Section IV – Healing as Release from Fear
- Our emphasis is now on healing. The miracle is the means, the Atonement is the principle, and healing is the result. To speak of “a miracle of healing,” is to combine two orders of reality inappropriately. Healing is not a miracle. The Atonement, or the final miracle, is a remedy and any type of healing is a result. The kind of error to which Atonement is applied is irrelevant. All healing is essentially the release from fear. To undertake this, you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear.
- A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at all levels. Sickness or “not-right-mindedness” is the result of level confusion, because it always entails the belief that what is amiss on one level can adversely affect another. We have referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion, for all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act wrongly only when it is responding to misthought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion that made magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control. This error can take two forms; it can be believed that the mind can miscreate in the body, or that the body can miscreate in the mind. When it is understood that the mind, the only level of creation, cannot create beyond itself, neither type of confusion need occur.
- Only the mind can create because spirit has already been created, and the body is a learning device for the mind. Learning devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to facilitate learning. The worst a faulty use of a learning device can do is to fail to facilitate learning. It has no power in itself to introduce actual learning errors. The body, if properly understood, shares the invulnerability of the Atonement to two-edged application. This is not because the body is a miracle, but because it is not inherently open to misinterpretation. The body is merely part of your experience in the physical world. Its abilities can be and frequently are over evaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence in the world. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial. The term “unworthy” here implies only that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the unmindful. If one denies this unfortunate aspect of the mind’s power, one is also denying the power itself.
- All material means that you accept as remedies for bodily ills are restatements of magic principles. This is the first step in believing that the body makes its own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the use of such agents for corrective purposes is evil. Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently strong hold over the mind to render a person temporarily inaccessible to the Atonement. In this case it may be wise to utilize a compromise approach to mind and body, in which something from the outside is temporarily given healing belief. This is because the last thing that can help the non-right-minded, or the sick, is an increase in fear. They are already in a fear-weakened state. If they are prematurely exposed to a miracle, they may be precipitated into panic. This is likely to occur when upside down perception has induced the belief that miracles are frightening.
- The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it used truly, it will inevitably be expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, must be expressed in a language that the recipient can understand without fear. This does not necessarily mean that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. It does mean, however, that it is the highest level of which he is capable now. The whole aim of the miracle is to raise the level of communication, not to lower it by increasing fear.[1]
In today’s text reading, Jesus clarifies the process of miracles, Atonement, and healing, and how the three seemingly separate functions work together. It is important as we study A Course in Miracles to understand our function as miracle workers properly. Pay close attention to today’s reading because many of us who are called of God do make the mistake of combining two orders of reality – the physical and the spiritual, in an inappropriate and therefore ineffective way. Open your mind and heart and give your willingness to God’s Will in this area of your practice, your ministry, and your devotional habits. When we ask God to remove the roadblocks that keep us in a state of ineffectuality, we must be willing to give up our traditional practices and belief systems that support error. When we sincerely, with an open mind and heart ask God for truth, when we ask for only that which is holy, we are not given lies, seduction, or anything at all that will promote vain glory. We hamper our ability to understand healing and to become competent miracle workers because of fear of displeasing others or abandoning accepted tradition, not because of our love and trust in God.
Today’s focus is on healing and why we never ask for a “miracle of healing.” While healing is the natural result of the miracle, we are not healers, we are miracle workers. As miracle workers, we facilitate the miracle – which is the mind shift that corrects our perception of separation from God and Creation to the realization of our Sonship with God and our Brotherhood with Christ. This miracle leads to Atonement. Atonement, Jesus tells us, is the Principle of Love – we receive Atonement by extending miracles. We do not apply Atonement, that is beyond us. Love was not created by us and cannot be manipulated by us. We simply share our consciousness shift from humanity to our divinity. This removes us from the fearful, reactive, and therefore vengeful mindset that would trap us in our ego identities.
The Golden Rule behavior advocated by Christ is the only appropriate way to offer miracles. Golden Rule behavior is not reactive, it is proactive. Golden Rule behavior is miracle-minded behavior. The aim of those who practice the Golden Rule is miracle-based because it based upon right-mindedness instead of the wrong-mindedness of the world. We release ourselves from the combative, spiteful, vengeful identity and only offer that which is love. We go straight to forgiveness. We go straight to Atonement. We look past our hurt feelings. We look past the rude behavior, the bad manners, the mockery, the bloodshed, the infidelity, and lies – whatever it is and instead of reacting in kind, we offer forgiveness, we deny the power of that which is not love to hurt us.
This is the miracle. The healing that results from practicing acts of Atonement is not the miracle. Healing is only the natural outcome of the Atonement which we did not make but can only practice and reach through the sharing of the miracle. We must always go back to the beginning and study the principles until they are established in our minds and hearts for it is very tempting to think of healing as the miracle and confuse the issue. Thinking of ourselves as miracle workers and not healers may resolve this issue for us for the time being. We perform the miracles that Christ asks us to do and let the healing up to the Atonement. In this way we protect our mind from becoming doubtful and downcast when we do not see healing take place in our own timeframe. We let the healing to God Who sees the whole picture.
When I look upon a person without seeing them as any different from me, when I look past all of their behavior, their deeds, their status in the world and I see them only as a brother – this is the miracle. Just this. I see them as myself because I see myself as a Son of God. I no longer identify with my human form, which is a woman, Caucasian, old to some and young to others. Because I see myself through the vision of Christ, I can see you as I see myself – I see us both as equals, as alike, as brothers in Christ, as the beloved Sons of God. Again it is very important to note that this is the miracle, and we are in a miracle realm at this point. Jesus calls it a holy instant; we can call it a holy encounter – no matter what – this is the miracle. This leads to love between the brothers, and healing comes after all fear of God and Creation have been replaced by the Principle of Love. This is not of our concern. Our function is only the miracle, the changed perception! This shift in consciousness is what leads to Atonement. And when the remedy of Love, which is the Atonement, is applied to any situation, healing occurs.
When we recognize our identity as being Spirit and not body, we are no longer confused – our bodies and what we do in our bodies cannot affect our status as God’s Son. We now understand that the body can act only upon what we choose to believe. The body cannot generate anything in and of itself. When we believe that it can, the false belief is what seems to generate physical illness. The body has no magical power over us. There is simply no creative ability in matter and the body cannot create (or miscreate) anything in the mind. When we fully realize that the mind, the only level of creation, cannot create beyond itself, we realize that what we experience here in the world is an illusion of separateness. We see the spaces and the outlines between us and believe that we are apart and different and not of the same Creation. We chose the seductive, separatists thoughts of competition, independence, corruption, and fear over love. We entered a dream of our own making. The mind, which is the only thing that can create, cannot create that which has no life and is not eternal. What we see as matter, Jesus teaches, is a form of magic so to speak. It is a hallucination that has pulled us in, spun a web, and entrapped our consciousness in a state of believing our own fiction! However, if we can believe in sickness we can believe in health and that is all that we are being asked to do as long as we believe we have bodies. Instead of believing in sickness believe, talk about, and accept health. Do not let old grudges and hatred fester in our minds, but release it by bringing it to God and letting the Light of His Love shine upon it so that it can no longer wreak havoc upon our consciousness. Instead of believing in loneliness, estrangement, and separation, believe in communion, forgiveness, and unity. When we do this we are using our humanity properly, as a communication device and teaching tool that aids the learning necessary to healing. When we practice believing and trusting in that which is love, we are standing with Christ instead of anti-Christ.
To my understanding, the miracle is simply awakening to the truth of what we are. Performing miracles is simply practicing the Golden Rule instead of the rule of this world. When we see others as our brothers, we give them forgiveness, understanding, and empathy that we ourselves want to receive – this brings us to the everlasting principle of Love, the Atonement – for when we give as we would receive, that is what happens – we receive what we give. It becomes a strong and invincible chain of one brother awakening to Sonship and giving to receive until the entire Sonship is delivered from all acts of fear, backbiting, two-facedness, suspicion, one-upmanship. We put away the condemnation that kept us apart and we build the bridge of Atonement that leads to the healing of the nations, to God’s kingdom restored on earth as it is in Heaven.
We who are called to perform miracles will come to our own conclusions about the use of medicine, vitamins, medical operations, health insurance, and so forth. Apparently Christ has no gripe against doctors, surgeons, home remedies, pharmaceutical companies, or healing practitioners of any kind. Jesus tells us that Atonement is expressed in the way that is most helpful to the receiver. Our function is to experience the shift in consciousness to who and what we are in Christ and share that! As we learn to know ourselves as Sons of God, to see our brothers as ourselves, Atonement takes over from there. Healing happens where and when there is no fear.
Our Father in Heaven, May we walk fearless in Your Love and as Your Son. In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one. Amen.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 2: IV Healing as release from fear. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). pp. 23-24.
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