ACIM Chapter 8. IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 3, 4

ACIM Chapter 8. IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 3, 4

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 3

³ Wholeness heals because it is of the mind. All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce sleeping out of fear of waking. This is a pathetic way of trying not to see by rendering the faculties for seeing ineffectual. “Rest in peace” is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is joining. Dreams are illusions of joining, because they reflect the ego’s distorted notions about what joining is. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on behalf of waking if you will let Him.

I still use sickness and pain on occasion to avoid awakening, but I am very aware of what I am doing. If I do get sick or have pain, I never believe I got sick because I caught something, or I am in pain because I hurt myself, or anything like that. I know that I am sick or in pain because I am holding onto an ego belief. I am projecting it onto the body in an attempt to prove I am this body and nothing else, and so prove the illusion is real. Because I know what I am doing and why, I quickly return to sanity and ask that my mind be healed.

Sickness has another purpose as well.

Sickness not only serves as proof the body is real but that it is separate and in need of defense. It seems to prove that there is a whole world of separate and threatening things and people, and I need to be on the alert at all times, ready to fend them off. People spread their germs and make me sick is a common ego strategy to keep us separate and defensive.

This seems very real and unavoidable. The person on the plane seated practically on top of me had a cold and was sniffling and sneezing. If I believe in the ego idea of sickness as an attack from outside me, I would try to turn away from this person and protect myself so I don’t get his cold. Doing this for a couple of hours would probably cause me to become resentful. So, in other words, I would believe he was guilty. Now, I have reinforced the belief in guilt in my own mind, so I have attacked him and myself.

Here is the way I have learned to understand this situation.

I believe in sickness and suffering, in defense and attack, and separation and guilt. Thus, I populate my world with separate people who seem to be attacking me.  The projection of my separation thoughts appears as sick people who attack me with their germs. Now, I must defend myself against these guilty people. It seems to be happening in the world, and I am a victim of the situation and those around me. However, it is not like that at all. In truth, I projected the situation, and I did so for a specific purpose: to keep the separation story going.

Understanding that the entire situation came from my mind, I can allow the problem to be healed by accepting the Atonement for the false beliefs that sourced the situation. Instead of trying to correct the effect, I can allow correction of the cause, which is always something in my mind. This is equally true of all the problems in the world. There were all sorts of problems with my flights, and it was very frustrating. I noticed many blaming thoughts in my mind. I really wanted someone else to be guilty of this. But I was also aware that I was the source of the problem.

I could keep the conflict going for as long as I could stand the discomfort.

Or I could rest in peace during the situation, knowing I created it but also knowing that I could use it for healing. I projected the situation onto the world through the ego thoughts in my mind, but now that I had done so, the situation was flushing up beliefs that needed to be released. I wrote the situation into my script, and now it was up to me what I did with it. Just as I can give my night time sleep to the Holy Spirit to use on my behalf, I can give my day time “sleep” to Him and He will use it to help me awaken from the dream of separation.

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 4

⁴ How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not given to the Holy Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to His purpose. You can indeed be “drugged” by sleep, if you have misused it on behalf of sickness. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Complete unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in peace only because you are awake.

I am very aware that I can give my sleep the Holy Spirit, and sometimes I do this and sometimes I don’t. It would seem that I often forget to do this little thing, and I remember only when I wake up dispirited that I could have rested in peace. Of course, I am well aware that I don’t “accidentally” forget to ask. If I don’t ask, it is because I am holding this bit of self in a little corner of my mind, this hospital for pain. Being reminded that Spirit has a different use for my sleep, right now I am asking Him to remind me to do this.

Jesus has brought up the idea of resting in peace twice now. We have this crazy idea that death is peace and that to have peace we must first die. Death brings us nothing because death is nothing. It is as much of an illusion as the world we see and the bodies we think of as ourselves. The only way we will rest in peace is to allow the mind to be healed.

Accepting the Atonement is the way out of the dream and the way to awaken.

It is the way we are healed from sickness in all its forms: the sick mind, the sick relationship, the sick bank account, the sick body. The Atonement corrects the wrong minded perception and all is healed. Jesus also talks about being conscious and says that we are never completely unconscious.

We deliberately choose to ignore the guilt we feel is too fearful, and we deliberately choose to ignore our true self so that we can have this experience. We can tell ourselves it was an unconscious decision. But we cannot go completely unconscious. We know the guilt we bury and at the same time, we know what we are and so we know there is no guilt.

In Lesson 72, Jesus tells us this.  While we have recognized that the ego’s plan for salvation is the opposite of God’s, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on His plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it. (ACIM, W-72.1:1) Does that sound like we are unconsciously doing this? No, I don’t think so. I think we make these decisions and then wipe our deliberate act from our minds so that we can project the guilt it induces. In this lesson, he goes on to say this.  The ego’s fundamental wish is to replace God. ²In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of that wish. (ACIM, W-72.2:1-2)

We cannot hold the belief in guilt and the knowledge of our Divinity at the same time.

So, we dissociate from our Self, and we bury our guilt when we cannot project it. In order to return our mind to wholeness we must accept the Atonement (forgive) the guilt and our Divine Self will become immediately apparent to us because it has gone nowhere.

For such a long time, I have perceived myself as small and frail, weak and vulnerable. At the best of times, I have seen myself as less small and weak. And yet, I am the creation of God, and I am created in His image. In my creation, He gave me everything that He is. I am a divine being, eternal, powerful, and I am love. How likely is it that I am also a frail, sickly body, guilt-ridden and fearful?

I remind myself often that I am the Son of God. I am spirit. When I feel like the ego, I ask for the Atonement for that thought, and my perception is corrected, and I am healed. Without fear, I ask with conviction, “What am I?” Slowly, fear is falling away and I am remembering what I planned all along to remember. Thank you, God, for placing your plan for my salvation in my mind where I could find it when I was ready to come Home.

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