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Gentle Healing Lesson 151, Manual for Teachers, Text.  6-18-19

LESSON 151
All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

“You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego’s judgments, all of which are false.”

I read this lesson then stopped to do my meditation. I began the meditation by asking to be enlightened to how this lesson helps me to know my Self. This is how I begin all my meditations, with a request to know my Self. I used a guided meditation to lead me into the process. This meditation guided me to rest and was very effective in doing so.

When I was fully rested, it was pointed out that this is my natural state and is my presence that I was experiencing. From there I sat in silence for a while. At one point, a disturbing thought crossed my mind and I felt myself contracting. Because I had been at rest, this contraction was apparent in a way that I might not have immediately noticed otherwise. I let the thought go and I went back into rest. This showed me how different it is to experience the ego as opposed to the presence.

Jesus begins this lesson by pointing out that we judge on partial evidence which is not really judgment and that we protect this judgment because we know it is wrong. The Bible has told us that we must not judge and now we know why. We cannot judge. We don’t have complete information on which to judge. What is actually happening is that we are asking the ego for an interpretation of what seems to be happening and then we believe the ego’s judgment, all of which are false.

The ego has an agenda and its agenda is to prove that we are sinful, helpless and afraid. It uses the body senses to convince us that this is true. And in spite of the fact that we have ample evidence that this proof is unreliable, we just keep believing it. Again, we believe it because we have this underlying doubt and are afraid of this doubt. There is a memory of something else in our mind and that memory, though nearly hidden is what sources the doubt. It is the Voice for God.

This sad being that the ego shows us as ourselves is really just the ego itself. We are not the ego. That is a fact and that fact, when we accept it, undoes all the ego tries to project onto us. The ego continues to convince us that it is us and we keep falling for it, but that does not have to continue. We can learn to recognize our Self, to remember and know our Self and this is why every day now I ask to know my Self.

This lesson is to be done for two days so I am going to stop here and look at it again tomorrow. In the meantime, I will look at Regina’s tips.

Regina’s Tips
Regina said that she read some paragraphs from Chapter 14 of “The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.” Part of that reading was a story about a planet where people are born and raised in a movie theatre, and they never question if the movie on the screen is reality; they simply assume it is. The story tells the different reactions to this and to the first person to bravely find the projector. It’s a good story.

After relating the whole story she says this:

“You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body’s eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it …”

We do well to contemplate Michael Langford’s analogy of the movie theatre and today’s Course lesson together. Isn’t it true that ever since we can remember our attention has been focused outward on thought and the world? Isn’t that like the people in the movie theatre who were born and raised with their attention on the movie screen? Isn’t it true that, just as they did not question the reality of the movie, we have not questioned the reality of our thoughts and perceptions? Isn’t it at least possible that what we have always believed to be reality is not reality? Doesn’t this possibility deserve genuine investigation? Isn’t it worth our time to find out what is true?

My Thoughts
I understand why Regina wants us to do this lesson for two days. This is the crux of the Course. We have listened to the ego for eons and believed everything it said to us and even believed it when it said the voice in our head was our own when really it was the ego. Now it is time to remember the truth. We are not the voice in our head and we are not the body with its senses that lie to us.

It is time to remember that the body is no more real than anything else in the world of form, so we are using an illusion to convince our self that illusions are real. It is time to wake up and look around for the “projector” that has a convinced us of the reality of illusions.

We can begin by questioning the ego voice and by meditating on our Self to help bring it into our awareness. We can practice placing our attention on what we truly want rather than on where the ego mind says we should place it. It is time for a rebellion, time to throw off the chains that we have allowed to imprison our minds.

Manual for Teachers
Key points in Section 6

We are assured that all healing is accomplished when it is given and it is accomplished in both giver and receiver. So what does it mean when we have prayed for healing in another and yet nothing seems to have happened. The ego says that healing is a lie or that the patient is guilty of not accepting the gift of healing. In this section, we are assured that neither is the case.

Healing is always certain, however, if healing would be seen as a curse, then it waits until the patient is able to see it as a blessing. I can imagine how this could happen. If someone feels unworthy and guilty, a sudden healing would be frightening since in his mind this would leave him open to a worse punishment from God. Or if a person doesn’t believe in healing or believe in God, sudden proof he is wrong might turn his life upside down and leave him so confused and upset he might opt for death.

This seems extreme but as Jesus has told us before, we cannot be suddenly awakened. It would be too frightening for us. I know that when I have a student who is new to the Course, I can offer him a shortcut to get straight to where he wants to go, but this is useless. He will choose not to understand or he will not hear what I am saying. I have seen this many times. He, like me, must take this a step at a time. One step leads naturally to the next step and understanding dawns gradually. So, if someone is sick and they don’t believe in healing, it cannot be forced on them. Who knows, their suffering might be just the motivation they need to open their minds to the next step.

We have been told that healing is a shift in perception and that we can help facilitate that in another by knowing the truth about the patient. If we try to judge how well we have done by what we see in the world, we have made an error. “It is not the function of God’s teachers to evaluate the outcome of their gifts.” Trust is an essential part of giving and if we are going to hang around judging whether or not our gift has been received, this is a limitation on the giving itself and neither the giver nor the receiver would have the gift.

It is the relinquishing of all concern about the gift that makes it truly given. 2 And it is trust that makes true giving possible.

Our job is to know the truth and hold to that vision regardless of what seems to be happening in the world. It is not our job to accomplish the healing. That is the Holy Spirit’s job. We are just the channel. Why on earth would we doubt the Holy Spirit? That doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes a healing requires time for reasons we can’t know, but we can be absolutely sure that if we offered the gift of healing, then that healing is done.

The Holy Spirit is not confused about His part. The healing will show up when it is time. It will be accepted when it is time. I also like to remember that the real healing is the perception that is the cause of the problem. Generally, as the perception is corrected, the body shifts to reflect that correction, but if it does not, there is a reason for it. And I know that the change in perception is what matters. 

Text
T12-IV. Seeking and Finding
4 Do you realize that the ego must set you on a journey which cannot but lead to a sense of futility and depression? To seek and not to find is hardly joyous.

Perhaps like me, you thought you could not really depend on the Bible quote, “Seek and ye shall find.” Years of seeking had brought me very little in the way of peace and happiness. I didn’t see where it brought me any closer to God, either. Now I know why. It was because I was asking the ego to show me the way. I was seeking happiness through the ego, and the ego’s directive is to seek and do not find.

Once I began to study the Course, all of that turned around. I was seeking through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit loves me with the Love of the Father. The Holy Spirit wants me to find and so makes it possible for me to do so, actually assures that I will do so. Through the study of the Course, I learned how to ask and was given the process that would bring me the peace and happiness I longed for.

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