I just want to describe something amazing that happened yesterday. I had been doing the daily lessons from ACIM (A Course in Miracles) for over a month now, and the past few days I had been working on "correcting my seeing". Just recently my task was to say "I am determined to see things differently", "I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts," and similar affirmations.
Yesterday, something beautiful happened. Instead of "working", I spent most of my day viewing videos of Byron Katie (BK) doing "The Work" on You Tube (naughty, I know!) with various types of people having different sorts of problems - from illness, to relationship problems, to family problems, to lack of self-esteem, etc. etc. Halfway through the video, something clicked inside me. In every person BK worked with, I saw that all their problems were just on their minds. I reflected how I do the same. And that was when it hit me. I realized that when I am not Present, most (if not all) - of what I experience are not real. They just went on in my mind. They arent real, because what I experienced were just mental or an emotional projections of my own issues and dysfunctionalities.
For example, when I interact with another person unconsciously, do I really see her? No. Because what I do is I make up stories in my mind about her: I project my insecurities, my fears, my past experiences, my future worries, my pre-conceived notions, my prejudices, my own opinions of what should and shouldn't be, my values, my limited understanding, etc. etc. on her. And because I was so busy judging her and projecting these things at her, I miss to hear what she is really saying or feel what she is really feeling, or experience who she really IS - at this moment, right here now now. I miss to appreciate her being, I miss the gift she has to offer.
When I realized this, I was alone in my office. When I looked around me, everything looked and felt different. It was so weird, it's hard to explain. It was like I was seeing everything for the first time! . I looked at the table and the chairs and the windows and everything felt fresh and alive and magical! I felt a deep sense of curiosity, like my mind was completely free...empty and ready for what those things had to offer at that moment. Everything seemed brighter and bigger and the inside of my head seemed to have expanded but it felt completely empty...
It was like realizing that all this time I had been looking, but not really seeing... because my sight had been blocked by the veils created by the conditioned mind. What a relief to finally be able to see things for real!
When I opened ACIM again when I got home, these words jumped out at me, and its timing couldn't have been better:
You could , in fact, gain vision from that table, if you would withdraw all your ideas from it, and look upon it with a completely open mind: it has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope. Hidden all your ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with the Universe.
I found it SO Funny I laughed so hard, for a long time. I mean, do you also find that every time you have this sort of moment - an epiphany, or moments when you know you finally "GET" something... isn't it funny how you have actually heard the same thing over and over and over again in the past, but it's actually just now that the real meaning sank in? And when you finally "got" it, isn't it funny how you didn't get it in the first place? Because it's actually SO simple, it's like it's just plain common sense? And then you laugh at yourself, you laugh at the way how you created problems in the past because you didn't get it at the time, you laugh at everything!
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