By José Lorenzo Rodríguez
In a way the topic of True Vision has been a part of my life since very early. My first memory of anything I could call a vision, as opposed to what my bodily eyes are seeing all day, was probably when I was 8 years old. I remember being at school listening to one of the lessons. I think I accidentally entered a very focused state where I would just listen and follow my teacher, Cielo, with my gaze as she moved from one place to the other. Suddenly, I started seeing a very nice glow around her. It felt peaceful, like I had no cares in the world other than being there. As I write this, I chuckle that her name means Heaven in Spanish.
As a teenager I began to study A Course in Miracles. After reading through the text, I met two ACIM teachers that would transform my life. They did not hold weekly classes, nor study groups. Their way of teaching was through a series of exercises aimed at demonstrating principles of the course through experiences. One of these exercises, placed almost at the end of the two-day workshop, was designed to experience True Vision – seeing with the spiritual eye also termed Christ’s Vision. Our teacher Carlos asked for a volunteer to sit in the center of the room, while everyone else would stay in their chairs forming a circle. I volunteered as it seemed like a fun thing to do.
Carlos sat in front of me and guided the entire room to quiet the mind while holding the decision to truly see what was in front of them. For me, that was Carlos. The rest of the group needed to hold in mind a decision to see me truly without their past. A few minutes passed, and I thought my eyes were tricking me. I started seeing what I can only describe as a white mist in the periphery of my sight. It felt like I was connected to everyone. I blinked and my normal sight returned.
The periodic reminders to keep the mind quiet made me notice that my mind was wandering in trying to describe what I saw. I set those thoughts aside and focused again on my decision to see truly. That’s when I started to see Carlo’s face glow. I got startled by this, at times excited and at times incredulous of what I was seeing. Then to my greater surprise he said to us all, “If you are seeing the light, don’t get distracted by trying to explain it. Just let it happen and keep your decision to see without the past.”
I started shedding tears of joy. They seemed to come naturally, as if I was looking at something of extreme beauty, or like I had lost something very dear to me and finally found it. I did not dare to move, nor even blink as I thought I would lose that vision. Now the mist had a more solid appearance. A light replaced forms – the floor, chairs, the wall behind Carlos. The people sitting next to Carlos glowed with the same light. I saw this light connecting me with others, like there was no space between us. A deep sense of being in love permeated everything. At some point Carlos’ face was infused with this light. Only his eyes and contour of his body remained. From him I could perceive pure beauty and love. The vision lasted some 10 minutes. At the end we all shared words about the experience. We had all seen the same light in varying degrees. For me, the experience was very intense and somehow more real than my ordinary day-to-day reality. This moment has remained an anchor for me in times of doubt. I could have doubt in some miracles I have experienced during my life, but I could never doubt this vision experience with Carlos.
It took me a while until I could replicate the intensity of that moment. With practice, it has become a natural thing that I can do at will. The moments I have these visions happen most often when I am helping others, especially when helping them forgive or look differently at a problem in their lives. These visions typically occur during moments of quietness. At the beginning I thought that my mind had to be absolutely quiet for this to happen, as in having no thoughts, but experience showed me that was not the case. I only needed to have no thoughts I would keep.
Do I have a special ability that others don’t have? Very far from it! Another important moment in my life involved vision and my mom, who remains to this day my most significant example of what forgiveness can do. During my childhood and teen years, I had a very bad relationship with my mother. Among many of the grievances I had, was the idea that she wasn’t a spiritual person. She even put my copy of the Course in the trash while I was not at home! A few years later, I started organizing forgiveness workshops in my hometown, using the same method I had learned from Carlos. By that time, my relationship with her was mostly healed and we had become very close. She signed herself up for a 2-weekend workshop, which was miraculous. The last day of the workshops, I guided the True Vision exercise and asked for a volunteer to sit in the center. To my surprise, my mom didn’t hesitate. Just like I learned, I asked all to quiet their minds and to keep a focus on seeing the person in front of them without the past. I started seeing a beautiful light in her, as she did in me. As love connected both of us, I was being deeply thankful to God for the opportunity to see my mom truly and finally see our relationship fully healed. My mom shed tears, just like I had done many years back when seeing the light. At the end, when the group shared words about their experience, my mom was clearly shaken. On one hand she had felt a profound love and saw a beautiful light that she could not explain, but the light frightened her for a time. The light seemed to mean perhaps she was questioning all her past beliefs. She seemed to struggle with what had obviously happened and her inability to write it off as a product of her imagination. She asked, “What was that?”
I’m not sure what she made of the experience after that day. For me it, it was the culmination of years of holding a decision to see her forgiven. I could see light in my most difficult relationship and she could too. What a healing! The fact that my mom, an atheist, was able to see with True Vision with barely any training, convinced me that this is no special feat. It is a very significant and profound thing, but it has nothing to do with special abilities. Everyone has access to spiritual sight. Just not everyone is ready to appreciate it without fear, and that’s why the training helps.
I went through another experience that showed me this more clearly. It happened just a few years ago with a close friend that I made after moving to Denmark. He has a very scientifically oriented mind, even to the point that he would run statistical analyses on his own diary to predict his future mood. He does not believe in God either, as everything must have a material explanation. Yet, he was also very curious about my journey and at some point, I told him about True Vision and my experiences with it. He was intrigued and one day asked me if I could guide him though the process. We sat at my house, the room was dim, only the last beams of the sunset coming from the window. We faced each other, and then I taught him how to still his mind. I asked that we both see each other without the past. After a few minutes, he began to see the light. His smile was big, and the characteristic sense of peace and connection surrounded us. I ended the episode relatively fast, perhaps because I did not want to frighten him. At the end, he said he felt very peaceful and was very surprised to see the light, yet it was clear to me that for him it was nothing but a trick of the eye. We didn’t speak of the event after that. This reminds me greatly of the book “Absence from Felicity”, of Helen’s experience on the subway, where she suddenly saw everyone around her glowing in light. After telling her husband about her vision, he said something along the lines of, “Lots of people have a similar experience. Don’t give it another thought.”
So, if this is something everyone has access to, even effortlessly, could it be true that what some said – that I was using it to feel special and I should be more like Helen’s husband? In many periods of my journey, I thought this might be the case, and kept the experience to myself. I would still come back to it regularly any time I wanted to remember God and be in peace, but I was not sharing it with others. Then I came to know about the Circle of Atonement and that the Circle’s interpretation of the course was closer to mine. I was pleasantly surprised that Vision meant exactly what I thought it was supposed to mean. After becoming more familiar with the Circle’s interpretation, it was clearer to me that it is one of the goals of the course and that it is meant to shared and taught. This story is my gift to the Circle as a thank you for re-kindling that light in me, for which I’m very grateful.
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“Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother’s sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit’s vision and to rejoice in along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, shared with the Holy Spirit and at one with Him on what salvation is.” (CE) T-20.VII.11
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Or you may be interested in delving deeper into A Course in Miracles.
