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Study of Text, C 13: XI. The Peace of Heaven, P 5. 1-11-17

XI. The Peace of Heaven, P 5

5 You whose mind is darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this: God gave the Holy Spirit to you, and gave Him the mission to remove all doubt and every trace of guilt that His dear Son has laid upon himself. It is impossible that this mission fail. Nothing can prevent what God would have accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit’s Voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God’s Will is done. You will find the peace in which He established you, because He does not change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell, and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.

Journal
Well this is kind of funny. This morning I hesitated to write. My mind was dark with doubt and guilt and I didn’t feel worthy to go to Spirit for words. I prepared everything to write and I just sat here talking to Jesus about it, and asked for comfort and clarity. The feeling I kept receiving was that I should just trust the process, to just do the work. So I looked at today’s paragraph and had to cry and then laugh. No wonder He was nudging me to just do the work. The work, this morning, is perfect for what ails me. It is the answer to the question I was asking.

Recently I started having a problem with a tooth and there was a lot of pain. I had a very strong nudge to use this as a healing opportunity. I read this from the Manual for Teachers:

Healing must occur in exact proportion to which the valuelessness of sickness is recognized. One need but say, “There is no gain at all to me in this” and he is healed. But to say this, one first must recognize certain facts. First, it is obvious that decisions are of the mind, not of the body. If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it. The resistance to recognizing this is enormous, because the existence of the world as you perceive it depends on the body being the decision-maker. Terms like “instincts,” “reflexes” and the like represent attempts to endow the body with non-mental motivators. Actually, such terms merely state or describe the problem. They do not answer it.

The acceptance of sickness as a decision of the mind, for a purpose for which it would use the body, is the basis of healing. And this is so for healing in all forms. A patient decides that this is so, and he recovers. If he decides against recovery, he will not be healed. Who is the physician? Only the mind of the patient himself. The outcome is what he decides that it is. Special agents seem to be ministering to him, yet they but give form to his own choice. He chooses them in order to bring tangible form to his desires. And it is this they do, and nothing else. They are not actually needed at all. The patient could merely rise up without their aid and say, “I have no use for this.” There is no form of sickness that would not be cured at once.

So I started working with this idea, that the tooth was not the problem, but rather my mind, my thoughts, my decisions. I felt so strongly that I was guided to do this that I was very excited about it, and very confident. What a promise Jesus makes us! He tells us that, “What is the single requisite for this shift in perception? It is simply this; the recognition that sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body.”

And he makes it sound so easy. I decided for the tooth problem and now I change my mind and I choose health instead. I worked with this idea for a couple of painful weeks, and I was very disappointed that in the end, I had to give in and let the dentist begin the process of taking an impression of the tooth so a partial can be made and soon it will be removed. The promise began to seem like a taunt, or like proof of my unworthiness and my failure. And thus I had sat here this morning feeling bad about myself.

Then I read this paragraph and am reminded that I cannot fail. It is not possible that I fail. God’s Will is done. I will find the peace in which He established me because He does not change His Mind. I asked Jesus if I was wrong about working on the idea of healing the mind of the belief in sickness and if I was wrong to expect the sickness to respond to the mind that is healed. Maybe I was just listening to the ego being grandiose to think I was ready for this.

Jesus: What do you know now that you didn’t know when you started the practice?

Me: The dentist told me that the problem began with the tooth being damaged at some point. I remembered something he probably didn’t remember. When I first started seeing him he was a new dentist. He was working on or near that tooth and something went wrong. He had to do a lot of unexpected work and afterwards he told me that if it ever got sensitive I should tell him. When I thought about that, I felt resentful that this was all his fault.

I see that this was an attempt to make the problem come first and then the decision about what it means and how I feel about it. Really, it is the thought that comes first and then the situation is projected as an event in my life. So I still have the belief in being unfairly treated and being a victim and from that belief, I projected a story that represents that belief.

The thought came first, then the event. I also see that in an attempt to keep the blame from attaching to me, I used the dentist to be the guilty one. I saw myself doing that part, making the dentist guilty. When I saw that I knew it was wrong and so I tried to forgive him. I reminded myself that he was a new dentist and was doing the best he could. I reminded myself that I make many mistakes and I would not condemn myself so I won’t condemn him.

Pretty words, and they make sense when seen in the light of what I read in the Course, but the error was in making the offense real and then trying to forgive it. That cannot work. In truth my meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world that I am then trying to forgive. How can I forgive what I believe really happened?

Trying to do so is me experiencing level confusion. Yes in the world he might have made an error, but the world comes from my mind, so I received only what I asked for and there is no one to blame and no one to forgive.  I wonder how it is that I could have such a clear understanding of how we make the world and then find scapegoats to take the blame, and still do it. And I did it so quickly and with such finesse that I didn’t even realize what I had done until now.

My next thought was, understanding the concepts so well, why is it that I still chose to play the game, and to pretend I had nothing to do with it? When I asked Him this, Holy Spirit told me to read further in this section of the Manual for Teachers. (How is Healing Accomplished?) This is what I read:

What does this recognition “cost”? It costs the whole world you see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. For with this recognition is responsibility placed where it belongs; not with the world, but on him who looks on the world and sees it as it is not. He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it is. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea.

Once again the Holy Spirit is helping me to realize that understanding a concept and putting it into practice are two different things. The understanding is helpful, but until I try to use it I have no idea if I really accept it. And why is it that I would not readily accept healing? It seems to make no sense. In, The Perceived Purpose of Sickness, Jesus explains it in this way:

And what, in this insane conviction, does healing stand for? It symbolizes the defeat of God’s Son and the triumph of his Father over him. It represents the ultimate defiance in a direct form which the Son of God is forced to recognize. It stands for all that he would hide from himself to protect his “life.” If he is healed, he is responsible for his thoughts. And if he is responsible for his thoughts, he will be killed to prove to him how weak and pitiful he is. But if he chooses death himself, his weakness is his strength. Now has he given himself what God would give to him, and thus entirely usurped the throne of his Creator.

It is discouraging to me that this could still be true for me. I want to love God and feel His love for me. I cannot do this if I still believe I have something to fear from Him or that I am still in competition with Him. It feels like there is still this long rocky road ahead of me that I must traverse. It makes me tired to think of it. But looking back on all this with you, Jesus, I do understand now why it was important for me to do this work with the tooth.

Jesus: This understanding of the process, and what occurred in your mind came easily to you once you made the decision to look at it. You understood that you simply made a series of decisions with the ego rather than with the Holy Spirit. That easy and quick understanding would not have happened even a short time ago. The work you have done with the Rules for Decision has made it possible for you to see more clearly and more quickly how the ego mind would mislead you.

Remember that all healing is just a change of mind and you are changing your mind. This is not necessarily an extended process. The road ahead needs be neither rocky nor long. How hard is it to change your mind? How long does it take to change your mind? You get to decide that, but you are not deciding on your own. And you have much help now as you decide more and more often with the Holy Spirit. It is His function to help you and He will not fail in His function.

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