“Above all else I want to see things differently.”
Today’s lesson statement is a continuation of yesterday’s lesson statement. With a table as an example the lesson says the following in paragraph 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.”
The lesson continues to explain that the table shares its real purpose with the universe. In fact, today’s idea is a way to ask for the purpose of the universe.
And so, you might ask, what is the purpose of the universe? This lesson does not answer that question. Let’s call to mind what lessons 2 and 14 said:
“I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me.” (W-pI.2)
by limiting it to my past experience and past thoughts about it. And lesson 14 says:
“God did not create a meaningless world.” (W-pI.4)
In other words, there is a meaning and purpose in everything that is now obscured to you by the way you are currently thinking about things and seeing them.
Your thoughts determine the meaning you accord to everything, and when you think in alignment with God’s thoughts, which have a loving, light, free and peaceful character, the meaning everything has for you will be determined by those qualities.
Today’s lesson is a step in the direction of that experience.