Seeing is Knowing

There was a paragraph in the section I was reading today in "A Course in Miracles" that I think best describes what I have been experiencing with the lessons the last couple of days. "The miracle makes no distinction among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness."

So far, I understand a miracle as true perception. You can only have true perception by giving all of your attention to the moment. In the book there are many examples given of what miracles are. The one thing these examples have in common is they describe the effect of miracles on the consciousness. The effect is the identification as a spiritual being rather than a physical body. Identifying as a spiritual being is the awareness that there is never a separation between the Self and God or that anyone is truly separate from anyone else or anything. When the attention is fully in the moment this is an obvious truth and the awareness is natural. Whew, that was a mouthful!

The exercises in the lessons have the natural effect of placing my attention in the moment. It really is so easy and the word "natural" I've already used a couple of times in this entry is the best word to describe my experience. Being so natural, why haven't I experienced being fully in the moment more often? The answer is a simple one... I'm just so distracted all the time. And not by anyone but myself. It's my fears, doubts, judgments, beliefs, prejudices, physical pain, insecurity, feeling lonely, habits, wants, needs, thinking I'm in control, I really could go on and on. And doesn't all of these distractions describe the human experience? Maybe more accurately, this describes the experience of being a physical body living in a physical environment with the knowledge that the end is inevitable. Well, I don't want to live like that anymore. I really have been given enough reasons from my spiritual experiences to know that I am a spiritual being having a physical experience. I'm just so stubborn though.

I've also been reading a book on Buddhism. It's called "Buddhism, Plain and Simple". It seems to go right along so well with "A Course in Miracles". Today I was reading a section of the book that was an overview of The Eightfold Path. In explaining the second aspect of the Path, right intention, the author related a story. I will paraphrase. It was a story of Socrates. He wanted to see if a young man that had come to him for instruction had the resolve to search for truth. He asked the man to follow him into the river and then suddenly took hold of him and held him under the water. Of course the young man struggled to get loose and come up for air. Socrates let him go and said, "When you fight for truth as you fight for breath, come back and I'll teach you."

I have been struggling against the inevitable, i.e. death, my whole life with sporadic interruptions of truth and now I feel I have the conviction to fight for truth. The author uses the phrase right seeing quite a bit to describe what Buddhism is all about. This is also what "The Course in Miracles" seems to be about (right seeing). To really see you have to have your attention in the moment. You have to pay attention to what is really going on, not what you think is going on or what you think someone else thinks is going on. What I'm saying is I need to let go of all of those distractions I listed earlier to see the truth. I succeeded in doing that today with a problem my fiance and I have been having. I feel like I've solved the problem and that it never was a problem to begin with.

This morning as we were discussing this problem it seemed unresolvable. We were at an impasse. So, after he left for work this morning I was able to remove myself from the situation. Step back or look at it from above. I let go of my emotions attached to the situation and my thoughts of being right or wrong and just looked at it for what it was. I realized the whole source of the problem is that we are individuals (this is true), but we expect each other to act, feel and think the same (this is delusional).

We all come into this life with different talents, abilities and understandings of different degrees. However, we are all, whether understanding consciously or unconsciously, moving toward the same goal and facing the same core challenges of being in a physical body. Sure, there are many unproductive actions and attitudes my fiance and I both need to change, but no matter how we act or what we do we can never force each other to change. So my solution: I know that we want to be together but just want to have an easier more pleasant time of it. Maybe if we just let each other be who we are and give each other permission to change in our own time we would naturally appreciate and respect each other more. I think that just this letting go of how we expect each other to be, the changes that are needed will happen... naturally.

Maybe, I should have titled this blog "Naturally".