2 Corinthians 3:13 Meaning And Not as Moses

The veil over the face is the covering laid across the mind that keeps the ordinary faculties from gazing steadily at the fading of the old law within. When the inner lawgiver comes down radiant from the high place of the head, the light is screened so the lesser powers, still bound to outward rule, cannot look through to where that whole order dissolves. The covering keeps consciousness from seeing that the letter it obeyed is passing away. Its removal would let the inner tribes stare straight into the end of the outward commandment and find the living light it only reflected.

Vail: the covering over the mind that shields the ordinary faculties from the fading radiance of the inner law. Face: the shining surface of the higher self, the countenance that glows when the crown of the head is illumined. Children of Israel: the assembled faculties within a person, the inner tribes still trained to the outward rule.

There is a way of hiding the truth to protect a fading glow, covering the face so no one sees the shine slowly leave. The subtler fault is the fear of being caught mid-change, the wish to look finished while one is still becoming.

The cure is honesty about the fading, letting the old brightness go instead of staging it. What was passing away had only ever been a borrowed gleam, and the true light does not dim. It shows itself best in the face that stops pretending and lets the covering fall.