From Vision to Function -- From Form to Content

In a previous blog entry I described my experience of being at a retreat in St. Louis led by Ariel Tomioka and how she led us through an exercise which revealed our "vision of wholeness."  I described how this vision has informed my life during the past 12 years or so and has become more detailed as I have imagined the form that it will take in the world.  Recently I have revisited this vision and, thanks to my studies in A Course in Miracles, have realized that I have been living this vision all along without even realizing it.

In the last couple of months I have been engaging in an intense study of the Text of the Course (a three volume work with a Text, a Workbook and a Manual for Teachers).  This study has been guided by weekly phone conversations with a Course teacher in Palm Springs, CA as well as my membership in the Circle Course Community (CCC) through the Circle of Atonement (http://www.circleofa.org/).  I was introduced to my Course teacher through Robert Perry, founder of the Circle of Atonement and author of such books as Path of Light and Return to the Heart of God.

In a recent conversation with my teacher I understood the difference between my vision and what the Course calls our "special function."  I have always associated my vision with a building.  The very word "vision" implies that there is something "to see."  I had this vision of a building that I called "The Center."  It all started as a result of the exercise with Ariel Tomioka when I "saw" myself sitting with another person in what I knew was a therapeutic relationship.  I went from that image of me sitting across from this person to an image of the building, the furniture, the rooms, the landscaping, etc.  I believed that if I imagined it clearly enough then it would become my reality (as in the "law of attraction").  

Because I developed this detailed vision of a building and all that it "means" to me, I had recently started to doubt that I was living my vision.  I do not have a building.  I have an office in my house.  How can I live my vision if the outer form does not match the way that I have imagined it? 

I have realized that, as long as I associate "living my vision" with a building or anything in the world of form, I will not believe that I am living it if the world does not conform to that vision.  What I realized is that I have been looking in the wrong place.  This is where the "special function" comes in.

According to the Course, all of us have a special function to play in the salvation of the world (similar to the bodhisattva of Buddhism who vows to serve all living beings and help them to attain enlightenment).  All of us have the same function -- forgiveness - which, according to the Course, is the means of salvation.  Each of us has a "special" way that we carry out that function -- this is our "special function."  The special function is not something that requires any form to exist in the outer world before we can carry it out.  Since it is simply about the special way that we extend forgiveness, its only requirement is that there be at least one other person for us to relate to so that forgiveness can be extended (and shared). 

What I have realized is that I am engaging in my special function all of the time.  It seems that my special function has something to do with my role as a therapist/teacher -- I say "seems" because the Holy Spirit could reveal something completely different to me, and I am open to that.  My function is to extend forgiveness.  How, when, where and with whom is my "special function."

My "vision of wholeness" and the insistence that it "look a certain way" has blinded me to what I have been doing all this time.  I have been more focused on form ("the shape something takes" - Robert Perry, Glossary of Terms from A Course in Miracles) instead of on content ("the essential meaning which that form is meant to communicate" - Perry, Glossary of Terms).  As long as I believe that form matters, I will spend my days trying to arrange the outer world a certain way.  I will believe that my happiness is dependent on the best possible arrangement of forms in the outer world.  If I can shift instead to content, then I will realize that what is more important is that I fulfill my function.  Nothing in the world of form can make me fulfill my special function.  Nothing in the world of form can keep me from fulfilling my special function.

As Jesus says in reference to our special function, "The content is the same.  The form is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place and time, and all that you believe must limit you.  The Son of God cannot be bound by time nor place nor anything God did not will" (T-25.VII.7.).