Two sets of eyes.

The real beauty of the temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand…perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. A Course in Miracles T-2.6.5:2-3.

In these challenging times of pandemic and lockdowns, our physical eyes are seeing much to disturb us. Some people see the effects of a deadly virus and the measures governments are enacting to keep us safe. Others see the outworkings of an agenda to control the world’s population through restrictions, surveillance and mandatory vaccination. However we might interpret what is happening right now, our body-vision is prone to fear, anger and powerlessness.

Psychologically, we know that we project our inner experience onto the canvas of our outer world. The ancient metaphysical axioms expressed it in other ways: as within, so without; we always confront self. Whatever fear-guilt-rage lurks deep within our subconscious mind will always show up on the screen of our external life, regardless of how much we consciously want and affirm for something better. The unconscious ‘trumps’ the conscious.

Our outer eyes prompt us to conquer a terrible virus through social distancing and medical research, or rise in outrage against an oppressive regime that would have us impoverished and microchipped. Whatever our perspective, we see both the problem and the solution ‘out there’. Neither stance is healing because both reinforce the ego belief that we are just innocent, helpless victims of an attacking world. Both keep us in fear.

Therapy invites us to discover the internal sources of our pain and difficulties, bringing light into the shadows and healing the wounds. As we clean up our subconscious and reduce the fears we were unwittingly projecting onto the world, we perceive and attract less fear-based experience. As one of my teachers put it, “we become a magnet for good things”. Gradually we clean up our defiled inner temple, making more room for a greater, love-based reality to emerge. More room for the real Self and our true seeing.

However long we may have been exiles in separation, a temple of beauty and peace remains within our being, a greater reality that exists at a higher energetic frequency. The truth we seek for our own freedom, and consequently for the freedom of everyone in the world, has to be found and cultivated within for it to be established without. Our spiritual set of eyes, which looks within, can see “with perfect clarity” the gifts upon the altar at the heart of the sacred temple that resides within our being. It is our individual discovering and reclaiming of these gifts that will create a better world.

Reference: A Course in Miracles: Complete & Annotated Edition (Sedona, AZ USA; The Circle of Atonement, 2017).