Healing: What It Is… What It Isn’t

April 18, 2019

**Welcome to The School for A Course in Miracles…**

Weekly Online Classes…

Online:

Six Month In-depth Immersion Program

on The Healing & Forgiveness Processes

in the book “A Course in Miracles”…

Online January thru June Every Year

**(open to all, especially those recently drawn to A Course in Miracles)**

School for A Course in Miracles:

Video Replays on The Topic of Healing …

In Chapter 21, Sec. II of the book “A Course in Miracles,”

Jesus tells 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 states what is actually going on?

‘Only my condemnation (of others and myself) injures me.’

What healing is…

What healing isn’t?

What does the Course mean by the healing of my mind?

(by Tim Wise)

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 took me a while to realize that in content they all basically meant the same thing. That freed me to not get so bogged down in sometimes subtle differences, depending on how Jesus was 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?”

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.

So… healing= forgiveness= Atonement= a miracle= true perception !

Ok then, what is their shared meaning? 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 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 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 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 chosen belief in that separation .

So how do we then 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 puppet! 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…

So 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, 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, only on our internal choice of teachers.**

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.

—————————————–

In summary then, what is healing in the Course? Forgiveness..

What isn’t healing in the Course? Healing is never about healing of the body… but only our mind.

Healing References in The Course:

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).

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

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

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?

Psychotherapy

The Process of Psychotherapy – III. 3-4; V. 4-8; VII. 4, 7; VIII. 1-3

Song of Prayer

S3.in

S3.III.4-6

Here’s a link to Ken Wapnick CD sets and books on “Healing.”

click here

SFACIM Video on “Hurting Ourselves” Part One:

Click here

SFACIM Video on “Hurting Ourselves” Part Two:

Click Here

Musings: Is It Healing or Fixing?

October 15, 2014

“You can’t fix what isn’t real. What’s real doesn’t need fixing.”

When you see a problem in someone else—sickness, mood, disposition—it is your mind that is in need of healing, not the one in whom the problem appears to reside.

There is only one problem…..ever. It is the idea of separation in the mind. If the indivisibility of a single whole mind is to be recognized, healing of the mind must occur.

A Course in Miracles is maddeningly relentless and impeccable in its teaching of non-duality. It leaves no un-swept corners in the mind where the ego’s belief in separation can remain hidden. One of those corners is our own good intentions to help others with their problems without first healing ourselves.

When we attempt to fix problems in someone else we are missing the point. It is an opportunity for our own healing, not someone else’s. Only a healed healer can heal. He heals by knowing we are all already healed. The certainty in his mind extends through his mind to other minds without him doing anything for which he could take either credit or blame.

This is not to say that one could not also do something in whatever form might be most helpful. However his certainty is that regardless of what he does in form, healing is already accomplished.

How different this is from fixing which can only occur where there is an idea of inequality and of “other”.

Yesterday someone tried to fix a problem that I thought I had. He first had to make the problem real by agreeing with it. He then took out his tools that he had learned in a training and began to try to fix my problem. The feeling that arose within me as this was going on was one of inequality. He, with his solution, was superior to me with my problem. Now we both had the same sickness, separation. There was no way out.

When we try to heal at the level of form we are attempting to keep the real problem which is in the mind. That way the ego, our false sense of self, is preserved.

This whole situation illustrated the important distinction between healing and fixing. If there is anything but perfect equality in any relationship the idea of competition has entered the mind. How can there be healing where there is one who is superior? Separation is reinforced rather than healed.

Unhealed healers believe the problem is where it is not, in the body and not the mind. The fact is that we are all already healed…..no exception. Minds are already joined and there is only one.

Nothing that is real that could possibly need fixing. Nothing unreal exists. We do not believe that however, or we wouldn’t be seeing the world of suffering that we see. It is the seer that needs to change the way in which he sees. He needs to learn to see with different eyes and hear with different ears. For that shift he needs a Teacher from beyond the world of form, one that doesn’t believe in differences of any kind.

A Course in Miracles teaches us how to make ourselves accessible to a Teacher who can show us how to look with a single eye from beyond the body and see a different world. This translocation of self from identification with the body to a singular consciousness is the awakened state we all pretend to seek and at the same time fear. It is the shift from the personal and the private, to the oneness of heaven and non-specificity. This is the land of “no-thing” and it is this that you and I fear. That’s what God is. And that’s what Love is. And thats what the Peace of God is. And that’s Heaven. And that’s what you are afraid of.

Would you like to live without fear? Would you like to experience Love? Would you like to be free of torment?

Musings : “I need devoted teachers…”

May 28, 2013

jesus-knocking-door — **“I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind.”**

**A Course in Miracles is about healing the mind and nothing else.**

In the Manual for Teachers, Question #9, “Are changes required in the life situations of God’s teachers?”, Jesus replies: “Changes are required in the minds of God’s teachers.” The emphasis on the word minds is Jesus’, not mine.

The confusion of the mind with the brain is an error made by even the brightest scholars throughout history to include present day. It has taken the mind of Jesus– a mind that is free of illusions– to teach us the distinction between mind and brain so that we can avail ourselves of a power that will change our destiny from one that always ends in death to one of resurrection of the mind and eternal life.

Life is in the mind, and only the mind. There is no world and there are no bodies! They only appear as real to us by our desire to see them. If we are willing to learn they are imagined we would never be affected by either of them.

This may seem an impossible task and yet Jesus assures us that it is not only possible but that it is simple. The difficulty lies only in our resistance. In spite of our enormous suffering, we want to be right about who, what, and where we think we are.

We think we are children of the ego, the home of “evil, darkness and sin”. We think we are bodies, born of other bodies. And we think we live in a world that can affect us positively or negatively.

Early on in our School for A Course in Miracles classes it became obvious that even longtime students did not know that they had a mind, let alone how to change it. How then, could they possibly do Jesus’ Course and experience the benefits of returning their minds to the Teacher for truth. Not only that, but how could they fulfill the function that made them the one teacher needed to save the world?

It seemed to us that the first order of business for our school was to offer a course in which students learned the importance of the mind, that they had one, how to access it, and how to change it. That course is the Course Immersion. It makes teachers of God out of its students. “A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this: somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else’s”. M. 1. 1:1-2.

On January 13, 2016, a group of earnest students, guided by Jesus and his Course along with scholar Kenneth Wapnick and devoted teachers and mentors of the School for A Course in Miracles, began together a six month immersion in the study and application of the Course. This was the 4th Immersion offered since the founding of the school in 2007. To date we have shepherded 20 students through the program.

The Course Immersion is an intimate accelerated learning opportunity for a small number of earnest students. Our curriculum emphasizes that students, teachers and mentors make the journey together. We are all learning the same lesson– “God’s Son is guiltless” — and we all share the same Teacher of forgiveness. Perhaps the teacher has become less resistant to changing his mind and can stand as an example of humility and the benefits of becoming a happy learner. In the end the teacher and student learn they are the same.

Mentorship is a unique aspect of the CI program. Each student is given a mentor to support him in the right-minded use of the classrooms life presents him with. In this mutually beneficial relationship, mentor and student experience the shared purpose that gives meaning to all relationships.

What are the benefits of the Course Immersion?

Your feet will be set firmly on the gentle path of forgiveness that leads to God, and nowhere else.

You will learn your lessons in the company of students, mentors, helpers and teachers who share the same yearning to learn another way of being in the world that benefits all beings.

Finally, you will learn that reality is a shared experience that exists in the minds of those who share the same thought system of healing and forgiveness and listen to the same Teacher. It is a community of love.

If you feel called to participate in the upcoming Course Immersion in January 2018, or would like more information please click here.

Musings: What is Healing?

March 20, 2013

“The Holy Spirit speaks to you.
He does not speak to someone else.”
ACIM Text, page 576

Only you can be healed.
You are a mind, not a body and not a brain.

“At no instant does the body exist at all.”
The body is a dream figure in a mind that has not yet awakened from its sleep.
When the mind is healed, love will extend from it to all minds because minds are joined; bodies are not. A Course in Miracles must be learned entirely or not at all because it is an uncompromising teaching in non-duality. It foretells the end of the ego which becomes suspicious and then vicious when it hears any message of non-specific, indivisible love.

Attempts to heal others are avoidance strategies. By focusing on others we escape the only healing there can be– our own. “Others” , or better, the idea of otherness, exists only in the unhealed mind. When it is healed there are no “others”. Beingness is all-inclusive. There is no specialness in being, therefore the ego hates it.

We can’t do love. We can only be love.

When we want to be healed our single purpose makes it possible not only for ourselves but for everyone because minds are joined.
If it is that simple why do we not want to commit to our own healing? Because we are afraid.

And why are we afraid? Because our idea of love is an attack in which we, a separate person, give our own version of love to another or other separate persons. We are not the author of love. We are afraid because we feel guilty for “doing” love on our own terms instead of surrendering to the Love that is our Source. Special love (the ego’s idea of love) brings guilt and guilt demands/expects punishment. The guilt, of course, is denied and buried, but we remain fearful without knowing why.

The answer to love as an attack is in the holy instant where there are no others, because the holy instant is the recognition that you are free of the past, the future, and the body. It is here and only here that you are healed and love is welcomed. In welcoming love you are blessing the world.

Your own healing is all that is required to heal the world of all its suffering.
True healing offers love without attack. You don’t heal or help someone else. You accept it for yourself by coming to this instant and laying aside all questions, longings, wanting, everything you think you know about yourself and others. In the holy instant everything is done for you and you will remember the real world in which there is nothing to fear.

Musings: The Decision Maker

February 18, 2010

That night Deepak Chopra was speaking to 2400 people in Calgary on non-violence. His goal was “to have at least 100 million people join him in a vow of non-violence in thought, speech and action”.

This is a worthwhile goal and I support it. But let’s be clear what that would mean for each of us if we really were to join him.

“The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure and for pride”. Text, p.105.

The relationship between attack and who uses the body is the significant part of that statement. The ego uses the body for attack. There is another possibility.

There are two possible commanders of the body. You are not the body. You are the one that chooses the commander. That “you” is in the mind and to make it a little more palpable we’ll give that “you” a name. I’ve heard many names but none has really appealed to me. For now we will refer to it as The Decision Maker. If you come up with one that works better for you, be my guest.

The Decision Maker is your self just prior to the insane choice you made for the ego and its symbol—the body. You still are the decision maker. Instead of being the one run by the needs of the body you are the one who decides if you want to continue in that way.

Just to flesh this out a little more so you understand the choice, the ego is:

a false sense of self

the you that you think you are

the one that likes being an individual, self-centered, separate

the one who sees the world in terms of what it means for you

the little self– the one who is needy and afraid of just about everyone and everything

The false self (ego) uses the body for pleasure, pride, and for attack.

If the ego were not using your body attack, pleasure and pride would not be useful or appealing.

The other option is to put the body in the hands of The Teacher. The Teacher uses your body for another purpose, but you need to become a learner first. This is a good time to point out that “Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you.” Text, p. 381.

Who/what is using your body?

Without changing the voice in command of the body, violence will continue. This is very important to understand because not seeing it is what it means to be caught in the dream of perception. You don’t think there is an alternative.

This is a decision that each of us eventually will make. All other attempts to bring peace to the world will fail.

More than likely if you are hearing this you are beginning to feel the disillusionment of being identified with the figure (body) in the dream. It’s not so hot being you anymore. You may even be a little bored with your self concept.

In letting go of our attachment to it there is nothing to defend.

When we stop defending we cannot be attacked. ( The famous relevant lesson in the Course is “If I defend myself I am attacked.”)

We only appear to be attacked because we are defending something that isn’t real. That is the meaning of:

“Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God”.

When we know God’s peace, we also know it envelops the world. The problem was only one of a false sense of self.

Welcome to The School for A Course in Miracles…