V. Healing and the Changelessness of Mind. Paragraph 7
7 The unhealed healer wants gratitude from his brothers, but he is not grateful to them. That is because he thinks he is giving something to them, and is not receiving something equally desirable in return. His teaching is limited because he is learning so little. His healing lesson is limited by his own ingratitude, which is a lesson in sickness. True learning is constant, and so vital in its power for change that a Son of God can recognize his power in one instant and change the world in the next. That is because, by changing his mind, he has changed the most powerful device that was ever given him for change. This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as God created it, but you think that you have changed it as long as you learn through the ego. This places you in a position of needing to learn a lesson that seems contradictory; - you must learn to change your mind about your mind. Only by this can you learn that it is changeless.
I am going to frequently remind myself that it is only my mind I heal and only through changing my mind will I return to my Self. This does not mean that I can change the world or change my mind. It means that when I change the world nothing happens. For instance, if I want to lose weight and I change my diet, nothing has actually happened even if I lose weight.
I have actually only changed an illusion (the diet) to change an illusion (the body). Another way to think of this is: I pretended to have a fat body and pretended to make a thinner body and pretended to effect this change by manipulating the illusion through eating differently. Now I pretend that my manipulation gave me the thinner body I claim to want. I did a lot of nothing about nothing.
What if instead of trying to play around in the illusion, I change my mind about what I want? I may still be only changing the illusion, but in using my mind to do this rather than manipulating the illusion, I am reminding myself of who I am. I am learning to remember that my mind is powerful.
This is what Jesus says about changing the mind: “…a Son of God can recognize his power in one instant and change the world in the next. That is because, by changing his mind, he has changed the most powerful device that was ever given him for change.” When I read those words today they brought tears to my eyes. It is like suddenly remembering something wonderful and feeling the emotion of that memory.
But here is the truth. I don’t really have to think back to find a time when I changed the world through changing my mind. I do this all the time. Most of those times it is in very small increments and so I don’t realize what I have done right away. Only later do I notice how much my world has changed. But every time I change my mind, in that instant the world changes, not just for me, but for all of us.
Lesson 190 says there is no pain. When I first read this I was at a loss as to how this could be true because I seemed to have pain, and it felt very real. As I continued to study and practice the lesson, I let go of what I believed about pain and changed my mind. I accepted that there is no pain. Even when I felt pain, I accepted there is no pain. I refused to be distracted by appearances, which are only illusions.
The pain I had been dealing with vanished. It took many moments of working with that idea for me to come to full acceptance, but in that moment of full acceptance the world changed. Pain was no longer something I felt in my body, but was simply a projection from my mind, and could be alleviated through changing my mind. I continue to master that choice to believe the truth rather than appearances.
Jesus did this and his accomplishment was our accomplishment. All I had to do was to accept it. I just had to talk myself into believing it. In my acceptance of his accomplishment it became easier for the next person to do so. And of course, I am not the only one to accept the truth, which made it easier for me to do so in my turn. We all benefit from every small shift in the mind.
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