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*Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php    
Sarah's Commentary:

[137] When I am healed, I am not healed alone.
[138] Heaven is the decision I must make.

I realize how important these thoughts are when I am entertaining thoughts of worry, anxiety, anger, grievances, annoyance, irritation, impatience, control, bitterness, helplessness, any kind of distress, or, in fact, any kind of expectation, all of which I can choose to change my mind about and choose Heaven instead. It is so easy to just say that I am in a bad mood, or I am having a difficult day and allow my mind free reign to stay that way. It can be helpful to ask "Who is the "I" that is in a bad mood?" When we identify with that "I" that is the small self, we believe that this is our identity. When we withdraw belief from it, we can simply be the witness of this state. When we witness our condition without judgment then the mind shifts. That is what the miracle does. It is a change of mind. That is why there is no order of difficulty in miracles. That is the simplicity of salvation. It is simply a change of mind from wrong-minded to right-minded perspective, and it happens in an instant. When we witness our state through the eyes of Jesus/Holy Spirit from outside of this dream then we are seeing it for what it is: nothing.

Choosing happiness, choosing Heaven, choosing joy and peace, takes a kind of mind discipline that we don't always feel like doing. We let the ego run rampant and justify why we feel the way we do. To make a choice for Heaven is to be willing to have the blocks to love removed with the help of the Holy Spirit. These blocks keep us from awareness of the truth of who we are. When we stubbornly resist the healing work, we are then closing the door to Heaven. That is why the beautiful painting of Jesus knocking on the door has no door handle on his side of the door. Because it is only by our choice that he can be let in. It is our decision. It is all up to us. Only we have the power and the freedom to choose. Jesus will never impose his will on us. In fact it is entirely up to us to save ourselves as there is no savior outside of our own minds. The Power is in our right mind.

Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, can't bypass our choice, as this would only serve to undermine the power of our minds and our will to choose when we will allow Heaven in by being willing to release our blocks to God's Love for us. Our will is as powerful as God's because He created us. We have all of His attributes, but we are also told that our pain threshold is not without limits. That is why He can be certain that the day will come when we will choose the path to Heaven. While our tolerance for pain may be huge, it is not without limit.

We don't have to wait for pain to become intolerable in order to make a decision for Heaven. When we are highly motivated to keep making this choice with every negative thought that crosses our minds, then we are choosing the miracle instead of the grievance in each moment. That is what these practices are about. Each time we apply the lesson, our motivation for peace and for Heaven are increased. We can change our minds at any time and recognize that peace can be available to us right now in this very moment. As we connect our minds to Heaven, we will also connect to each other because, as today's lesson also reminds us, "When I am healed, I am not healed alone." (W.137) There is no other. "As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself." (T-8.III.4.2-5). What healing does is overturn the laws of sickness showing us their unreality. These laws, which we believe have power, must not be real when we see how easily they are overturned without physical means. Healing cancels out the dream of sickness and demonstrates that we are all one.

So, it is all about deciding and choosing and being willing. What holds us back? What are we afraid of? We think we can protect and defend ourselves from being too vulnerable. We think that by staying angry, by being right, by holding onto our perspectives and our opinions, we will maintain our independence and our autonomy. We hold beliefs that keep us in hell. We may believe that people are judging us, that we know what is best for ourselves, that other people can hurt us, that we can be rejected, that something should be different than it is, that the body should be healthy, that we can't do anything right, and on and on it goes. Each of these beliefs, and many others, brings suffering. We hold them because they keep us invested in the illusion that we are who we say we are.

It is in our vulnerability that we are strong. It is our willingness to recognize that we are wrong about all of our self perceptions and the beliefs that we hold. It is letting go of what we think we know and allowing life to live us. When we surrender to the love that surrounds us by plugging into our power source---God, ordinary life becomes extraordinary and divine. If we can choose Heaven at any moment and don't, we need to ask ourselves, "What is stopping me in this moment?" "What is my payoff to stay with my take on this situation?" There is always a payoff for being in control. We get to be right about the way we set things up, and this makes God wrong. We make a case for the world being the cause for how we feel so that we become the victims of the world we see. This means that someone outside of our own minds is responsible for our condition. It makes them guilty and we can justify our attacks on them. We don't do anything without some kind of 'juice' or payoff. Even pain has a payoff because someone must pay. By our suffering we show our brother how guilty he is. We demonstrate their sin by showing them our injured self. Examining our ego programming is not always fun, but always worthwhile if we are committed to our healing. It is the only way to Heaven. We can't go around our own fear, but must go through the darkness to the light. Fortunately for us, it shows itself to us daily every time we are triggered by anyone or any situation outside of ourselves.

Under all of this is the unconscious belief in sin and with it the belief that we will be punished with hell. So we spend our lives running from this belief by focusing on distractions and refusing to look at our fears. We pursue the good life in the belief that we can somehow carve out some kind of pleasure in the face of aging, dying and spending an eternity in hell. This is apparently what we are running from with our pursuit of happiness as we define it in the world. So this unconscious belief in death and our fear of waking up to the god of the ego, which we have made, must be brought to light to see that it has no validity. The god that the ego has projected is a vengeful god. It is a projected image of our own ego. Now Jesus tells us that we insist that God take on our definition of Him, yet He also tells us that He is only love and nothing else. There is only Heaven and that is the only choice to be made. Our guilt is released through forgiveness by watching our unforgiving thoughts and being willing to turn them over to the Holy Spirit. When we do, we will experience the truth of our being, which has never sinned and is eternally pure and innocent as created by our loving Father, Who only wants us to know who we really are.

We continue our practice as before, beginning and ending the day with time devoted to the preparation of our minds to learn what each idea can offer us in freedom and in peace. Let us commit today to raising every belief that we hold to doubt. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive. Continue with the hourly remembrance and whenever you feel triggered by anything today, apply the lesson.

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