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Manual for Teachers, HOW IS HEALING ACCOMPLISHED. P 3. 6-1-20

5. HOW IS HEALING ACCOMPLISHED? P 1 and 2
1 Healing involves an understanding of what the illusion of sickness is for. Healing is impossible without this. 
I. The Perceived Purpose of Sickness
1 Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain. Who would choose suffering unless he thought it brought him something, and something of value to him? He must think it is a small price to pay for something of greater worth. For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength. When this occurs, real strength is seen as threat and health as danger. Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God’s Son on his Father’s throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be conquered by His Son.
2 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.

I used to use sickness for my own purposes. For instance, I would call my kids to let them know I had a migraine so that they would express their concern and I would feel loved. I would call into work with this excuse so I didn’t have to show up. That kind of thing. When I was ready to release the illusion of migraines, I was shown this behavior and I let all that go. I don’t have migraines anymore.

But there is a deeper more subversive use for sickness. The ego decides on sickness as a way to prove it is stronger than God. The fear of God and the belief that God wants all power for Himself are the driving forces that cause us to choose sickness. In this way, sickness seems to make us more powerful than God. God is health and we are not so that makes our decision for sickness proof of our power and that we have overcome God.

Once when I was working with the lesson that says I am still as God created me, I had a revelatory experience of that. It was amazing! And within minutes I was sick. I had a fever and I was throwing up. I was also laughing because I saw the connection between giving into God and sickness. That experience convinced me that sickness is a decision and that it is a defense against God.

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Manual for Teachers, Open-Mindedness. P 3. 5-25-20

X. Open-Mindedness, P 3
3 You may have noticed that the list of attributes of God’s teachers does not include things that are the Son of God’s inheritance. Terms like love, sinlessness, perfection, knowledge and eternal truth do not appear in this context. They would be most inappropriate here. What God has given is so far beyond our curriculum that learning but disappears in its presence. Yet while its presence is obscured, the focus properly belongs on the curriculum. It is the function of God’s teachers to bring true learning to the world. Properly speaking it is unlearning that they bring, for that is “true learning” in the world. It is given to the teachers of God to bring the glad tidings of complete forgiveness to the world. Blessed indeed are they, for they are the bringers of salvation.

In this paragraph, Jesus tells us that the attributes of God are our inheritance and we do nothing to learn them or teach them because they are already ours. As we forgive, that is, as we undo what we think we are, these attributes will naturally come into our awareness. They have not gone anyplace, but have only been hidden by what we made to take their place.

Our focus is on true learning which is really unlearning. This is also referred to as purification, accepting the atonement, and forgiveness. It all means the same thing, that is we are undoing the ego. We do this as we release the thoughts that are not true or helpful and let them go to the Holy Spirit. As long as there is anything in the mind that disturbs our peace, we must continue the unlearning process. 

God created us perfect and whole and that is what we are, but we have made a self that reflects the separation idea. So, we see His Son as imperfect and splintered into many parts. This is seen on every level, as what we made appears to take many forms. It appears with the specific body/personality I claim as myself now, and within its life is contradicting and confusing layers of beliefs that I accept as reality.

Can there ever be peace and happiness in such a life? The mind that believes it can be conflicting things will be confused about its reality. It will believe that something must be chosen and something must be rejected and so it will always feel under attack and in defense, and the mind will be in a constant state of war.

The ego suggests we choose from among an endless array of options until we find the right one, and this is what we have done, but this will not ever bring us to peace. The Holy Spirit offers us a simple solution that undoes our confusion. Forgiveness is the one solution to all errors in the mind, because all errors are one error.

There is only one thought to forgive, but in our confused state this is not possible for us to grasp, that is, the thought that we are separated from God. So, we begin the undoing process by noticing thoughts that do not bring us peace and then give our willingness to be corrected. In this way we unlearn the error we taught ourselves when we chose to experience separation. When we have forgiven what seems like many different errors, transfer of learning will occur which will speed up the process. This is what happened for me when I gave up the idea of guilt as opposed to giving up specific instances of guilty behavior.

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Manual for Teachers, Open-Mindedness. P 2. 5-8-20

X. Open-Mindedness, P 2
2 How do the open-minded forgive? They have let go all things that would prevent forgiveness. They have in truth abandoned the world, and let it be restored to them in newness and in joy so glorious they could never have conceived of such a change. Nothing is now as it was formerly. Nothing but sparkles now which seemed so dull and lifeless before. And above all are all things welcoming, for threat is gone. No clouds remain to hide the face of Christ. Now is the goal achieved. Forgiveness is the final goal of the curriculum. It paves the way for what goes far beyond all learning. The curriculum makes no effort to exceed its legitimate goal. Forgiveness is its single aim, at which all learning ultimately converges. It is indeed enough.

This is a very important paragraph. Jesus tells us how to forgive. We simply let go of all things that would prevent forgiveness. In doing so, we will have abandoned the world we know so that it can be transformed. What does this look like in my life? I used to suffer terribly from guilt and then gave up the idea of guilt and in an instant, a life time of guilt vanished never to return. I gave it up because guilt is not real and it keeps me from seeing the real world.

Guilt is just something we made up to punish ourselves and since it is not real, I can let it go. I asked Jesus to help me with this and it was done instantly. I had worked at it a thought at a time for years, but the instant I honestly no longer wanted it – poof – it was gone. This can happen because everything is an idea and when we no longer have interest in an idea it ceases to exist for us.

I continue to search my mind for ideas that are manifesting as painful events in my life and when I find one, I ask for help in letting it go. This is forgiveness and as I forgive, the face of Christ becomes visible because nothing is hiding it. Jesus tells us that forgiveness is the final goal of our curriculum, which does not strive to go any further. But he also tells us it is enough, that we will have learned what we came to learn. This has been my experience. I am continuing within my awakening to reach higher levels, but it does not involve learning.

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Manual for Teachers, Open-Mindedness. P 1. 4-28-20

X. Open-Mindedness
1 The centrality of open-mindedness, perhaps the last of the attributes the teacher of God acquires, is easily understood when its relation to forgiveness is recognized. Open-mindedness comes with lack of judgment. As judgment shuts the mind against God’s Teacher, so open-mindedness invites Him to come in. As condemnation judges the Son of God as evil, so open-mindedness permits him to be judged by the Voice for God on His behalf. As the projection of guilt upon him would send him to hell, so open-mindedness lets Christ’s image be extended to him. Only the open-minded can be at peace, for they alone see reason for it. 

My mind is closed if I listen to the ego. The ego has an agenda and it is for separation, for guilt, and for death. It isn’t interested in anything else. Those who listen to the ego must judge and judge harshly in order to uphold its agenda. But as we judge another, we have judged ourselves and we suffer for it because it separates us from each other and from God.

But when the mind is open to the truth, the Holy Spirit judges each person as wholly innocent. It is the Holy Spirit’s agenda to show us our Selves as we really are, to bring happiness and peace to the Sonship and to bring us back to our rightful place in the Kingdom.

We can’t see ourselves in God if we are holding grievances and the Sonship is not whole until all are seen within it. The only way I was able to become open-minded was to accept that there is never a justification for judgment, never a reason to hold a grievance. I learned to distrust the ego in every situation and to trust the Holy Spirit’s interpretation without exception.

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Miracle Workers Extend Love’s Being

Miracle Workers Extend Love’s Being

This is something I wrote while studying 920: Being a Miracle Worker
Something shifted for me recently. To put it into words doesn’t do it justice because it sounds like what I have always said and what the Course says, but now it feels real to me. I understand now that all I need to do is to be in a state of love all the time. That’s it. Just love. If I am in a state of love, otherwise known as being what I am, I love everything as it happens. I love everyone no matter what they say or do.

If I slip out of that state and start living from the split mind, I then have to make an effort to extend love. But if I just stay in love, what I am extends naturally to everyone and into every situation. From the state of love, I am available for miracles to work through me and so that is the added benefit. There is a sentence in our booklet that says selfishness is trying to keep Love for ourselves. I get what they are saying, but at the same time, if I am trying to keep Love for myself I no longer have the experience of love because Love is not selfish. Trying to hold onto Love would be like trying to hold onto air. Love flows. And Love is my Identity.

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Hidden Thoughts. 4-21-20

I had the perfect symbol of thinking that I am alone. I had a problem with the air conditioning ducts in my attic. They were damaged and a little at a time the condensation leaked into the ceiling and water logged it. This weekend it fell down. I was ok with it. I wasn’t sure how to go about getting it fixed and the timing as far as money goes was not good since I am going to that workshop next week. But even so, I wasn’t worried about it. I figured it would all work out, and it did. Perfectly, actually.

Here is what is interesting, though. I had a hidden fear and that is that I am alone and on my own. This is a fear that arose from the TMI, that I am abandoned by God and on my own and not doing that well. I was unaware of this fear at first. Here is how it was uncovered for me. After the ceiling fell but before repairs began, I got a call from a student who had a lot of things happen at once and was feeling alone in her life. She was aware that the ego mind wanted someone to be with her and help her. We looked at these thoughts together and then looked at alternatives. Then we looked at processes and when the call was over she felt better.

Next, I did my Rules For Decision plan for the day and in the middle of doing it, I felt something trying to come up. I felt like I was going to cry but I had no idea why. I decided that I would just open my heart to whatever needed to be seen and go from there.

The next piece of the puzzle showed up as a phone call from my son. I was telling him about the situation and I mentioned that my daughter helped me with part of it that I couldn’t do. He suggested that I be careful about claiming that I am not too old to do certain things. He said that while this was sometimes true it is not something I want to make a habit of. He also suggested that I start exercising to get more strength and maybe do yoga. I felt a lump in my throat and it was all I could do not to cry. I thanked him for his help and told him he was right. When we hung up I sat there and cried not knowing why it was happening.

I asked the HS what was going on and what I needed to know. Then the pieces came together and I saw that, like my student, I had a fear of being on my own. This situation gave me the chance to look at that fear but I didn’t see it at first. I was hiding this from myself. Now that I agreed to look at it, what I needed to do that showed up. I have had to take this back to the HS three times so far. Maybe three is the magic number and I will be willing to let it go.

Another student told me about a Mooji video she watched. He was talking about letting go of thoughts. He used an analogy from his own early life. He was cleaning out his closet going through clothes. When he was through sorting them, he took a pile to a store for used clothes. Later he began to second guess himself and even went into the store to look at the clothes he had given them. At one point, he even bought back a couple of the shirts.

I had to laugh at this. That is how it is with my thoughts of being alone. I give them away and then I worry I made a mistake and will need them again so I buy them back. But at what cost? It cost me my peace of mind. It cost me my identity as a Son of God. It’s crazy. I will succeed, though, because I want to.

And I did!

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Manual for Teachers, Faithfulness. 4-16-20

IX. Faithfulness
1 The extent of the teacher of God’s faithfulness is the measure of his advancement in the curriculum. Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning, while keeping others apart? If so, his advancement is limited, and his trust not yet firmly established. Faithfulness is the teacher of God’s trust in the Word of God to set all things right; not some, but all. Generally, his faithfulness begins by resting on just some problems, remaining carefully limited for a time. To give up all problems to one Answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely. And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. Yet each degree, however small, is worth achieving. Readiness, as the text notes, is not mastery. 

2 True faithfulness, however, does not deviate. Being consistent, it is wholly honest. Being unswerving, it is full of trust. Being based on fearlessness, it is gentle. Being certain, it is joyous. And being confident, it is tolerant. Faithfulness, then, combines in itself the other attributes of God’s teachers. It implies acceptance of the Word of God and His definition of His Son. It is to Them that faithfulness in the true sense is always directed. Toward Them it looks, seeking until it finds. And having found, it rests in quiet certainty on that alone to which all faithfulness is due.

Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning, while keeping others apart?
I have reached the point where I no longer deliberately hold anything back from the Holy Spirit. Those things that I have unconsciously held back are being brought to my attention one at a time, and I am gladly doing the work when I see them. My faithfulness has become true and doesn’t deviate.

But it was not always like that for me. My faithfulness grew slowly, taking one problem at a time to the Holy Spirit, and with each achievement, the joy and peace that I experienced encouraged me to continue. I slowly came to see what surrender looked like as Jesus gently guided me through the words in A Course in Miracles. He told me not to plan on my own and to make no decisions with the ego. He told me that it is in my defenselessness that my safety lies.

He assured me that everything is in my best interest. He asked me what could I not accept, if I but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is my good? And he assured me this is true, and then proved it to me over and over again until finally, I accepted it. Jesus offered to take my body and my ego and it took until now for me to take him up on this. It took this long for me to accept that he was not asking me to sacrifice anything of value. Now I am confident in both of us to each do our part without fail.

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