Last Tuesday evening the Mindshifters group watched the second half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, “Introduction to A Course In Miracles with Advanced Understanding”. While we have watched this lecture several times already, there is always something different which catches my attention. This week I was struck by the observation that, “Limited perception causes us to experience things which never happened.” The point here is that each of us as individuals choose to focus our attention on different things and use those things to create our realities. Each of us as individuals have basically the same ability to perceive things as every other human being, and yet we still choose to focus on different parts of what there is to be perceived and use those parts to construct our realities.

Beyond the set of limitations which we impose upon ourselves, by choosing only certain things to be aware of, there is the limitation of what our senses are able to perceive. For example we cannot hear a dog whistle, yet we know that it creates a sound because of the effect it has on dogs. Just because we cannot perceive it, does not mean that it does not exist. In truth, there are many things that are having an effect on our world, which we cannot perceive directly, such as ultraviolet light and infra red light. Well, if there are sounds we cannot hear, and light we cannot see, how many other things exist in our world which we are unable to perceive? The point here is that the only way for us to learn something new, is to be open to the possibility that everything we “know” is wrong, or at least incomplete. If one is not able to admit that they don’t know something, one can never learn anything new.

Another quote from the lecture is, “By perception we have lost sight of the real world.” This sounds ridiculous unless you start putting the pieces together of all the “things”, energies, sounds, effects which we can only become aware of through indirect observation, or with the help of technology, or the observation of our animal friends. When we look through our eyes and hear through our ears, and begin to assemble a “picture” of our world, we are “blind” to ultra high and low pitch frequencies, light energy above and below the “visible” spectrum, (I put visible in quotes because other animals and insects can clearly see those light energies), and probably countless other energies and experiences that we have not yet become aware of. But in truth, just because we cannot hear the vibration of a dog whistle does not mean it does not exist.

So just imagine what we are cutting ourselves off from experiencing because we are telling ourselves that we already know what the world is like. We already know this person or that person. We already know what a tree is like, etc.

Imagine how our world might expand if we approached everything with innocent observation and questioning. Imagine walking through life observing and questioning everything. Not with a forced insistence on knowing what is real, but with an open willingness to experience things as new, each time we encounter them. This could be applied to people as well as animals and things. Sounds like a challenging exercise for learning and growing!

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love. Everything else is false!