ACIM Chapter 7.V. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind P 5-7. The Holy Spirit does not work by chance, and healing that is of Him always works.
ACIM Chapter 7.V. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind P 5-7
V. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind, P 5
5 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 consistent, since only consistency 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 in conflict, and is teaching conflict. Can anything of God not be for all and for always? 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 that only a conflicted mind could possibly perceive as meaningful.
Jesus seems to be telling me that healing is consistent because it is of God.
If there is fear, there will be exceptions and so inconsistency. If I experience inconsistency in my healing, then I would be a fearful healer, and that is not possible because it is a conflict in terms. What could that mean? This feels very confusing to me on the first read.
And yet, I heal, and sometimes I fall into fear, and I don’t heal because I heal through God, and God is not fear. Here is what I think: When I am healing through the Holy Spirit in my mind, there is no fear or doubt. I am a healer. When I try to heal from the perspective of the ego, I am afraid, and I doubt. Thus, no healing occurs. I am not a healer. Only one of those statements is true, even though there is the appearance of both. I know that there is nothing to fear. I know this is the truth, and so I must be a healer. Therefore, when I see the appearance of a fearful healer, I am looking at nothing.
When I see the appearance of anything less than the truth, I know it cannot be true or real. I disregard the appearance of what cannot be. And I turn toward the truth and look at what is real. I focus my attention on what I am, not what the ego would have me be. I forgive the appearance of fear and myself for my temporary distraction. Thus, I remain innocent, fearless, and free. I remain a healer.
V. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind P 6
6 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. It 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 consistent it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding means consistency because God means consistency. Since that is His meaning, it is also yours. Your meaning cannot be out of accord with His, because your whole meaning and your only meaning 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.
I probably don’t understand everything there is to understand in this paragraph.
But I understand that as I let go of fear, I become a consistent healer. I will be happy and free, and I will share this with others because we are one mind. Our minds will become happier and freer. All of this happens because I am created by God and am part of Him. Thus, healing consistency and understanding are part of God, so they are part of me.
What makes my heart sing is the last sentence.
You cannot separate your Self from your Creator, Who created you by sharing His Being with you.
If I seem to doubt and be uncertain, if I seem to be an inconsistent healer, if I seem fearful and guilty ever again, I know that I must be dreaming. None of this is in God, and therefore, none of this can be in me. That is the simple truth, and that is a fact. Everything else is an illusion and aside from asking for Atonement when I become confused, there is no reason for me to give any of the dark thoughts my attention. I cannot separate my Self from my Creator, Who created me by sharing His Being with me. I am, indeed, holy and complete, and it is not possible for this to change.
“Jesus, come with me today in all my doings and remind me to disregard appearances when they seem to grab my attention.”
V. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind P 7
7 The unhealed healer wants gratitude from his brothers, but he is not grateful to them. That 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. True 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 his mind, he has changed the most powerful device that was ever given him for change. 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 places you in a position of needing to learn a lesson that seems contradictory; – you must learn to change your mind about your mind. Only by this can you learn that it is changeless.
I will frequently remind myself that it is only my mind I heal.
It is only through changing my mind that I return to my Self. This does not mean I can change the world or my mind. It means that when I change the world, nothing happens. For instance, if I want to lose weight and change my diet, nothing has actually happened, even if I lose weight.
I have only changed an illusion (the diet) to change an illusion (the body). Another way to think of this is that I pretended to have a fat body and pretended to make a thinner body and pretended to effect this change by manipulating the illusion through eating differently. Now, I pretend that my manipulation gave me the thinner body I claim to want. I did a lot of nothing about nothing.
What if I change my mind about what I want instead of trying to play around with the illusion? I may still be only changing the illusion, but I am reminding myself of who I am by using my mind to do this rather than manipulating the illusion. I am learning to remember that my mind is powerful.
This is what Jesus says about changing the mind.
“…a Son of God can recognize his power in one instant and change the world in the next. That is because, by changing his mind, he has changed the most powerful device that was ever given him for change.” When I read those words today, they brought tears to my eyes. It is like suddenly remembering something wonderful and feeling the emotion of that memory.
But here is the truth. I don’t really have to think back to find a time when I changed the world by changing my mind. I do this all the time. Most of those times, it is in very small increments, and so I don’t realize what I have done right away. Only later do I notice how much my world has changed. But every time I change my mind, in that instant, the world changes, not just for me, but for all of us.
Lesson 190 says there is no pain.
When I first read this, I was at a loss as to how this could be true because I seemed to have pain, and it felt very real. As I continued to study and practice the lesson, I let go of what I believed about pain and changed my mind. I accepted that there is no pain. Even when I felt pain, I accepted there was no pain. I refused to be distracted by appearances, which are only illusions.
The pain I had been dealing with vanished. It took me many moments of working with that idea to come to full acceptance, but in that moment of full acceptance, the world changed. The sciatica pain was no longer something I felt in my body but was simply a projection from my mind and was alleviated through that change of mind. I continue to master that choice to believe the truth rather than appearances. It seems a very inconsistent experience for me because I still believe in exceptions, but that will change.
Jesus did this, and his accomplishment was our accomplishment. All I had to do was to accept it. I just had to talk myself into believing it. In my acceptance of his accomplishment, it became easier for the next person to do so. And, of course, I am not the only one to accept the truth, which made it easier for me to do so in my turn. We all benefit from every small shift in the mind.
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