[acimlessons_list] Lesson 140--May 20

[Allen Watson]

Lesson 140

"Only salvation can be said to cure."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

PURPOSE: To change your mind about the source of sickness. To not seek
to cure the body but to seek in your mind the source of healing, the
cure for all illusions. God placed it in your mind, so close that you
cannot lose it.

LONGER: 2--beginning and end of day for 5 minutes

* Let all your interfering thoughts be laid aside as one, for there are
all equally meaningless.

* With open hands, lifted heart and listening mind, pray: "Only
salvation can be said to cure. Speak to us, Father, that we may be
healed."

* Then in stillness listen for only one voice, God's Voice of healing,
Which will cure all ills, making no distinctions among them. Feel His
salvation blanket you with protection and deep peace, allowing no
illusion to disturb your holy mind.

REMARKS: You will succeed to the degree you realize there are no
meaningful distinction among illusions. They are all unreal. That is why
they can cured.

SHORTER: as the hour strikes, for a minute

* Say your healing prayer: "Only salvation can be said to cure. Speak to
us, Father, that we may be healed."

* Then listen in joyous silence, and hear God's answer.

COMMENTARY

The "cure" that the Course is talking about is a healing of the mind,
not of the body. "The body needs no healing. But the mind that thinks it
is a body is sick indeed!" (T-25.IN.3:1,2) "The lesson is the <mind> was
sick that thought the body could be sick" (T-28.II.11:7). To seek a cure
in the physical realm, by any means (even New Age means) is what the
Course would call "magic."  (Calling it "magic" doesn't mean we can't
use it if our fear level requires it; the Course advocates a compromise
approach in such circumstances. See T-2.IV.4-5 and 2.V.2, which I
discuss a bit later.) The Atonement heals the mind that thinks the body
can be sick. "This is no magic" (6:4).

This lesson applies to bodily sickness, but it applies equally to any
apparent "problem" in this material world: financial lack, loneliness,
and so on. These problems all occur within the dream, and finding "a
magic formula" within the dream is never the solution (2:2). We are
"curing" the symptom and not the disease. The root of the problem is
within the mind. "Let us not try today to seek to cure what cannot
suffer sickness" (7:1). Our problems are not physical in nature. "We
will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick" (9:1). "So do we
lay aside our amulets [crystals? religious medallions?], our charms and
medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they take"
(10:1).

Early in the Text, Jesus makes it clear that magic is not evil. It just
doesn't really work. It is only a stop-gap, an attempt to rid ourselves
of symptoms without really curing the disease. Yet sometimes that is the
best we can do. We have a headache, and with a splitting headache it is
often difficult to quiet the mind and peacefully meditate ourselves
well. So we use magic. We take the aspirin; there is no shame in this.
Only let us not deceive ourselves that we have really done anything to
cure the disease; we have simply masked the symptom. "...if you are
afraid to use the mind to heal, you should not attempt to do so"
(T-2.V.2:2). If our fear level is high, a "compromise approach" may be
necessary (T-2.IV.4:4-7).

Only salvation can be said to cure. The magic of this world can mask
symptoms but not cure. "The mind that brings illusions to the truth is
really changed. There is no change but this" (7:4,5). Today we are asked
to practice just this: bringing our illusions to the truth, allowing our
guilt to be removed from our minds. <This> cures, and nothing else.
"There is no place where He is not" (5:5), and this includes our minds.
Sin would keep Him out, but since He is everywhere, sin cannot be
anywhere (see 5:1-7); sin cannot be in our minds. "This is the thought
that cures" (6:1). Sin, and therefore sickness, cannot be real because
God is in us; He has not left us, and what we think is sin cannot be so.
In our awareness of His presence, guilt disappears, and with it, the
cause of sickness.

    COMMENTARIES ON LESSONS FROM THE WORKBOOK OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES
    by Allen Watson, with Practice Summaries by Robert Perry
    The Circle of Atonement--Visit our website at <http://www.circleofa.com>

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Portions from Clarification of Terms (c) Copyright 1975, Psychotherapy:
Purpose, Process and Practice, (c) 1976, The Song of Prayer, (c) 1978, are
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