The universe thinks and acts through you. You are not the result of physical forces that have driven all of creation, with human intelligence being a late-stage byproduct. Rather, a universal intelligence is experience itself through countless forms. You are one form of this intelligence, and yet you are also the whole. Just as a cell in the body is expressing the body’s wholeness, you are expressing the wholeness of creation at this very minute.

Ordinary perception cannot see the whole, which is why Jesus spoke so much about making the blind to see. He asked his followers to develop what has been called “second attention,” or divine sight, the ability to know yourself as pure Being, beyond boundaries.

To be the light of the world, you must understand that the world itself is light—that is, pure awareness manifesting in physical form.

Exercise
To develop second attention, you must attune yourself to it. First attention focuses on the material word; it dwells on appearance rather than essence. The light that Jesus referred to is invisible to the eye but apparent to the soul. When you think, say, or do anything, you are manipulating consciousness, or to put it another way, you are using the stuff of awareness to create something. Just as jet fuel disappears in order to make a plane fly, consciousness disappears when it is used. Its potential turns into some sensation, thought, object, or event. As you read that last sentence you were transforming consciousness without being aware that it is flowing through you.

Jesus asks us to see through this disappearing act. Through second attention, you can perceive yourself as awareness itself, not as one of its products and creations. There are many ways to catch such glimpses.

• Meditating to reach inner silence.
• Sensing the purity of Nature.
• Sudden flashes of innocence.
• An impulse of love.
• An intuitive connection to your muse.
• Sensing inner guidance, a source of wisdom.
• A feeling that you belong in the larger scheme of life.

Whenever you have a flash of love, inspiration, awe, wonder, or joy, remind yourself: This is the real me. Don’t let such moments simply pass you by. Stop and appreciate them, and ask that you receive more in the future. In this way you open a feedback loop between first and second attention. Light starts to enter the world, until the world is eventually seen as made of light and nothing else.