A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

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Chapter 3: The Innocent Perception

Section III: Perception versus Knowledge

Read ACIM Chapter 3, Section III (pages 40-41)

What happens when we join with the ego’s belief in time and space?

In this section we are learning that perception comes through the belief in time and space. Through our belief in time and space, we forget what we are, what our brother is and we forget our unity with God, or Love. The belief in time and space comes with joining with the ego thought system, which is the same as joining with the thought of being separated from the unity of Love. Perception comes through the ego’s chief vehicle — the body — with which we see separate forms within a world of time and space. This belief in being separate from Love produces fear. The Course calls this misperception.

Because we cannot truly separate from our Self, our brother and God, joining with the ego’s belief in time and space is really joining with illusions. It is only by being willing to question the validity of these illusions that we can move toward true perception, which returns us to spiritual sight or the miracle. When our fear is strong, we are very closed minded and not open to recognizing that our misperceptions are only showing us illusions.

What happens when we are willing to receive a correction in our perceptions?

As we are willing to open to a correction of our perceptions, we return to remembering the truth in our brother and ourselves. Our fear of Love is gradually dissolved as our beliefs in separation are corrected through the Holy Spirit. True perception is the doorway to knowledge.

What is Knowledge according to the Course?

We cannot know what we believe we are separate from. Knowledge is an experience of wholeness and unity. Whatever we believe is separate from us is unknown to us because by separating from it we are rejecting it. Because it is unknown, we make up a story of what it means that is a projection of our own beliefs. The story we make up is our interpretation that forms the basis of our perception.

Because we see ourselves as separate from everything in this world, we cannot truly know anything in the world. The Course is teaching us a way out of this disconnectedness, using the very mechanisms we have used to reinforce our sense of being disconnected. By giving perception a new purpose, the Holy Spirit uses it to lead us to spiritual sight. He teaches us to disregard what the body’s eyes see and to learn to trust our inner vision, which shows us the Love and Light we share with our brother.

As we consistently ask for the Holy Spirit’s perception, our investment in the seeming reality of physical vision diminishes. Simultaneously spiritual vision becomes more real to us. As our trust in our spiritual vision increases, we rely less on form and see the truth and innocence in our brother more and more. When we reach the point of relying totally on spiritual vision, we recognize only the truth in our brother and we stand at the threshold of knowledge. There Knowledge comes of Itself, for we have removed all the barriers to It.

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