Hi,
I'm Teresa Hubbard.
Welcome back to our continued reading of the text to A Course in Miracles.
We continue today in Chapter 8,
The Journey Back.
Section 9 Healing as Corrected Perception.
To summarize my takeaways,
In section 9 of chapter 8,
We learn that when the ego tempts us to sickness,
We must not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body because this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the body is the proper aim of healing.
We are told to instead ask the Holy Spirit to teach us the right perception of the body,
For perception alone can be distorted.
We are told that all forms of sickness,
Even unto death,
Are physical expressions of the fear of awakening.
The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love,
Since all healing involves replacing fear with love.
We are further told that how we feel when we wake is a sign of how we have used our sleep.
We are asked to consider to whom we gave our sleep,
Under which teacher we placed it.
We are told that whenever we awaken dispiritedly,
That we can know that we did not give it to the Holy Spirit.
Only when we awaken joyously have we utilized sleep according to the Holy Spirit's purpose.
The Bible enjoins us to be perfect,
To heal all errors,
To take no thought of the body as separate,
And to accomplish all things in the name of God's Son.
Jesus,
Our brother and guide,
Reminds us here that His name is not His alone,
For ours is a shared identification.
He reminds us that He would not ask us to do things we cannot do,
And it is impossible that He could do things that we cannot.
The name of God's Son is one,
And we are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this oneness.
Our minds are whole because they are one,
And wholeness heals because it is of the mind.
When we limit ourselves,
We are not of one mind,
Which is sickness.
Yet sickness is not of the body,
But of the mind.
All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split and does not accept its unified purpose.
The unification of purpose is the Holy Spirit's way of healing.
I invite you to keep a few things in mind as you listen to the reading.
The Course uses male pronouns,
Yet this is simply a way of pointing to the spiritual being,
Having no gender.
The Course is written in first person,
And although not introduced directly to the reader,
It becomes clear that the words are from Jesus,
Often quoting from the Bible.
The Course uses traditional Christian terms in a non-traditional manner.
These words are simply pointers to truth,
Nothing more.
A few terms you will hear within this reading.
The two teachers,
The ego and the Holy Spirit.
The ego represents our belief in the separated or false self that we made as a substitute for the self that God created.
Holy Spirit is the communication link between God and us,
Bridging the gap between the mind of Christ and our human minds,
The voice for God.
God the Creator,
The source of all being or life.
God's essence is spirit,
Which is shared with all creation.
Yet the word God can be limiting,
Since universal energy and life are infinitely vast and cannot be contained in a word.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles Chapter 8,
The Journey Back Section 9,
Healing as Corrected Perception I said before that the Holy Spirit is the answer.
He is the answer to everything,
Because He knows what the answer to everything is.
The ego does not know what a real question is,
Although it asks an endless number.
Yet you can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego,
And thus establish your ability to evaluate its questions.
When the ego tempts you to sickness,
Do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body,
For this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the body is the proper aim of healing.
Ask rather that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body,
For perception alone can be distorted.
Only perception can be sick,
Because only perception can be wrong.
Wrong perception is the wish that things be as they are not.
The reality of everything is totally harmless,
Because total harmlessness is the condition of its reality.
It is also the condition of your awareness of its reality.
You do not have to seek reality.
It will seek you and find you when you meet its conditions.
Its conditions are part of what it is,
And this part only is up to you.
The rest is of itself.
You need do so little,
Because your little part is so powerful that it will bring the whole to you.
Accept then your little part,
And let the whole be yours.
Wholeness heals because it is of the mind.
All forms of sickness,
Even unto death,
Are physical expressions of the fear of awakening.
Fear 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 and 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.
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.
Healing is release from the fear of waking and the substitution of the decision to wake.
The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love,
Since all healing involves replacing fear with love.
The Holy Spirit cannot distinguish among degrees of error,
For if He taught that one form of sickness is more serious than another,
He would be teaching that one error can be more real than another.
His function is to distinguish only between the false and the true,
Replacing the false with the true.
The ego,
Which always wants to weaken the mind,
Tries to separate it from the body in an attempt to destroy it.
Yet the ego actually believes that it is protecting it.
This is because the ego believes that mind is dangerous,
And that to make mindless is to heal.
But to make mindless is impossible,
Since it would mean to make nothing out of what God created.
The ego despises weakness,
Even though it makes every effort to induce it.
The ego wants only what it hates.
To the ego,
This is perfectly sensible.
Believing in the power of attack,
The ego wants attack.
The Bible enjoins you to be perfect,
To heal all errors,
To take no thought of the body as separate,
And to accomplish all things in My name.
This is not My name alone,
For ours is a shared identification.
The name of God's Son is One,
And you are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this Oneness.
Our minds are whole because they are one.
If you are sick,
You are withdrawing from Me.
Yet you cannot withdraw from Me alone.
You can only withdraw from yourself and Me.
You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course,
And one that means exactly what it says.
I would not ask you to do things you cannot do,
And it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do.
Given this,
And given this quite literally,
Nothing can prevent you from doing exactly what I ask,
And everything argues for you doing it.
I give you no limits,
Because God lays none upon you.
When you limit yourself,
We are not of one mind,
And that is sickness.
Yet sickness is not of the body,
But of the mind.
All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split and does not accept a unified purpose.
The unification of purpose,
Then,
Is the Holy Spirit's only way of healing.
This is because it is the only level at which healing means anything.
The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system is the way to heal it.
Your task is only to meet the conditions for meaning,
Since meaning itself is of God.
Yet your return to meaning is essential to His,
Because your meaning is part of His.
Your healing,
Then,
Is part of His health,
Since it is part of His Wholeness.
He cannot lose this,
But you cannot know it.
Yet it is still His will for you,
And His will must stand forever and in all things.
