I wanted to pick up on last week’s idea: that we project our beliefs and feelings out onto the world, and the world responds showing us what is inside our inner landscape. I hope to give us some tools to shift things, so we can more closely align our thinking with our highest good – with the Truth of how things are in Spiritual Reality, which is to say, in the realm of Love, of Light, of Peace and Serenity, of Joy, of Abundance, of Healing, Health and Wholeness, of Ease and Simplicity.
You must admit, the world seems complicated, and often seems random and “out of control.” In a blog post from December 2020, I spoke about this arbitrariness, as it was pictured in the medieval concept of the “Wheel of Fortune.”
People believed they were all stuck on the wheel. When the wheel turned, it brought them up on high, and times were good. Things were literally looking up.
But then the wheel turned again. Cruelly, those who were once riding high now found themselves suddenly crushed under the weight of the wheel.
And there was nothing anyone could do about it. It was all random chance and luck.
This way of looking at the world is so ingrained into our consciousness. Nobody questions it.
“That’s just the way it is.”
“You can’t do anything about it.”
“Illness is real; war and poverty will never disappear.”
“Life sucks and then you die.”
Even if you don’t think these thoughts consciously, they are buried deep, down there in our sub- sub- sub-conscious. They have wormed their way into our perception of the world.
And as we project these beliefs and feelings outwardly, our eyes search for and find the evidence to support it.
So, what is the antidote, the cure? What is the way out of this seemingly never-ending cycle of cruel fate?
The solution I propose in Prosperity Now! is: Don’t try to set it right, see it right!
I first encountered this concept in the mid-1990’s when I took Stretton Smith’s 4T Prosperity Program for the first time. It was from Stretton that I learned that the way to really change the world – my world – was to change how I thought, how I felt and how I viewed the world.
Trying to “set things right” I can’t possibly ever wrap my arms around all that needs to be fixed, changed, set in order. I might as well try to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Or a firehose. There is no way to change the world.
But, when I see it right… When I actively change my perspective to a newer and Truer vision of the world, through the eyes of Faith, through eyes of the Spirit, I begin to see things from a higher perspective and can realize (Real Eyes) that these troublesome worldly events (whether in my world, or on the news) can be approached from a new outlook.
The Tao Te Ching Poem 29 says,
Do you want to improve the world? I don’t think it can be done.
The world is sacred. It can’t be improved. If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.
There is a time for being ahead, a time for being behind; a time for being in motion, a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous, a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe, a time for being in danger.
The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle.
(Translation by Stephen Mitchell, 1995)
In other words, the world is beyond our ability to fix, in that egotistical, power-driven, bulldozer way so many equate with effectiveness.
But, when we adjust our attitudes, our reactions, our standpoint and then act from that fresh vision, then we can move to a new-found place of power and usefulness.
So, we are expected to act, to reach out and help. We are not absolved from acting. We must do what we can, where we can, with what resources we have. But by seeing it right first, our actions will be more effective, not futile. We will be guided to say and do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, with the right approach.
See it right is described in A Course in Miracles as the very definition of a miracle itself. A miracle is nothing more than a change of perspective.
Lesson 284 in the Course’s Workbook states,
I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.
Loss is not loss when properly perceived. Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.
As you can see, the Course acknowledges our process. We hear these words but think them foolish. Repeating them many times, they start to make sense, but only partially. Our reservations are many.
Finally, we accept them as the Truth. If we see a “loss” as the world sees it, we are indeed in pain, with the absence feeling so hollow and sad.
But with a changed perspective, we do not see the loss as loss any longer, for we begin to see from the vantage-point that “nothing real can be threatened.” Nothing real can ever be lost.
In the Introduction, the text says:
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
Henry David Thoreau also knew that a new perspective was necessary in order to see the world and its ups and downs in a new light. Thoreau, of course, acted in ways that still reverberate in our world. His writings, his “experiment” living in solitude at Walden Pond, his civil disobedience, all find admirers and there are many who emulate his wisdom and simplicity.
He stated:
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden & Civil Disobedience (Emphasis added)
The very first chapter of the text lays out the Principles of Miracles, and says:
Miracles are examples of right thinking,
aligning your perceptions with truth as God created it.
(ACIM, T-1.I.36:1) (Emphasis added)
As we “see it right;” we re-align our perceptions so they’re not based on our old beliefs and feelings, but based on the Truth: Spiritual Reality.
As we practice doing this, our lives and the lives of those around us, open up to a greater perspective, to a wider view. And the world shifts miraculously to greet the dawning anew in our eyes.
Next Week: More tools to develop Spiritual Sight.
Bonne dimanche (Good Sunday)
John
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