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Study of Manual for Teachers 2-10-12

Day 41

2 Healing will always stand aside when it would be seen as threat. The instant it is welcome it is there. Where healing has been given it will be received. And what is time before the gifts of God? We have referred many times in the text to the storehouse of treasures laid up equally for the giver and the receiver of God’s gifts. Not one is lost, for they can but increase. No teacher of God should feel disappointed if he has offered healing and it does not appear to have been received. It is not up to him to judge when his gift should be accepted. Let him be certain it has been received, and trust that it will be accepted when it is recognized as a blessing and not a curse.

The ego will always judge, but I don’t have to believe its judgments. It judges by appearances and I am learning to distrust appearances. I accept that my part in healing is to know the truth for my brother, and how it is received, or when it is received is not my business. I trust that truth is never lost and only increases. Would I want someone to accept healing if it means it will increase his fear? Are we not fearful enough as it is?

There is so much that we cannot understand from where we see ourselves right now. Fortunately, the truth does not need our understanding. The ego wants to know. It wants to understand. It wants proof, and it wants that proof to meet its expectations. I am not the ego. I choose to let the ego be. “I hear you, ego. I just don’t believe you.”

The Voice I believe is the one that speaks for God. It speaks softly and reassuringly of certainty, of gifts that increase with the giving, of healing that cannot fail. I don’t need to understand this for it to be true. So I do my part; I give my willingness to see past appearances and to know the truth of my brothers and sisters, and of myself.

I was preparing for a Study with the Scribe Workshop, trying to get all my customers taken care of so they wouldn’t need me in the week I was gone. It required even more driving than I normally do, and I started experiencing spasms of pain that seemed to be associated with my bladder. Being in a sitting position and driving were very painful. I was gritting my teeth and forging ahead because this stuff had to be done.

When the pain got worse, I thought about how hard it would be to sit in the cramped seats of the plane. And then I thought of sitting for hours as I attended the workshop. I knew it would be hard to pay attention through the pain. I told Holy Spirit that I didn’t know what to do about this and asked for His help.

The pain disappeared. Just like that! It was gone! I stood there in my room absolutely astonished at the suddenness of the relief. I wondered what this meant, but never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I just accepted the healing in gratitude. I did not have another spasm of pain until the plane taking me home touched down on the tarmac. And then the spasms began again.

At first I was very disappointed, and I felt confused. I was grateful that my prayer was answered. I had been pain free the entire trip from beginning to end just as I had asked. But I thought this meant I was healed and now it seems I was wrong. I felt let down. What did this mean?

I went to the doctor and found out the cause of all the pain. I got some medicine that solved not only that problem but another one as well. I also asked Holy Spirit to help me understand healing, and He brought me to this study. I still don’t understand why I accepted only a part of the healing, but I am certain this healing awaits me.

It is not lost on me that I asked for a partial healing. I told Holy Spirit that I would be willing not to be in pain during the workshop. I didn’t say that I would be willing to accept a complete healing. I didn’t notice this when it happened, but only in retrospect. As we are studying this section I wonder about fear of healing.

I didn’t think I had fear of healing, but since that is what has come up, I am asking that my mind be healed of that fear. I wonder if it is really a fear of not being healed. If I were not healed when I asked, would that mean that I am not worthy?

Would it mean that God really is mad at me and wants to see me suffer? This is what Regina calls the fear that the truth is not true. Perhaps I think that pain is better than finding out I am not worthy. Whatever is going through the ego mind, I trust that I will accept my healing when I recognize it as a blessing and not a curse. 

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 2-9-12

Day 40

6. IS HEALING CERTAIN?
1 Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and keep the illusions. Truth demonstrates illusions have no value. The teacher of God has seen the correction of his errors in the mind of the patient, recognizing it for what it is. Having accepted the Atonement for himself, he has also accepted it for the patient. Yet what if the patient uses sickness as a way of life, believing healing is the way to death? When this is so, a sudden healing might precipitate intense depression, and a sense of loss so deep that the patient might even try to destroy himself. Having nothing to live for, he may ask for death. Healing must wait, for his protection. 

I’m glad that Jesus begins by assuring us that healing is always certain, because appearances have caused me to doubt the healing. When I read this the first time it was like a light bulb coming on. I saw how true it is that sometimes people are not ready for healing. I talked about the healing I accepted to be free of allergies. More than once I have listened to people talking about how bad their allergies are and how they suffer for them.

I tell them about my experience and wait for their reaction. A few of them are very excited, and ask for a name and phone number, and some of those have later thanked me because now they, too, are allergy free. Most of them listen to my story (after all, good manners insist we give the other person equal time) and then they go right back to their story of suffering. They love their story and want to keep it.

Why do we hold onto the stories of suffering when we could be free of them? I think we tell our stories so often that we have come to believe we are these stories, and to give them up is to give up our very selves, our identity. I think that the stories are where we hide from God, and to give them up is to become naked before God and that is very frightening for us, because we misunderstand the nature of God and fear punishment for our “sin” of separation.

Sometimes the suffering becomes unbearable and we seek relief through death. Sometimes it becomes unbearable and we allow temporary relief, only to take up a different story of suffering as protection from God. And then, sometimes, we begin to change our minds. We begin to allow the light of truth to shine in our minds, and start to doubt the ego story of a fearful God. We are finally ready to accept the gift of healing that has been offered to us.

Like most of the steps I have taken while awakening, this one has not been clear-cut. I have had moments of great clarity and have received remarkable healings of both mind and body. But they do not transfer to every part of my life, and I step forward, only to retreat into fear, then move forward again. But no matter how often I do this little dance, I always move forward with more certainty than before.

One other thing that jumped out at me as I read this was this:

The teacher of God has seen the correction of his errors in the mind of the patient, recognizing it for what it is. Having accepted the Atonement for himself, he has also accepted it for the patient.

You may be familiar with Dr. Hew Lin and his use of the Hawaiian healing practice of Ho’oponopono. Dr. Hew Lin healed an entire ward of criminally insane patients without ever seeing any of them. He simply read their files, and forgave himself for what he was seeing.

While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal. When he was asked about how this was accomplished, he said, “I was simply healing the part of me that created them.” The Course tells us that our only job is to accept the Atonement for ourselves. The way we heal, is to accept healing for ourselves.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 2-8-12

Day 39

III. The Function of the Teacher of God

1 If the patient must change his mind in order to be healed, what does the teacher of God do? Can he change the patient’s mind for him? Certainly not. For those already willing to change their minds he has no function except to rejoice with them, for they have become teachers of God with him. He has, however, a more specific function for those who do not understand what healing is. These patients do not realize they have chosen sickness. On the contrary, they believe that sickness has chosen them. Nor are they open-minded on this point. The body tells them what to do and they obey. They have no idea how insane this concept is. If they even suspected it, they would be healed. Yet they suspect nothing. To them the separation is quite real. 

2 To them God’s teachers come, to represent another choice which they had forgotten. The simple presence of a teacher of God is a reminder. His thoughts ask for the right to question what the patient has accepted as true. As God’s messengers, His teachers are the symbols of salvation. They ask the patient for forgiveness for God’s Son in his own Name. They stand for the Alternative. With God’s Word in their minds they come in benediction, not to heal the sick but to remind them of the remedy God has already given them. It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the Word of God. They merely give what has been given them. Very gently they call to their brothers to turn away from death. Behold, you Son of God, what life can offer you. Would you choose sickness in place of this? 

3 Not once do the advanced teachers of God consider the forms of sickness in which their brother believes. To do this is to forget that all of them have the same purpose, and therefore are not really different. They seek for God’s Voice in this brother who would so deceive himself as to believe God’s Son can suffer. And they remind him that he did not make himself, and must remain as God created him. They recognize illusions can have no effect. The truth in their minds reaches out to the truth in the minds of their brothers, so that illusions are not reinforced. They are thus brought to truth; truth is not brought to them. So are they dispelled, not by the will of another, but by the One Will with itself. And this is the function of God’s teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God’s.

In these three paragraphs on healing, Jesus explains the roll of the Teacher of God in facilitating the healing of his brother. In healing, the body is not involved in any way, not the patient’s body nor the healer’s body. In fact, not even words are needed. Healing is achieved mind to mind, or more accurately within the mind since there is truly no gap between our minds.

What about doctors, medicine, laying of hands, moving of energy and all forms of healing? Do they have no place in this? Jesus has said previously that special agents seem to be ministering to him, yet they but give form to his own choice. Sometimes we are unable to make that leap from sickness to health in one bound, as it would cause too much fear. I think that all these forms have nothing to do with the actual healing, but may be helpful symbols for the patient.

The actual healing itself is a beautiful process. First the teacher of God must be healed in his own mind of the idea of sickness having any value. He must be healed of the idea of degrees of sickness, and all belief that sickness has anything to do with the body. It is the absolute certainty, the complete honesty (consistency) in the teacher’s mind that is healing.

My experience has been that this can be done in a moment of clarity. In that moment there is no confusion in the mind of the teacher. Perhaps this clarity will not yet be permanent, but will be greatly reinforced as she offers herself for this purpose.

My heart is touched by the gentleness of healing. The healer is a symbol of the truth, the representative of another choice; he stands for the Alternative to the confusion that exists in the patients mind. Jesus says that the teacher’s thoughts ask for the right to question what the patient has accepted as true. Very gently they call to their brothers to turn away from death.

This reminds me of how the Holy Spirit works with me. He doesn’t demand or force, or impinge on my choices in any way. He remains perfectly consistent and perfectly unaffected by my illusions, and this unwavering steadfastness to truth draws me to Itself. He is my memory of God, and who can resist that memory?

The certainty of the Teacher of God shares this function as he is the memory of health, the truth in his mind lighting the way for the one who has temporarily forgotten who he is. Faith that his light will ignite the light that exists in his brother, the teacher of God is patient and waits without fear for acceptance of this gift. Isn’t it a beautiful thing to see how the attributes of God’s teachers come together in this way?

Jesus says that his teachers come, not to heal the sick, but as a benediction. Of course! His teacher’s do not believe in sickness! What is there to heal? As they remain unaffected by the appearance of sickness they are not reinforcing illusion, but are strengthening the truth in their brother’s mind. “And this is the function of God’s teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God’s.”

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 2/7/12

Day 38

4 With this idea is pain forever gone. But with this idea goes also all confusion about creation. Does not this follow of necessity? Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world. The transfer value of one true idea has no end or limit. The final outcome of this lesson is the remembrance of God. What do guilt and sickness, pain, disaster and all suffering mean now? Having no purpose, they are gone. And with them also go all the effects they seemed to cause. Cause and effect but replicate creation. Seen in their proper perspective, without distortion and without fear, they re-establish Heaven.

To be free of disease, pain, suffering and death for all time, I need only put cause and affect in their proper order. I have spent this lifetime trying to prove to myself that I am not guilty, that my pain is caused by someone or something else, and then trying to fix it through magic solutions.

Now I am being vigilant for those times when I have confused cause and effect so that I can ask for correction. The Holy Spirit is helping me to remember my innocence so I can afford to withdraw my projections without fear of increasing my guilt. As I do this I begin to understand that my plan to get rid of guilt by trying to place it outside myself through making someone else guilty never worked. As long as I believe in the guilt, I am affected by the guilt no matter where I see it.

Its like I carry around this heavy sack of guilt, and all through the day I try to get rid of it by dumping it on other people or on circumstances. Someone cuts me off in traffic and I think how guilty he is. My friend lets me down. Guilty. A customer doesn’t reorder. Guilty. My hotel room is not as clean as I like. Guilty. The whole world becomes a repository for this guilt I’m trying to get rid of.

You would think that by the end of the day my sack would be empty, and I would feel clean and safe. But instead, by the end of the day I feel exhausted. The world is my enemy and I have spent the day trying to defend myself from it. And my sack of guilt feels just as heavy, because if it has gone nowhere. And so I start over again on my fruitless and never ending task of trying to rid myself of guilt.

Jesus is helping us to see that not only can we not get rid of guilt by giving it away, but that we don’t have any guilt to get rid of. We have never done anything wrong, and the guilt never existed except in our fevered imaginings. The very act of trying to rid ourselves of guilt is what fixed it firmly in our minds as if it were real.

As I allow the Holy Spirit to heal my mind, I lose my morbid fascination with guilt. It has been my belief in guilt that has caused the appearance of pain suffering and death in my life, and without that belief, all those effects disappear. As Jesus says, “Having no purpose, they are gone.”

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of Manual for Teachers 2/6/12

Day 37

3 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. 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.

Healing is a shift in perception. When I chose healing, I changed my mind about what I thought was possible. My perception up to that moment was that my body responded to environmental conditions. Pollen, grass, most trees, molds and a long list of foods would cause my body to have an allergic reaction. I decided that, although I didn’t know how it could happen, I was willing to be free of this belief. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me. And I became willing to let Him.

This was not a total reversal in my thinking. It was like putting my toes in the water to see what happened. But what happened, changed my mind in a way that affected the rest of my life. From that point on I became more willing to realize that my mind is what needs healing, not my body and not my circumstances. It is taking a good deal of time for me to accept the full implication.

I have had many experiences since then that are helping me to accept that the world never rules the mind, and that it is always the other way around. It has taken even more time for me to accept no compromise in the recognition that I am completely responsible for my life. I still resist this at times, but every time I notice I am resisting, I turn my attention to the Holy Spirit for correction. This gentle process of mindfulness combined with willingness is peeling away the layers of illusion that I used to keep the separation idea in place.

Now when I am sick, instead of trying to figure out what is wrong with my body, and what in the world caused it, I remind myself that I am experiencing illness because I have chosen it, and I am keeping this illness because I see some value in having it. This is what’s happening even though I may not understand why I did it, and may not want to believe I did it. Having established the truth in my mind, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. The body will likely follow.

In this section Jesus reminds us that guilt and sickness are the same thing. I think of sickness as being the outward manifestation of guilt that I am holding in my mind. It doesn’t matter if I think I am guilty or if I think the other person is guilty as it is the same thing and creates the same effects. As I am allowing the Holy Spirit to heal my mind I am becoming more willing to look at the buried guilt because I am not as afraid of God as I used to be. I am learning that I have not actually done anything, but only dreamed I did. I have nothing to feel guilty for.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

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