December 19, 2017

Healing is a concept that we often get all confused. The Course is clear that healing is of the mind, of our thoughts. Healing is the shift in perception from seeing ourselves and each other as separate to seeing ourselves and each other joined in Oneness. Our mind is focused on unity and joining – reality – rather than illusion. The Course tells us that reality and illusion cannot coexist in the mind because they are polar opposites. This is important to remember. We must let go of our attachment to the physical or temporal – illusion – for reality to bloom in our mind.

The inevitable compromise is the belief that the body must be healed, and not the mind. For this divided goal has given both an equal reality, which could be possible only if the mind is limited to the body and divided into little parts of seeming wholeness, but without connection. This will not harm the body, but it will keep the delusional thought system in the mind. Here, then, is healing needed. And it is here that healing is. For God gave healing not apart from sickness, nor established remedy where sickness cannot be. They are together, and when they are seen together, all attempts to keep both truth and illusion in the mind, where both must be, are recognized as dedication to illusion; and given up when brought to truth, and seen as totally unreconcilable with truth, in any respect or in any way.   T-19.I.6:1-7

Are we willing to compromise healing by maintaining the healing of both the body and mind even though they are irreconcilable? Think about this. Maintaining the goal of healing the body blocks the healing of our mind. It’s like asking if we want a healed body or happiness. I know, it’s an odd question. The way I have come to understand this contradiction is that the healing of our mind is the real solution – our real and most high goal. It is the solution to the problem of separation, the only problem we have. Spirit will guide the body in what is appropriate for each of our situations and our function in the world. I always say to myself, “I am here only to be truly helpful.” Spirit will provide me with the right perceptive or illusory conditions to fulfill my function in this world. I can definitely be happy with that and accept Spirit’s purpose for wherever and whatever my body is.

Faith is my key. My faith is that Spirit will provide for and guide me in my perceptive function this world. I can fully accept whatever that is in this world having faith that I am right where I need to be to be truly helpful in this world to my brothers and sisters. I have faith that I am truly complete and One with all Creation. I have faith that I am not separate but that I dwell in complete Oneness in the eternal present moment.  I am content to be who I am and to be truly helpful in this world. I have nothing to fear for I am whole.

Faith is the opposite of fear, as much a part of love as fear is of attack. Faith is the acknowledgment of union. It is the gracious acknowledgment of everyone as a Child of your most loving Creator, loved by your Creator like you, and therefore loved by you as yourself. It is your Creator’s Love that joins you and another, and for your Creator’s Love you would keep no one separate from yours. Each one appears just as they are perceived in the holy instant, united in your purpose to be released from guilt. You see the Christ in them, and they are healed because you look on what makes faith forever justified in everyone.   T-19.I.10:1-6

Have faith in your wholeness. Have faith in your divine nature and your Oneness with all Creation. Let go of your attachment to any fear you harbor against another and free them from your limitations. Grant yourself healing as you release your attachment to all fear and limitations. The healing you experience will free you in the eternal holy instant where you realize you are One with all in perfect Oneness. Allow this to be now, for it is already within you.

December 12, 2017

I think I can say without argument that all of us want peace. We may not always act that way, but peace is what we really want. And when we reach peace, we have so much more, more than we could ever imagine. Peace is attainable. Its attainability is within each of us as we release our perceived need for and belief in separation. We do not need to expend great effort to attain peace. But, we do need to be willing to change the way we look at ourselves and others and the world around us. Furthermore, peace is the result of our dedication to truth. And, faith is our dedication to truth as we journey to the awareness of who we are.

We said before that when a situation has been dedicated wholly to truth, peace is inevitable. Its attainment is the criterion by which the wholeness of the dedication can be safely assumed. Yet we also said that peace without faith will never be attained, for what is dedicated to truth as its only goal is brought to truth by faith. This faith encompasses everyone involved, for only thus the situation is perceived as meaningful and as a whole. And everyone must be involved in it, or else your faith is limited and your dedication incomplete.   T-19.I.1:1-5

Every situation, every encounter, is an opportunity to heal ourselves and each other. Remember, we are not healed alone. We are healed together. One is healed because we offered faith to them, giving them to Spirit and releasing them from every demand our egoic thought system would make of them. Thus, do we see them free. Spirit shares wholly in this vision, and in sharing that vision Spirit has given that vision to us, and so heals through us. It is this joining in a united purpose that makes this purpose real, because we make it whole. Do not think that healing is for the body, for the body is part of the illusion of separation. A segment of the mind can see itself as separated from the Universal Purpose. When this occurs, the body becomes its weapon, used against this Purpose, to demonstrate that separation has occurred. The body thus becomes the instrument of illusion; seeing what is not there, hearing what truth has never said and behaving insanely, being imprisoned by insanity.

The faith we need is the faith that we are all One, that we are One with each other and, thus there is no separation. Faithlessness leads straight to illusions, for faithlessness is the perception of another as a body, and the body cannot be used for purposes of union. If, then, we see another as a body, we have established a condition in which uniting with them becomes impossible. Our faithlessness to them has separated us from them, and kept both of us apart from being healed. Our faithlessness has thus opposed Spirit’s purpose, and brought illusions, centered on the body, to stand between us.

It cannot be difficult to realize that faith must be the opposite of faithlessness. Yet the difference in how they operate is less apparent, though it follows directly from the fundamental difference in what they are. Faithlessness would always limit and attack; faith would remove all limitations and make whole. Faithlessness would destroy and separate; faith would unite and heal. Faithlessness would interpose illusions between our true Self and our Creator; faith would remove all obstacles that seem to rise between them. Faithlessness is wholly dedicated to illusions; faith wholly to truth. Partial dedication is impossible. Truth is the absence of illusion; illusion the absence of truth. Both cannot be together, nor perceived in the same place. To dedicate yourself to both is to set up a goal forever impossible to attain, for part of it is sought through the body, thought of as a means for seeking out reality through attack. The other part would heal, and therefore calls upon the mind and not the body.   T-19.I.5:1-11

Have faith in the idea that we are One – that we are unified in Oneness. The willingness to have faith in Oneness is the starting place for Spirit to work in our minds, showing us a new perception of ourselves, others and the world. This opens us to a new perception of healing and the Universal Purpose we have blocked from our awareness.  Be open to new perceptions of what we think we see. With faith in Oneness, look beyond the appearance of everything and allow Spirit to show you a new meaning as you are led to truth and the attainment of peace.