ACIM Chapter 7. IV. Healing as the Recognition of Truth, P 3-5. The ego does not want to teach everyone all it has learned, because that would defeat its purpose. Therefore it does not really learn at all.
ACIM Chapter 7. IV. Healing as the Recognition of Truth, P 3-5
IV. Healing as the Recognition of Truth, P 3
3 The ego does not want to teach everyone all it has learned, because that would defeat its purpose. Therefore it does not really learn at all. The Holy Spirit teaches you to use what the ego has made, to teach the opposite of what the ego has “learned.” The kind of learning is as irrelevant as is the particular ability that was applied to the learning. All you need do is make the effort to learn, for the Holy Spirit has a unified goal for the effort. If different abilities are applied long enough to one goal, the abilities themselves become unified. This is because they are channelized in one direction, or in one way. Ultimately, then, they all contribute to one result, and by so doing, their similarity rather than their differences is emphasized.
I have the ability to write clearly.
I use this ability to help us wake up. Having developed the ability to hear the Voice for God, I use it to to help us wake up. I have the ability to speak effectively. I use that ability to help us wake up. Teaching is another ability I have and it is used to help us wake up. I have developed the ability to be instantly aware of ego thinking and to look at it with the Holy Spirit so that I can be corrected. I do this to help us all awaken. If I was given the ability of clairvoyance, I would use it to help us wake up.
All abilities that are given to me are used for the same purpose, just as all circumstances in my life are used for that purpose. Spirit guides me to use all things for the same purpose, and this consistency makes them all the same. All my gifts are simply the gift to help achieve the one purpose.
How does this differ from the way the ego uses abilities?
The ego sees the abilities as a way to differentiate itself from others. If used by the ego, maybe I would use the ability to write as a way to seek fame and the ability to speak as a way to make others smaller so I would seem bigger. I would probably use my ability to be aware of my ego to justify my thoughts or to place blame elsewhere. Maybe I would use the ability to teach as a way to make a living, and if I was clairvoyant, maybe I would use that to prove I was special.
The ego uses everything for different purposes. The gifts have different meanings according to the goal that is to be achieved, and different meanings depending on the person using the gift. The one thing they have in common is that the ego use of gifts always leads to separation and specialness. So, no matter how successful the use of the gift, the result inevitably leads away from the Kingdom.
IV. Healing as the Recognition of Truth, P 4
4 All abilities should therefore be given over to the Holy Spirit, Who understands how to use them properly. He uses them only for healing, because He knows you only as whole. By healing you learn of wholeness, and by learning of wholeness you learn to remember God. You have forgotten Him, but the Holy Spirit understands that your forgetting must be translated into a way of remembering.
To be certain that our abilities are properly used is to give them to the Holy Spirit. He will then guide and direct their use. He will use them for healing, and this healing will remind us of who we are and where we are. We will remember that we are whole when we start looking at everyone as a brother and someone we love. Then, we will remember God. What can any experience on earth give us that would be as meaningful as remembering God?
If you ask me who I am, I will tell you that I am God’s Son, His creation, and the extension of Himself. I am in God and part of God. I am holy, and I am whole. That is who I am. For a long time, those were words I said but didn’t actually relate to. But I trust Jesus and trust his guidance so I continued to say them until they began to mean something to me. The words were not changing me. They were reminding me of what I am now, always have been, and always will be.
What does it feel like to be in the world as my holy Self, Jesus?
That is what I wanted to know and what I wanted to be. I wanted to be awakened to that. So I gladly gave all my abilities to Spirit, and I asked that He guide me to use them in whatever way would be useful to us all. When I became distracted by worldly attractions and imagined some other purpose for my abilities, I asked that He gently shake me back awake. Now, when I feel pulled into a story, I ask this: How would I be if I were awake? And I be that.
IV. Healing as the Recognition of Truth P 5
5 The ego’s goal is as unified as the Holy Spirit’s, and it is because of this that their goals can never be reconciled in any way or to any extent. The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal. As you heal you are healed, because the Holy Spirit sees no order of difficulty in healing. Healing is the way to undo the belief in differences, being the only way of perceiving the Sonship as one. This perception is therefore in accord with the laws of God, even in a state of mind that is out of accord with His. The strength of right perception is so great that it brings the mind into accord with His, because it serves His Voice, Which is in all of you.
Healing is the way to undo the belief in differences, being the only way of perceiving the Sonship as one.
This is the sentence that draws my attention. How does this work? I asked for clarity, and this is what came to me. I heal others by seeing the truth in them. This applies in all cases, regardless of circumstances. If someone is sick, I know this cannot be.
Yes, the body takes on the projection of the dark thoughts in the ego mind and appears sick. But that one is not the ego or the body. That one is the spirit. He is God’s Son and cannot be sick. I heal him by not believing the dark thoughts and not believing that the effects of those thoughts have any validity. These effects, the sickness in the body, are meaningless and will be undone as the mind is healed. My part in the healing of the mind is to know this as completely as I can. I do not allow my mind to be distracted by false appearances. As I do this, I, too, am healed.
It does not apply only to the physical.
This is just as true and applicable if the effect of wrong-minded thinking takes the form of mental illness or emotional upset. It is no different if the effect appears as financial hardship, broken relationships, or addictive behaviors. There is only one problem, and that is the belief that we are separate from God. The solution is the certainty that this cannot be true. This is healing.
As we heal through our willingness to know only the truth, we are healed. Our willingness grows, and with it, our certainty. We learn that we are one as our light enlightens another, and we learn that all sickness is the same sickness and all healing occurs as a result of the same true thought. We learn that different appearances are meaningless and that shifting form does not mean shifting reality. As we heal and are healed, we learn that there is only one problem and one solution, and in so doing, we learn to perceive the Sonship as one.