Above all else I want to see things differently.
1. Today we are really giving specific application to the idea for yesterday. ²In these practice periods, you will be making a series of definite commitments. ³The question of whether you will keep them in the future is not our concern here. ⁴If you are willing at least to make them now, you have started on the way to keeping them. ⁵And 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.” ²In itself it is not important at all. ³Yet what is by itself? ⁴And what does “in itself” mean? ⁵You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all. ⁶You either see or not. ⁷When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. ⁸The 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. ²You are not defining it in past terms. ³You are asking what it is, rather than telling it what it is. ⁴You 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 you have already defined. ²And the purpose of these exercises is to ask questions and receive the answers. ³In saying, “Above all else I want to see this table differently,” you are committing yourself to seeing. ⁴It is not an exclusive commitment. ⁵It is a commitment that 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 would withdraw all your own ideas from it, and look upon it with a completely open mind. ²It has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope. ³Hidden 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. ²You will be making this same request of each subject that you use in the practice periods. ³And you are making a commitment to each of them to let its purpose be revealed to you, instead of placing your own judgment upon it.
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 about you. ²Not 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 your eyes happen to light on, and you should rest your eyes on it while saying:
²Above all else I want to see this _________ differently.
³Each application should be made quite slowly, and as thoughtfully as possible. ⁴There is no hurry.
