Magnification

"Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself.  When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him.  You do not look beyond his errors.  Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 181, 1:1-4

"Magnify (mag-ni-fi) verb: To enlarge in fact or appearance; to cause to be held in greater esteem or respect." -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I've always loved the Magnificat, Mary's Song as she becomes impregnated by the Holy Spirit: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior." (The Bible; Luke 1:46)  These words have come to mind many times in my life, when no other words could express the awe and wonder of the moment.  I've often reflected on the concept of magnification, and when I re-read the above passage from A Course in Miracles, I realize that it's really all about focus.

We are transparencies for the Light and Love of God... a sort of spiritual lens, meant to magnify and reflect only God, which is of course all there really is.  The problem seems to be that we are intent on magnifying the false, the transitory... the antithesis of God, as if there could be anything other than God.  This is the collective compulsion of the world we have projected, for the simple reason that it's our compulsion and our projection!

We are very much like children intent on living in fantasy.  We train our children carefully to live in fantasy.  We encourage them and provide them with endless toys and tools to do this... another projected magnification of our own compulsions.  So you see that all perception has a focus, and it is always an intentional magnification of what we want to project.  This seems to be less than conscious.  But notice how your experience of any situation changes as your focus changes... whatever you're focusing on is magnified in your experience.  It's this selective tunnel vision that dictates your experience at any given moment. 

Forgiveness is the process of changing our focus.  We cease to focus on the flaws, the problems, the sins... we refocus on what is true.  We release our insistence on worshipping the projected problems and discomforts, and magnify instead the innocence and peace of God that is really here, this very now.  Changing focus in this way requires a commitment to Truth instead of our habitual perceptions.  To magnify God in our lives instead of our fantasies means we have to stop glorifying our imagined self and its serial adventures. 

The good news is that this really requires nothing at all... even the re-focusing is a symbol within the dream of separation from God.  We can't be separate from what is forever One.  We can't magnify what isn't there.  Like children being brought in from imaginary play to the loving arms of their family, we return to our Self in God through the magnification of our own innocence and perfection.

"Nor do we ask for fantasies.  For what we seek to look upon is really there.  And as our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world.  When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours.  And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well.  This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 181, 8:1-6