[acimlessons_list] LESSON 140 - MAY 20

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 140 - MAY 20

"Only salvation can be said to cure."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

Purpose: To seek healing for the mind, not the body, by hearing the Voice of
healing, which God placed inside you, so close that you cannot lose it.

Longer: Two times-at beginning and end of day-for five minutes.

* Let all your interfering thoughts be laid aside as one, for there are all
equally meaningless. 
* With empty hands, lifted heart and listening mind, pray, "Only salvation
can be said to cure. Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed." You are
asking that the Voice of healing speak to you, to heal your mind, the source
of all sickness.
* Then, in the silence of all thought, listen for God's Voice, Which will
cure all ills, regardless of their size or shape. 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 be
cured.

Shorter: As the hour strikes, for a minute.

Do a short version of the longer practice period. Say, "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 [God] 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.