"You Become What You Behold"

[parthens]

“You become what you behold.” (William Blake)

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18.)

In context, to behold is “to be” and “to hold”, holding my spiritual gaze upon the One beside Whom there is none else — my First Love — in a state of continual, present-tense being-ness.

This keeping or holding attention has nothing to do with bemused, distracted, “material ecstasy” (SH 7:17–23 and 14:6-9). But it has everything to do with holding to the Word of promise, jealously attentive to it, keeping myself in a Word-enriched, thoughtful, watchful state of heightened awareness of the One of whom I am image and likeness; the mindset and the stillness of a soldier standing at attention.

“Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept Thy word” (emphasis added): this also means keeping myself in state of “stern resolve to keep pace with highest purpose.” (SH 514:17-18.)

“[W]e all, with open face, beholding . . . are changed into . . ” that which we behold.

“With open face” means discarding the veil of mortal-mindedness, being open to receive heavenly instruction, open to change, yielded to Spirit as clay is to potter.

The word for “changed” is translated elsewhere in the New Testament as “transformed” and “transfigured”.

“From glory to glory” means that this change is not instantaneous but rather a metamorphosis, a step-by-step process.

[Florence]

Thanks for this post! It is a very helpful caution to check what I am beholding since this other citation confirms, “If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents, called disease and sin. ” SH 485. (Emphasis added)

Must keep the window of thought clean!!

[Author]

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