Seeing Errors (Rabel)

Seeing Errors

We're on the chapter, "Bondage or Liberty, Which?" in our other class, and of course you know in that chapter there's a great deal said about suffering, about the cause of suffering and the way to become free from it. And, in discussing this, we mentioned things about healing, that sickness is a form of suffering that we're seeking to become free from; and one of the students came forth very strongly with his genuine belief concerning healing, which was definitely, unmistakably, hard-core Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. Now, when a person genuinely and sincerely believes something which is of a very high type of idealism and positivism, I never like to do anything to damage that, to shake it in any way, because Lord knows there's little enough of that. And when someone's got it, I hope it's sacred. But you can see my position, friends, as a Unity faculty member. We do not teach that. Does that mean we don't permit a student to believe that? No. In fact, we admire one who believes it, but it's not our teaching. And it was this:

He took an example of a person's sore thumb, a healing need. First, things had gone on in the class about a healing need and a healing request, and our response as Truth students and minister. His belief was, "You don't see the sore thumb." In no way are you to see that sore thumb, because in seeing it, you're causing it; you are perpetuating that sore thumb. And, therefore, the healer must not see that sore thumb, and see only the divine perfection, the fullness and wholeness of life, etc. Now, what do you do? You say, "That's right, and Unity should teach"... You must not see a sore thumb that's brought to you." But then, that leads to problems, because we don't teach healing like that. That is the original, classic Mary Baker Eddy classic demand, and practitioners to this day maintain that. But in Unity we have rejected that concept and have adopted another approach to healing.

Now, my thought was, "How can I handle this as a teacher?" I don't want in any way to diminish this belief, this standard, this idealism he has; and yet I cannot let it just go by and intimate that's what Unity accepts, too, because we accept it, but we don't teach it as a method. So this illustration came to me after prayer about this, and I'm going to share it with that class and particularly with this student; and I thought I'd show it to you first. Here we have a manifested error, right, in the form of chalk marks on a blackboard, which illustrates error. Yet it exists. Yet it is manifest. All right; we can equate many, many healing needs with the same thing. It is an unreality, an error, a wrong answer made manifest as body condition, a sore finger. You are a student of Truth, of Reality, you believe in he allness and goodness of God and in the goodness of all His principles; and you come and look at this. Use your imagination, now, with an analogy. This represent the illness, the injury, the whatever. Now, will you look at this ONLY with your physical eyeball? No. You will look at it with another eye also. Which eye? The mind's eye. You will look at this, and you will have two levels of sight concerning - the most external, the most superficial, which is the sense of sight in the eyeball, and the intellect and the brain, and that eyeball sight of you, that fact-cognizing level of your sight has to see this. You see, if you have sight, you will see this, you will see 6+6=13. You will see the wrong answer. You will see the manifestation of the error.

But is your mind's eye seeing this? No. Your mind's eye cognizes Truth, not the appearance; your mind's eye cognizes only reality, only meanings, only principle, because your mind's eye is the real knowing level of your sight. It's insight, you see; and it sees this, in a sense, from the physical eye only. And the intellect and the fact-gathering level of you sees this and sees this as wrong, but still sees it. It sees existence; it sees fact, but your mind's eye seeing this immediately transforms it into the Truth, which is, 6+6=12.

So, are you betraying your idealism, your truth-belief, your mind's-eye knowing by allowing your physical eyeball to cognize this erroneous fact? Should there be a conflict? No. So, I hope that we'll be able to do the same thing when it comes to healing. Alright, I see Carolyn wearing a neck brace; but that's my fact-cognizing eyeball level of me, my eyeball, my intellect, and that triggers a response in me in my mind's eye, in the eye of faith in me. I see the pure, perfect healing life, which Carolyn is, and which will overcome the current 6+6 make 13 which make the current condition; and I think if we can do this, we remain flexible, we remain comfortable and at home in this realm, in spite of its rights and wrongs. But we maintain our eternal verity in this realm, where the mind's eye is, where the knowing is, and so we don't need to teach people: "You must never even see 6+6=13, because then you're causing it." I'm not causing it if I see it. What I'm causing is a desire to change it; and so that's what we can do with healing or any of the manifest errors that we may have to deal with in our ministry.

Transcribed by Rev. Nita Strauss on 12-16-2014