2-11-13
12 A clear distinction between what is created and what is made is essential. All forms of healing rest on this fundamental correction in level perception.
What is made? When I wonder if something is real, if it is created instead of made, I ask if it is eternal. Is this something that changes, or is this something that dies? These things are made. If it is eternal and if it is love then it is created. The ego mind cannot conceive of this. It appears to the ego as if I am saying that nothing exists, because the ego doesn’t really believe in anything it cannot see and it believes most strongly in that which it fears and hates and defends against. So to the ego mind, the idea of letting go of the belief in what is not real feels dangerous. It feels like annihilation.
As I am beginning to wake up, I am allowing my perception to be corrected. This is not as easy as it sounds. I spent years just getting to the place where I understood that special relationships are not actually love, and I am still in the process of allowing all of the many forms of specialness to be purified. It felt very frightening at first, and it is still an obstinate belief that I find hard to completely release. In the beginning it felt as if I were being asked to let go of love, but eventually I realized that in letting go of the belief in what I thought was love, I have made room for actual love.
Now I seem to be working on changing my perception of the body. This is not any easier. This too, this belief that I am my body, is a stubbornly persistent belief. I have done the lessons. I said that “I am not a body, I am free.” I have said it many times and practiced it in many ways, and yet I have not believed it. Now I am ready to look more closely at this belief in body, and I am ready to be healed.
This is what it feels like. It appears as if Jesus invites me to look at a layer of belief and to see that this is not true. It might take me months of looking at it as he shows me in many ways that this belief is false. Finally, I know that this belief is not true and it is as if the layer is peeled away. Then I get another invitation, and I begin to look at another belief that makes the body seem real.
I looked at pain through Lesson 190. I practiced it for months, using the pain I was in as many opportunities to practice the idea that pain could not be true because it is not of God. Eventually, my belief began to shift and I was able to experience this shift in form. Pain that had been pretty intense simply disappeared with no help from any magical solutions.
I did not change my circumstances. I did not find relief from medical intervention. I just began to believe that pain could not possibly be real and I did this through asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of this impossible belief. I saw many small but irrefutable proofs as I went through this process.
You would think after all that I would never experience pain again, but I do. Now, however, I absolutely know that I am doing this to myself and I ask that my mind be healed of any belief that it could be caused by something else. I know I did this, not through anything happening in the world, but through my thoughts and beliefs, and I ask the Holy Spirit to come into my mind and undo what I did. How long will it take before I stop doing this to myself? As long as it takes.
Recently, Jesus invited me to work with some of my magical solutions. The way he suggested we do this was to stop taking my Ambien when I couldn’t sleep and to not take pain pills when I experienced pain. He is helping me to let go of another layer of belief in the unbelievable. I am learning that the body does not create pain and insomnia. This happens in the mind, and by not reaching for the magical solution right away, I am allowing my mind to be healed of this belief.
Sometimes I will still take the medications, but even if I do, I realize that it is not the medication that makes the difference, but my belief in the medication that does the job. How very strange it feels to me now to take those medicines. It is almost a joke I play on myself and sometimes I laugh when I do it. So I know that the mind is being healed. Another layer is being peeled back.
Something else that happened recently is that a smoker sat near me and I had an old reaction. My eyes began to burn and itch and I wished I had some Visine AC to stop that feeling. It was so irritating that I decided to buy some. As I was getting in the car and while driving to the store, I was given the thought that it was not the cigarette smoke that caused the itching. I accepted that thought and more was revealed.
I saw that as the smoke had drifted to me, I had judged the smoker and felt resentment. As soon as I realized that it was not anything outside me that caused the problem, but the thoughts in my mind that once again made the physical discomfort, the itching stopped. Changing the mind can be like a runner going full out and suddenly stopping. She does not just stop on a dime, but perhaps skids to a stop.
I let the realization that once again I had done this to myself roll around in my mind for awhile. I considered that maybe I was wrong and if I didn’t buy the Visine, it would start again. This is the ego mind arguing for its way. It wants to defend against the world and is adamant about that. I bought the Visine but by the time I got home I knew I didn’t need it. It has never been opened.
I see very clearly through these practices that it is essential that I understand that there is a difference in what is made and what is created. Anything that is made, the body for instance, has no creative ability. The body cannot make pain or disease, or discomfort, and since none of those things are creations, they are not real either.
The body nor the effects I experience in the body are real. They cannot be real because they are not part of creation. They are all the effects of a mind that has distorted reality to suit its purpose. Since the effects are not real, it can affect me only if I choose to believe in it. Now that I am accepting the Atonement, I am letting go of my perverse desire to twist reality into something unrecognizable as love. I am starting to see this healed perspective reflected in my world.
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