Lesson 158

W-pI.158.1. What has been given you? ² The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. ³ Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. ⁴ This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. ⁵ It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live.

W-pI.158.2. You have received all this. ² No one who walks the world but has received it. ³ It is not this knowledge which you give, for that is what creation gave. ⁴ All this cannot be learned. ⁵ What, then, are you to learn to give today? ⁶ Our lesson yesterday evoked a theme found early in the text. ⁷ Experience cannot be shared directly, in the way that vision can. ⁸ The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. ⁹ Yet is that time determined by the mind itself, not taught.

W-pI.158.3. The time is set already. ² It appears to be quite arbitrary. ³ Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. ⁴ It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. ⁵ For time but seems to go in one direction. ⁶ We but undertake a journey that is over. ⁷ Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.

W-pI.158.4. Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. ² Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. ³ The script is written. ⁴ When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. ⁵ For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.

W-pI.158.5. A teacher does not give experience, because he did not learn it. ² It revealed itself to him at its appointed time. ³ But vision is his gift. ⁴ This he can give directly, for Christ's knowledge is not lost, because He has a vision He can give to anyone who asks. ⁵ The Father's Will and His are joined in knowledge. ⁶ Yet there is a vision which the Holy Spirit sees because the Mind of Christ beholds it too.

W-pI.158.6. Here is the joining of the world of doubt and shadows made with the intangible. ² Here is a quiet place within the world made holy by forgiveness and by love. ³ Here are all contradictions reconciled, for here the journey ends. ⁴ Experience--unlearned, untaught, unseen--is merely there. ⁵ This is beyond our goal, for it transcends what needs to be accomplished. ⁶ Our concern is with Christ's vision. ⁷ This we can attain.

W-pI.158.7. Christ's vision has one law. ² It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. ³ It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. ⁴ It sees no separation. ⁵ And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.

W-pI.158.8. This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it. ² It requires but the recognition that the world can not give anything that faintly can compare with this in value; nor set up a goal that does not merely disappear when this has been perceived. ³ And this you give today: See no one as a body. ⁴ Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.

W-pI.158.9. Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision that has power to overlook them all. ² In His forgiveness are they gone. ³ Unseen by One they merely disappear, because a vision of the holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their place. ⁴ It matters not what form they took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them. ⁵ They are no more. ⁶ And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.

W-pI.158.10. Thus do you learn to give as you receive. ² And thus Christ's vision looks on you as well. ³ This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself. ⁴ If he be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been forgiven by yourself. ⁵ Each brother whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ's vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God.

W-pI.158.11. It matters not when revelation comes, for that is not of time. ² Yet time has still one gift to give, in which true knowledge is reflected in a way so accurate its image shares its unseen holiness; its likeness shines with its immortal love. ³ We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today. ⁴ And by the holy gifts we give, Christ's vision looks upon ourselves as well.