March 23, 2018

Day 80 - A Course in Miracles

Day 80 - A Course in Miracles


CHAPTER 7
The Consistency of the Kingdom

VI. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind

39 The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities. It is therefore a means for developing potentials , which is quite apart from what the potential is used for . That is a decision . The effects of the ego's decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here, but the Holy Spirit's decision to use the body only for communication has such a direct connection with healing that it does need clarification. The unhealed healer obviously does not understand his own vocation.


40 Only minds communicate. Since the ego cannot obliterate the impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to create, the ego can only teach you that the body can both communicate and create and therefore does not need the mind. The ego thus tries to teach you that the body can act like the mind and is therefore self-sufficient. Yet we have learned that behavior is not the level for either teaching or learning. This must be so, since you can act in accordance with what you do not believe. To do this, however, will weaken you as teachers and learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you do believe. An inconsistent lesson will be poorly taught and poorly learned . If you teach both sickness and healing, you are both a poor teacher and a poor learner.

41 Healing is the one ability which everyone can develop and must develop if he is to be healed. Healing is the Holy Spirit's form of communication and the only one He knows. He recognizes no other, because He does not accept the ego's confusion of mind and body. Minds can communicate, but they cannot hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other bodies , but this cannot occur unless the body has already been confused with the mind. This fact, too, can be used either for healing or for magic, but you must remember that magic is always the belief that healing is harmful . This is its totally insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.

42 Healing only strengthens . Magic always tries to weaken. Healing perceives nothing in the healer that everyone else does not share with him. Magic always sees something "special" in the healer which he believes he can offer as a gift to someone who does not have it. He may believe that the gift comes fromGod to Him, but it is quite evident that he does not understand God if he thinks he has something that others lack . You might well ask, then, why some healing can result from this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for this.

43 However misguided the "magical healer" may be, he is also trying to help. He is conflicted and unstable, but at times he is offering something to the Sonship, and the only thing the Sonship can acceptis healing. When the so-called "healing" works, then, the impulse to help and to be helped have coincided. This is coincidental because the healer may not be experiencing himself as truly helpful at the time, but the belief that he is , in the mind of another, helps him .

44 The Holy Spirit does not work by chance, and healing that is of Him always works. Unless the healer always heals by Him, the results will vary. Yet healing itself is consistence since only consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free are whole. By accepting exceptions and acknowledging that he can sometimes heal and sometimes not, the healer is obviously accepting inconsistency. He is therefore inconflict and teaching conflict. Can anything of God not be for all and for always?

45 Love is incapable of any exceptions. Only if there is fear does the idea of exceptions seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are fearful because they are made by fear. The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms and is therefore a concept which only a conflicted mind could possibly perceive as meaningful. Fear does not gladden. Healing does . Fear always makes exceptions. Healing never does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces separation . Healing always produces harmony because it proceeds from integration.

46 Healing is predictable because it can be counted on. Everything that is of God can be counted on because everything of God is wholly real . Healing can be counted on because it is inspired by His Voice and is in accord with His laws. Yet if healing is consistence, it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding means consistence because God means consistence. Since that is His meaning, it is also yours . Your meaning cannot be out of accord with His because your whole meaning, and your onlymeaning, comes from His and is like His. God cannot be out of accord with Himself , and you cannot be out of accord with Him. You cannot separate your self from your Creator, Who created you by sharing His being with you .

47 The unhealed healer wants gratitude from his brothers, but he is not grateful to them. This is because he thinks he is giving something to them and is not receiving something equally desirable in return. His teaching is limited because he is learning so little. His healing lesson is limited by his own ingratitude, which is a lesson in sickness . Learning is constant and so vital in its power for change that a Son of God can recognize his power in one instant and change the world in the next. That is because by changing hismind he has changed the most powerful device that was ever created for change.

48 This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as God created it, but you think that you have changed it as long as you learn through the ego. This does place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which seems contradictory—you must learn to change your mind about your mind. Only by this can you learn that it is changeless. When you heal that is exactly what you are learning. You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by realizing that he could not have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is only the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he can , or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self is .

49 If you see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him at all. By changing your mind about his for him, you help him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol which you may worship out of fear but which you will never love. The other shows you only truth, which you will love because you will understand it. Understanding is appreciation because what you understand you can identify with, and by making it part of you , you have accepted it with love.

50 That is how God Himself created you —in understanding, in appreciation, and in love. The ego is totally unable to understand this, because it does not understand what it makes; it does not appreciate it; and it does not love it. It incorporates to take away. It literally believes that every time it deprives someone of something, it has increased. We have spoken often of the increase of the Kingdom by your creations, which can only be created as you were. The whole glory and perfect joy that is the Kingdom lies in you to give. Do you not want to give it?
51 You cannot forget the Father because I am with you, and I cannot forget Him. To forget me is to forget yourself and Him Who created you. Our brothers are forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of me and Him who created me. Through this remembrance, you can change their minds about themselves , as I can change yours. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours. I do not want to share my body in communion, because that is to share nothing. [Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father?] Yet I do want to share my mind with you because we are of One Mind and that Mind is ours.

52 See only this Mind everywhere because only this is everywhere and in everything. It is everything because it encompasses all things within itself . Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you perceive only what is true. Come therefore unto me and learn of the truth in you . The Mind we share is shared by all our brothers, and as we see them truly, they will be healed. Let your mind shine with mine upon their minds, and by our gratitude to them make them aware of the light in them .

53 This light will shine back upon you and on the whole Sonship because this is your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship because it is acceptable to Him and therefore to His Sons. This is the true communion of the Spirit, Who sees the altar of God in everyone and, by bringing it to your appreciation, calls upon you to love God and His creations. You can appreciate the Sonship only as one. This is part of the Law of Creation and therefore governs all thought.



A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK

Lesson 80
Let me recognize my problems have been solved.

1 If you are willing to recognize your problems, you will recognize that you have no problems. Your one central problem has been answered, and you have no other. Therefore you must be at peace. Salvation does depend on recognizing this one problem and understanding that it has been solved. One problem—one solution. Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation.

2 Your only problem has been solved! Repeat this over and over to yourself today with gratitude and conviction. You have recognized your only problem, opening the way for the Holy Spirit to give you God's answer. You have laid deception aside and seen the light of truth. You have accepted salvation for yourself by bringing the problem to the answer. And you can recognize the answer because the problem has been identified.

3 You are entitled to peace today. A problem that has been resolved cannot trouble you. Only be certain you do not forget that all problems are the same. Their many forms will not deceive you while you remember this. One problem—one solution. Accept the peace this simple statement brings.

4 In our longer practice periods today, we will claim the peace that must be ours when the problem and the answer have been brought together. The problem must be gone because God's answer cannot fail. Having recognized one, you have recognized the other. The solution is inherent in the problem. You are answered and have accepted the answer. You are saved.

5 Now let the peace that your acceptance brings be given you. Close your eyes and receive your reward. Recognize that your problems have been solved. Recognize that you are out of conflict, free, and at peace. Above all, remember that you have one problem and that the problem has one solution. It is in this that the simplicity of salvation lies. It is because of this that it is guaranteed to work.

6 Assure yourself often today that your problems have been solved. Repeat the idea with deep conviction as frequently as possible. And be particularly sure to remember to apply the idea for today to any specific problem that may arise. Say quickly:

7 Let me recognize this problem has been solved.

8 Let us be determined not to collect grievances today. Let us be determined to be free of problems that do not exist. The means is simple honesty. Do not deceive yourself about what the problem is, and you must recognize it has been solved.



365 Days Through A Course in Miracles
            A Daily Miracle Lesson


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