I've worn corrective lenses since I was 10 years old. "Inherited myopia," the eye doctor decreed. Until I had my eyes examined and fitted with glasses I, like the Apostle Paul, “saw only in part, and looked through a glass darkly.”
Not all vision problems are so easily remedied and not all vision deficiency is a physical limitation. Humanity's universal vision problem is metaphysical sight impairment. We struggle to behold the sacred in everyday encounters, overlook the divine reality in the ordinary landscapes of our lives, and judge life merely by outer appearances.
Every great spiritual master and wise sage was a great seer, endowed with the keen capacity to peer beyond the veneer of life and behold the deeper reality that is neither bound by time or space. All the storied spiritual awakenings attribute a new way of seeing. Jacob of the Hebrew Scriptures cried out with the realization, "The Lord was in this place and I did not know!" Jesus referred to the inner eye as "the lamp of the body”, affirming that "if the eye be single then the whole body shall be filled with light." In the Bhagavad Gita it says, "Because you cannot see me with your natural eye, I will give you a celestial eye."
We marginalize our spiritual work when we focus exclusively on visualizing a better exterior life and neglect the essential practice of developing spiritual vision. It, of course, is tempting to use our creative ability to solely improve the outer conditions because we are spared the need for developing spiritual vision. Yet as we mature spiritually, we find our ability to recognize the presence of good, despite appearances to the contrary, is what truly blesses us through all the ups and downs of life.
In the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 113) Jesus' disciples ask him, 'When will the Kingdom come?' He replies, 'It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.' This is the good news in this myopic dilemma. What we are seeking is not missing, we just can't see it clearly yet.
So, our spiritual practice is to improve our vision. And we have the spiritual technology to do it. The simple prayer "Show me. Show me what is here that I am not seeing," can open the eyes of our heart to what is real. I believe that just as Jesus restored sight to the blind, our spiritual vision is restored by the grace of God coupled with our willingness to see differently in every moment.
With you, in the clear seeing of Divine Love,
Larry
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