Lesson 30: God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.
Ken Wapnick used to say that this lesson is not about pantheism. According to Google, “Pantheism is the belief that God and the universe are the same things rather than separate things. In other words, ‘God is all, and all is God. ‘ The term pantheism was developed in the eighteenth century from the Greek roots pan, meaning all, and theos, meaning God.”
As we join with the Holy Spirit, we rise above the battleground of earth world, and see from an exalted perspective, which A Course in Miracles calls “vision”. Lesson 30 introduces us to a new kind of ‘projection’. The ego uses projection to rid itself of unbearable feelings of sin, guilt and fear. When the Holy Spirit uses what the ego made for healing the split mind, projection is used to withdraw the ego projection.
When ego projection is withdrawn, we are no longer blinded by all the forms we have bombarded ourselves with in order to blockage our recognition of ourselves as Mind, God Mind. Mind streams Life, Love and Light; that is its nature. There is nothing to see without the Light in which form seems to arise. The Holy Spirit’s vision is projection, withdrawn.
Jesus calls this “real vision” in Lesson 30, explaining that real vision is not limited by distance or space, and does not rely upon physical eyesight at all. “The mind is its only source.”
“These eyes, made not to see, will never see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker’s goal but not to see? For this the body’s eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. See how the body’s eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form means understanding has been obscured.” T-22.III.6:1-8
Imaginary seeing (worldly eyesight) and real vision are both generated in the Mind. Worldly eyesight, believed in, seems real but that does not make it so. God is in everything we see because God is in our Mind. And we are in the Mind of God; that is the discovery that transforms everything.
