Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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1 Today we are really giving specific application to the idea for
yesterday. In these practice periods, you will be making a series of
definite commitments. The question of whether you will keep them in the
future is not our concern here. If you are willing at least to make them
now, you have started on the way to keeping them. And we are still at
the beginning.
2 You may wonder why it is important to say, for example, “Above all
else I want to see this table differently.” In itself it is not
important at all. Yet what is by itself? And what does “in itself” mean?
You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are
not seeing at all. You either see or not. When you have seen one thing
differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see
in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all.
3 When you say, “Above all else I want to see this table differently,”
you are making a commitment to withdraw your preconceived ideas about
the table and open your mind to what it is and what it is for. You are
not defining it in past terms. You are asking what it is, rather than
telling it what it is. You are not binding its meaning to your tiny
experience of tables, nor are you limiting its purpose to your little
personal thoughts.
4 You will not question what we have already defined. And the purpose of
these exercises is to ask questions and receive the answers. In saying,
“Above all else I want to see this table differently,” you are
committing yourself to seeing. It is not an exclusive commitment. It is
a commitment which applies to the table just as much as to anything
else, neither more nor less.
5 You could, in fact, gain vision from just that table if you could
withdraw all your own 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 under all your
ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with all the
universe.
6 In using the table as a subject for applying the idea for today, you
are therefore really asking to see the purpose of the universe. You will
be making this same request of each subject which you use in the
practice periods. And you are making a commitment to each of them to let
their purpose be revealed to you instead of placing your own judgment
upon them.
7 We will have six two minute practice periods today in which the idea
for the day is stated first and then applied to whatever you see in
looking about you. Not only should the subjects be chosen randomly, but
each one should be accorded equal sincerity as today’s idea is applied
to it in an attempt to acknowledge the equal value of them all in their
contribution to your seeing.
8 As usual, the applications should include the name of the subject
which your eyes happen to light on, and you should rest your eyes on it
while saying:
9 Above all else, I want to see this ______ differently.
10 Each application should be made quite slowly and as thoughtfully as
possible. There is no hurry.