4-9-13
III. Perception versus Knowledge
1 We have been emphasizing perception, and have said very little about knowledge as yet. This is because perception must be straightened out before you can know anything. To know is to be certain. Uncertainty means that you do not know. Knowledge is power because it is certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. As an attribute of the belief in space and time, it is subject to either fear or love. Misperceptions produce fear and true perceptions foster love, but neither brings certainty because all perception varies. That is why it is not knowledge. True perception is the basis for knowledge, but knowing is the affirmation of truth and beyond all perceptions.
I have thrown the word know and the word knowledge around a lot, but I would be more accurate to say I perceive. I think I know something, when, really, I have only a particular perception of it that I like a lot. I must be getting smarter because nowadays I seldom believe that I know anything.
Jesus says that before I can have knowledge I must straighten out my perceptions. The mind perceives and misperceives. Its misperceptions produce fear and its true perceptions foster love. When my daughter was upset with something in her life recently, I thought I knew what to do about it. This was a misperception, not a knowing, and the misperception threw me into confusion and fear. Then I perceived that I must be in error and so I asked for correction. When I accepted that correction, I felt love and peace.
This is how I am to straighten out my perception. True perception leads me to knowledge, but is not knowledge itself. Knowledge is power because it is certain and unchanging. It is not subject to variations. Knowledge is beyond all perceptions. When I was in the middle of my daughter’s ego story, my perception was wrong-minded, then I asked for clarity and saw it differently, but then something else would happen and I would again be uncertain and misperceive. When another ego story comes around I will apply perception to it and maybe it will be true and maybe not. This is typical of perception.
If I knew instead of perceived, there would be no uncertainty and no variation in how I saw things. No matter how distraught my daughter was there would never have been an answering fear thought in my mind. I envision my mind as a crooked road and with the Holy Spirit’s help it is being straightened. That is my job now, to straighten out the road. Knowledge does not need my help and will come of its own.
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