Clear Vision Brings That Which Is Ever New
Uranda May 23, 1950 100 Mile House, BC
Our next step in the expanding consciousness which allows correct function in the Kingdom has to do with vision. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” This statement does not say that unless all the people have perfect vision, in the sense of being able to see the ultimate of all things, the people perish. It only indicates that the body of human beings involved must have a focalization of being where there is vision for the whole. The physical body has two eyes. The function of the fingers is to feel and to grasp and to handle, but not, in the ordinary sense, to see. The body is more than an eye, but the eye is important to the correct function of the body. The Master said, “Let thine eye be single, that thy whole body may be full of light.” The single eye is the ability to perceive spiritually in that range of function and responsibility which is divinely ordained for the individual.
Again it is written, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” The necessity of clear vision is indicated. Where the vision is cloudy, blurred, out of focus, the perception is poor and the individual stumbles along the way; he does not see the beautiful detail revealed in the patterns of truth, nor can he clearly perceive the golden glow of God's love as it manifests through those who let the Law be fulfilled in themselves.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Recognizing this principle, we can give it expression in these words: “Where there is true vision, the people live.” In being delivered from the tomb of old world darkness and carried through the Gate into the Kingdom, the individual reveals that his goal is turned from death unto life. Where there is true vision the people live. Again the implications can be expanded. Where there is no true vision the people merely exist until they die; but for those who come into the focus of clear vision there is the movement from existence into life. It is written that “God hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” That is the Word expressed to those who dwell in the old world. The implications for those who have entered the Kingdom is that the LORD our God hath pleasure in the life of those who truly live; and where there is true vision the people live.
Many of the Master's so-called miracles had to do with the healing of physical vision. We recognize that through the selection of individual cases, where the response was sufficient, He initiated cycles of fulfilment for the whole body of responding ones who should come to the day of salvation. As He healed the vision of individuals He revealed His will that those who should follow Him should learn to see with that spiritual vision which allows the reality of life to manifest on earth.
All that you have received in instruction, whether in the spoken or the written word, in the Third Sacred School has directly or indirectly been moving toward the day when your eyes might be opened that you might see, according to the range of reality to which you are called. This point of vision, from the standpoint of this wide range of background, is not new to you and yet, though your vision has cleared much, it is needful to the expression of your life in the Kingdom that you should let your eyes be opened that you may have true vision.
Martin and I were considering this point of vision this morning, opening up and establishing the cycles which might be utilized in helping you to see and know and realize healing for your vision, physically, mentally and spiritually, so that you may perceive something of the working of a higher vision than you yet know. There is a vision higher than you have yet achieved.
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Individually and collectively, as members of the Unit within the Gate of the Kingdom, you may well ask the question: “What can I do to allow a hastening of this process by which true vision may be established?” There are many things which you can do. Tonight I would like to touch on a few points. We might ask the question, “Are you satisfied with the present degree of clarity in your own vision?” I think probably, without exception, the answer would be No. If I were then to ask, “What are you doing about it?”, I wonder what your answers would be.
You have a recognition of the need of increased clarity of vision and there are various self-active methods that the individual attempts to use. I have known, within the scope of the students in the Third Sacred School, individuals who came to some statement which they felt they did not understand and so they would stop right there and struggle with it, and try ever so hard to understand it. As a result they invariably lost contact with the true current of expression through the particular lesson involved. If the individual studying the lessons on such a basis comes to a point that is not immediately clear, then he should go on and consider the lesson as a whole. If he lets go in the spirit of the lesson as a whole he will usually find on rereading that the point that seemed to be confusing is perfectly clear. If the point still seems to be beyond comprehension it is almost always the result of some preconceived idea or attitude, some fixity in consciousness, which is coloring the individual's view of the immediate point. A little self-examination in such a case would certainly be in order, and if the individual finds that he is trying to connect up the point with something that he remembers somewhere else, he has a key to what is wrong in his own function. Such efforts to correlate widely separated points almost always lead to confusion. Unless the individual is capable of recognizing the vibratory patterns involved in each case and has seen clearly the specific distinctions as expressed in the exact word, he will only be going round in circles—actually he will not be trying to understand the lesson at all; he will be trying to understand a concept of his own.
Then we have another type of problem. The individual, thus given to superficial examination, reads something and immediately restates it to himself in his own mind according to his own wording—he condenses it for his own convenience, as he thinks; then he focalizes his own condensed rendering in his consciousness and forthwith proceeds to forget what was actually said and undertakes to go forward using his condensed form as a basis of understanding. Such an individual has not learned to think and to see distinctions with exactness. Anyone who thinks he can condense the specific statements of truth as contained in the lessons would be very wise to take great care lest his condensation be a distortion of that which is actually stated.
Then we have another type of problem with respect to clear vision. The individual will be reading some particular passage and some point or other stands out particularly, perhaps with a question mark, and then, being so absorbed in his questioning, he will fail to note the exact wording of the context. What is required is the observation which will permit the individual to see what is actually said. Noting distinctions and exact wordings carefully, develops the ability to see.
Then there is another type: the individual who reads something and immediately thinks, “Well over there in the Bible there is something like this,” or “I read something in some magazine,” or “I saw something in some other teaching”—it doesn't make any difference what it was, Christian Science, Unity, or some other—and he starts trying to correlate the two things as if his understanding of this could be helped by his consideration of that. Such expression is a foolish waste of time and energy because what one has read somewhere else does not provide the key to an understanding of this. There may be proper correlations of information in the mind, and when the vision is clear it may be seen in relationship to a large surface of the whole; but when one looks somewhere else for a key to help the understanding of this, he is asking for trouble and wasting time and energy.
The ability to see, the ability to let go in the currents of vision, comes into manifestation through application and use in the creative current that is operating within the scope of our own service. If you begin to see a point and you immediately think, “Well here is something like that over there,” and your mind starts jumping about to show its brilliance in connecting things up, it will always result in foolishness. This that is here, at any given point, contains within itself the current and the keys to its own understanding. The flitting about of the mind is always evidence that the individual still lacks true vision. The mind can come to rest on a point and move with the current there established in allowing the meditations of reality to have meaning on earth. If you are not satisfied with your present degree of clarity in vision you can make certain that you see clearly that which is immediately available to you. If you are concerned about not being able to see something at a distance before you take care to see that which is at hand, you will never come to the point of true vision.
Even among emissaries, I have wondered sometimes what was in the minds of my hearers when they did not take advantage of opportunity—for instance, after a service—to consider intelligently the points presented. Conversation about other things, perhaps? But I have seen opportunities passed by which would have allowed the action of vision to be increased. What did you see in a service? Could you give a resume of it? Did you ever check yourself to see how accurate your expression is of what you say that someone else said, or what you read somewhere? Did you ever take one of the current lessons, read it over once, and then undertake to tell someone else what was in it—someone who has likewise read it—to check the accuracy of your presentation and if there was a question go back to the lesson itself and see what was said? You may be surprised at the inaccuracy of your own thinking, the inaccuracies of your own perception, because if you bring it out on a basis that can be checked, you may find that the idea you established in mind is not the true expression it was supposed to be.
If there are these inaccuracies in your thinking, in your vision, in what we may call the surface of your consciousness, how do you expect the accuracy, the clarity of your vision to evolve through you in relationship to perceiving things unseen? If you do not perceive truly that which is seen, how can you hope to perceive that which is not to be seen with the physical eyes? Accuracy is vitally important, balance, proper perspective, so that all tangents are avoided. Until you develop accuracy of perception in the range of vision that is now possible to you, how do you hope to increase, or share an increase, in that vision?
I know that you like to talk about other things and think about them, but it seems to me that more time could be given to thinking about, talking about, that which is being presented in the Third Sacred School. We are devoting our lives to this ministry. It is presumably the thing that we are more interested in than anything else. Presumably we want to move forward as rapidly as possible to the point where our ministry in the world can be effective. Do you think sloppy thinking, careless observation, inaccurate translation of idea, will promote that effectiveness of ministry?
We are moving to the point of ministry into the world on an expanded basis. We cannot offer anything beyond that which we ourselves have made manifest in fact in this outer world. If in the membership of the Unit there is a lack of perspective, which tends toward narrowness of vision and attitude, or if there is inaccuracy, carelessness, we are not going to have a manifestation of that clear vision which will help the responding ones to move from the channels that move to death into the channels that move to life. Where there is true vision the people live. That true vision, that clarity of vision, needs to manifest in the Body, and it is through the Body that the larger ministry must manifest.
Where there is true vision there is not fixity of pattern. True vision allows something new, something different, to come into manifestation in our expressions of life each day. It is a laziness of mind which causes individuals to tend to fall into ruts, fixed patterns of saying things, fixed patterns of doing things. System, order, are all right if they are true expressions of reality, but where there is vision one is constantly finding ways and means of improving the manifest pattern of things. One takes care to keep the whole in balance and not to arbitrarily try to inject this or that, but true vision does not grow old and fall into ruts which finally become so deep that the individual cannot see over the top.
In the currents of life, when there is true vision, there is ever a newness. Clear vision does not allow one to jump to conclusions; only poor vision, with lazy minds, allows jumping to conclusions. When you have utilized all of your present opportunities to the fullest, from the standpoint of increase in your clarity of vision, let me know, and it is possible that we can find another step on beyond even that; but we cannot take that next step until the one that is at hand is seen and taken. The necessity for clear vision in the members of the Body cannot be over-emphasized. All kinds of sloppy habits with respect to thinking and observation will have to be corrected before the larger fruits of true vision can appear.
Let the channel in which you would know an increase be activated by the currents now available to you, for that through which the currents of life are not flowing does not grow. Let us let clear vision be made manifest, so that we may be ready to serve effectively, correctly, the responding ones who shall come in season. Peace be unto you as you let your eye be single that your whole body may be full of light.
© emissaries of divine light
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