiveness do you free yourself from both chains: the burden that exhausts you and the distorted vision that keeps you from beholding the new.
That is why today you are invited to look upon the world with innocence, as though seeing it for the first time. Close yourself to the past and open yourself to the wonder of the present. Look around you without judgment, without expectation, like a child awakening and discovering life with new eyes. Then you will feel that the world, far from being a hostile place, becomes a radiant reflection of your liberated mind—a space where each instant brings the possibility of a new miracle.
Father, may I release all burdens of the past today and behold with new eyes the happiness You have already given me in this present.