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What healing is…
What healing isn’t…
And what does the Course mean by the healing of my mind?
The book A Course in Miracles uses the words heal/healer/healing more than 725 times… only about 100 times less than forgive/forgiveness/forgiven (835). How are forgiveness and healing related in the Course? How are they the same? How are they different?
Early on in my beginning exposure to the Course, the list of Course words associated with a transcendent experience of holiness (ie, guiltlessness) began to grow and grow… a miracle, forgiveness, healing, reason, a holy instant, true perception, Atonement, the face of Christ, etc.
It takes most of us a while to realize that in content they all basically mean the same thing. It frees us to not get so bogged down in sometimes subtle differences, depending on how Jesus is using the words. One of the places in the Course where Jesus explicitly points out their sameness is in the Manual p.55 on “How are healing and Atonement related?”
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Healing and Atonement are not related; they are identical. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified (true) perception…
… To forgive is to heal. The teacher of God has taken accepting the Atonement for himself as his only function. What is there, then, he cannot heal? What miracle can be withheld from him?
… That forgiveness is healing needs to be understood, if the teacher of God is to make progress.
Manual p.85, par. 3:
For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to Oneness far beyond themselves.
Healing= forgiveness= Atonement= a miracle= true perception !
What is their shared meaning, then? That answer lies in a closer look at what and where the “only” problem is, and what and where the one and only solution is. Workbook Lessons 79 & 80 are emphatic and uncompromising that our only problem (in spite of all our seeming issues in the world) is our belief in our mind in separation from Our Father in Heaven, which never really happened. The healing of that belief is our forgiving (i.e. admitting and letting go) of that belief. Our awakening in true perception that separation is impossible and our real identity as God’s One Son is still intact… that’s the definition of Atonement in the Course.
Another similar helpful realization is that all the words, associated with an ego-based wrong-minded experience in our mind, are also the same in content, and could be used interchangeably… sin, guilt, fear, anger, wrong perception, sickness, death, separation, grievances and judgement… all mean the same thing, all stem from our belief that sin/ guilt/ fear and separation from Our Father are even possible.
The mistake or common problem we all have is we take this condition of sin and guilt in our mind and project that onto the world of bodies. Now we think sin and guilt are alive and “well,” but it’s not in us (not in our minds)… it’s in the world, in the other guy. He’s the one that’s to blame now; he’s the guilty party. And in time and space he may well be guilty of doing not very nice things… but that’s not our real issue.
Our brother’s seeming guilt is just a projection and distraction from the sickness and guilt we feel in our own mind for having pushed God out of our own awareness. And that’s where, in the internal place the Course calls the mind, the only remedy or healing can take place for us.
(1) We start with our perception of our brother’s guilt, (2) honestly admit to ourselves that is what we think (that he is to blame for our lack of peace), and then (3) be willing to have Jesus show me my brother’s sin in the world is simply an outward picture of my own inner condition, i.e. belief in my own guilt. Jesus will help me then experience that my brothers’ seeming sins and my own have had no effect on our one true innocent identity. Jesus still loves us… he didn’t go anywhere. We are still God’s One Innocent Son.
Lesson 325
All things I think I see reflect ideas.
This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want (the tiny mad idea of sin and separation). From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires (to see I am guilty of separation), judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward (the guilt is now in others, not me), looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world (the world we see was made as an attack on God and on our Identity as His Son). From judgment (of ourselves as guilty) comes a world condemned (others are now guilty). And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world (the real world) comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God (and not condemnation), to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.
What healing in the Course isn’t…
In light of what we said above that the only sickness is in the mind is due to our belief in separation from God, then the solution for that ‘sick’ belief is the Holy Spirit helping us to acknowledge and let go our unconscious chosen belief in that separation .
So how do we deal with sickness, disease, broken limbs, or anything in the body. Do we take our vitamins, or exercise, or should we do any of the stuff we do to keep our bodies healthy?
One way of looking at our bodies is to see them as reflections of the choice between the two inner teachers (ego or Holy Spirit) in our mind. In that sense our bodies are simply puppets of which puppeteer (teacher/guide) in our mind we have chosen. When we choose the voice of separation (ego), we identify and see our made up separated selves as bodies (in which the ego puppeteer actually believes he is the puppet). Just believing we are a separate body moving in a world of separation is the “sick” or psychotic belief… whether the body seems to be healthy or not. Sickness in the Course has nothing to do with the condition of the body. The sickness is that we believe we are a body… period!
Can you imagine going to a puppet show and you realize the puppeteer believes he actually is his puppets! That would probably make us all pretty nervous.
At the mind level, remember the real healing is simply letting go of believing we separated from God and are now vulnerable bodies at the mercy of others. That was the ego’s purpose for believing it’s a body in the first place. We maintain the seeming separation, but the pain we feel (the horror of separating from Our Father) is now blamed on something or someone else. The real source of pain, of belief in separation in the mind, is forgotten and projected out onto others.
So… that projection could be on a person who harmed me, or a germ that made me sick. Whatever it was, the ego says I didn’t do it…I didn’t choose this pain, but it was done to me.
Just below the surface of any physical or psychological pain we are feeling, there is always a ‘face’… some one or some thing we are pointing a finger at… and we are saying to them it’s all your fault. However, it is simply our constant ego need to blame others for the pain from our own internal choice to be separate from God and each other. We still feel the pain of that belief in separation (the pain is a way to prove to ourselves we really separated). But now we blame the pain on something outside our minds… on the world with all its other bodies, and then judge them as the culprit. They are responsible for my pain, not me. That’s the lie we tell ourselves…
Back to exercise or vitamins or bodies staying healthy…
Jesus tells us that the question we need to ask of anything is what’s it really for? What’s my body’s purpose?
If our bodies are puppets or reflections of our mind’s chosen inner guide (ego or HS), then the question should not be… do I want an intact healthy puppet or a broken sick puppet to communicate with other puppets. The truly helpful question would be… what do I want to communicate: what is my body’s purpose? Is it to convey the message of the ego and tell others the pain of my separation is their fault? Or is it the Holy Spirit message (from Les. #201-220): we are not bodies (puppets), we are free, and we are still as God created us.
Either a seemingly healthy puppet, or a seemingly sick puppet, can and will work to communicate either message. The choice is which purpose, which message do I want to share (peace or blame) with my brothers… and not what shape my puppet’s in.
Our bodies are simply communication devices. Do we want them operating properly? Jesus doesn’t care about bodies; it’s our mind he’s concerned about. If we think a healthy puppet helps us carry the HS message in our awareness to others and ourselves, then why not take the vitamins. If our puppets function better with exercise, then exercise if we want to. Respect our bodies/our puppets as classrooms to help others and ourselves wake up. Just try not to take the puppet’s make-believe ‘health,’ or lack of it, too seriously.
Remember… our peace of mind does not depend, and will never depend, on our body’s apparent condition…
but, in any given moment, our peace of mind depends only on our internal choice of the Holy Spirit or Jesus as our teacher instead of the ego.
Excerpts from Lesson 132:
I loose the world (and my body) from all I thought it was.
The world (and the body) is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes (our choice to believe in separation and guilt), acted out so you can look on them (our wishes) and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world (or your body), but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came.
Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world (including the way we see our body) must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source (in the mind).
There is no world! (There is no body!)
This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth.
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In summary then, what is healing in the Course? It’s forgiveness.
What isn’t healing in the Course? Healing is never about healing of the body… but only the healing of our mind through forgiveness… that is, letting go with Jesus help the tiny mad idea that we could be separated from God, that we could be sick.
In Chapter 21, Sec. II of the book “A Course in Miracles,” The Course says to each of us that:
I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.
Could that possibly be true? What if ACIM Workbook Lesson 198 describes what’s going on when I feel sick or in pain?
‘Only my condemnation (of others and myself) injures me.’
Healing References in
A Course in Miracles:
Healing is mentioned in seven of the first 50 miracle principles at the beginning of the Text, p.3-5 (# 8, 17, 20, 23, 24,29, 37).
Two Chapter titles include “healing” … Chap. 5 (Healing and Wholeness) and Chap. 27 (Healing of The Dream).
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Twelve Section titles in the Text contain ‘healing”:
Ch. 2. IV. Healing as Release from Fear
Ch. 5. IV. Teaching and Healing
Ch. 7. IV. Healing as Recognition of Truth
Ch. 7. V. Healing and Changelessness
Ch. 8. IX. Healing as Corrected Perception
Ch. 9. V. The Unhealed Healer
Ch. 11. II. Invitation to Healing
Ch. 17 V. The Healed Relationship
Ch. 19 I. Healing and Faith
Ch. 26 VII. The Laws of Healing
Ch. 27 II. The Fear of Healing
Ch. 27. V. The Healing Example
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Workbook
Lesson 136. Sickness is a defense against the truth
Lesson 137. When I am healed I am not healed alone
Lesson 140. Only salvation can be said to cure
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Manual
5. How is healing accomplished?
6. Is healing certain?
7. Should healing be repeated?
22. How are healing and Atonement related?
23. Does Jesus have a special place in healing?
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Psychotherapy
The Process of Psychotherapy – III. 3-4; V. 4-8; VII. 4, 7; VIII. 1-3
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Song of Prayer
S3.in
S3.III.4-6
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