*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:

This lesson reminds us once again, that the world is about separation and at no time do we feel that more, and feel more shut off and alone than when we are sick, whether physically or emotionally, where there is a tendency to withdraw into ourselves and look only for those special relationships where our needs for relief, from our perceived condition, can be met. This is precisely the purpose of sickness, which is to focus our attention on the body and our specialness and keep us from awareness of the love that we are. Thus it is a defense. It keeps us in separation by establishing the body as real and proves God is not. With sickness, the body becomes the whole focus of our attention. Our challenge is to learn that the mind is what is actually powerful.

I remember a conversation I had with Willis Harmon, who was the one who introduced me to the Course. At the time I met him he was the head of the Institute for Noetic Sciences at Stanford University, founded by the astronaut Edgar Mitchell. The purpose of the institute was to investigate phenomenon beyond the realm of ordinary science. One of the areas they were researching at that time was remission in cancer patients. What was the difference between those who were able to achieve remission and those who weren't? Most often they found that it was the release of grievances and the letting go of investment in this world and how things go that made the difference. Unfortunately the project suffered from lack of good information from doctors whose files were sadly lacking with regard to the emotional state of their patients. The focus of their interest seemed to be restricted to the body. Having said that, while the body will reflect the healing in the mind, the state of the body will not affect the peace in the mind. As we read in Chapter 2.I.5 "Healing is inner peace." If that is the case, would it really make a difference if the body stayed seemingly sick, but you no longer identified yourself with it and still had peace?

This was apparent to me recently when a friend was going through his sickness which resulted in his seeming death. After much turmoil on learning of his condition, as the sickness of the body progressed, it seemed apparent that his mind increasingly chose peace and joining as he welcomed so much love into his life. His last words were, "I am happy". So the condition of the body is not where the sickness is. It is all in the mind. As Byron Katie said recently: "My life is full of joy and love, but what is my life? It is awareness. It is not a physical body." That is what this lesson is about, to heal our belief that life is a physical body. Life did not start with birth nor will it end with death. This is not what life is. It is our eternal Self that never dies and is not a body.

Sickness, in this lesson, is described as a "retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone." (1.3-4) So, sickness is isolation as it does seem to keep us in a solitary prison of our own suffering which seems to separate us from the One Self. Thus sickness appears to have power to attack the truth of our reality. It is not that sickness has the power, but that we have given the power to the ego thought system which says that when I am in pain, whether emotionally or physically, I have chosen against the love that I am. Both can't be true. Either I am the experience of pain in a body or I am Love. If I identify with the sickness and distress then I have stepped out of the truth of my reality as love.

Healing operates apart from the laws of the world because healing is only of the mind which is outside of our body and our true identity. Since sickness is the belief in separation then healing must undo that belief. It is basic undoing of the belief that our reality is these bodies, living in this world. In other words it is a process of undoing the illusion which is what forgiveness is. Forgiveness says that what I think you did to me has not occurred. In the same way healing says, that sickness of the body can't be real. Healing reminds us who we really are, not these experiences of pain. Thus to heal is to step out of this dream, above the battleground and see the figures in the dream, including ourselves, as not the truth. From this perspective we look with Jesus at figures in the dream and see their unreality. Without separation there can be no separate self to be sick.

When the pain in our minds is healed, it may be that the state of the body becomes irrelevant because it is not who we are. Thus the seeming appearance of the sick body must be illusion. "In sickness does the Self appear to be dismembered, and without the unity that gives It life." (3.5) So Jesus is saying that who we are seems to be crucified when we are sick and that the truth of who we are seems to become disempowered. Yet healing is accomplished when we see that the truth of who we are can never change. It is only that we are not aware of this truth about ourselves, but the truth is always there waiting for our acknowledgement. We can only do this when we look at the ego's lies and give up the suffering. "Sickness would prove that lies must be truth." (4.1) And the lie that the ego has convinced us of, is that we are bodies and that the separation actually happened. To see the unreality of this is to see it from above the battleground, outside of this dream.

So with healing comes demonstration that truth is true and that: "The separation sickness would impose has never really happened." (4.3) All that is needed for healing is acceptance of this truth which Jesus calls a simple truth, but we have become so identified with the body and personality that we have come to believe that it is the truth about us. That is why healing is needed in order to demonstrate the unreality of this illusion of sickness. What healing does is demonstrate to us that sickness was never real in the first place. The belief in separation, that sickness demonstrates, showing us we are vulnerable bodies, is an investment that we can withdraw with the help of Jesus. We have given power to something that is not real. It is not about denying the body, denying that there is pain, but only to step back from it and look at it through a different lens. By seeing our experiences here as part of a dream and not true, we start to distance ourselves from our identification with these experiences. We might question it by looking at "who is the me that is suffering?"

Jesus says that: "Healing might thus be called a counter-dream, which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself." (5.1) In other words neither the sickness nor the healing are real, but he makes the comparison to forgiveness, as an illusion, which ends all illusions, because forgiveness overlooks what never really happened. (5.2) Healing of the body becomes a very powerful experience which does seem real to us, but all it does is offer "restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth." (5.3) In spite of the unreality of sickness, Jesus is not saying to just get over it. Instead he affirms that doing the healing work is very worthy of our function here. (6.1) The reason being that sickness (the anti-Christ) seems even more powerful than Christ in this dream. (6.1-2) because the body seems very real to us and it is our right minds and the state of love which seem more like the dream or fantasy. We seem to be able to experience the body and fear more readily than concepts of love, oneness and God. Thus sickness seems to have triumphed over God and seems to have more power. It is important not to deny our beliefs, but to look at them as this is the only way that they can be corrected. Now sickness is shown as powerless and instead the laws of love are demonstrated to have real power. The symbols in our lives that show us the unreality of sickness are thus helpful to our own recognition that we are not this body and can indeed laugh at the idea that who we are in truth can ever be sick.

So sickness is part of the classroom that offers us opportunities for learning about the healing of the mind. And when the mind is healed the condition of the body becomes irrelevant. Even "enlightened" beings leave their bodies sometimes through sickness. Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharishi both "died" from cancer. In an enlightened state, they would no longer be identifying with the body. Byron Katie, who does not call herself enlightened, but who can be seen as highly evolved, has had cancer, blindness, osteoporosis and finds it all irrelevant to her state of mind. She says she can't fear death because "you have to be born before you can fear dying and there is nothing born but a belief system and we identify as the person we believe ourselves to be and that can never be. So who lives?"

Jon Mundy wrote that what having cancer did for his healing was to allow him to let go. "I let go of entanglements, hang-ups, regrets and remorse--all the nostalgia about what might have been--relationships that did not turn out better---the belief that anything 'had' to happen--even everything I've been ashamed of. I go deeper and deeper. I take a good look at my secret sins and hidden hates. And then comes the last thing, the biggest thing of all. I even forgive myself for not having done a better job." And Tomas Vieira wrote at the end of his process with the body to look beyond appearances as there was no one there to suffer. When the concept of the "me" that I identify with has been healed, there is no one there to suffer meaning that I am seeing the self that I have identified with from outside of the dream. So it is a process of becoming empty. And in that becoming, the debris of our misperceptions is cleared from our minds and now we become a channel of healing for the world, not by doing anything, but by recognizing that "Healing is freedom." (8.1) It is a reflection of the Oneness of Heaven in that acceptance of healing anywhere in the Sonship, is accepting it for all.

 When we have had this experience of healing whatever the pain is, whether emotional or physical, we begin to realize that our minds are not limited by our bodily experience. We just don't realize the power of our minds. And the impact on the world of our healing is beyond our ability to comprehend. It is hard to imagine that when we heal our minds it actually affects all those in our lives, those who cross your mind, who seem to have no contact with you, all those around you. (10.1) We are also told that we just have no idea of how great this offering is to the world: "And legions upon legions will receive the gift that you receive when you are healed." (10.4). It is an amazing thought!! It is because there is only one mind.

So our whole purpose is about letting our minds be healed so we can carry this healing to the world. And this is the only way that healing can happen. It won't happen by changing anything in the world, but only our own minds!! So today, let us bless those who have hurt us instead of cursing them, let us share our joy with them instead of attacking them, and let us share our love instead of moving into withdrawal and separation. (13.1). Today I choose my healing so I can be a channel for blessing the world. That is my only function here. No other purpose can bring me joy. To heal is to share because as we let go of our separation it restores the truth of who we are in our awareness. And then healing can flow through my mind to other minds.

We are challenged to give the time to this practice because it is a very small expenditure for the gift of everything in return. It is a huge contribution we make to the healing of the world. Jesus is urging us to follow him telling us that his lessons are gentle showing us how easily salvation can be ours. It does take practice which is why we have these lessons. We have made laws that hold us prisoner to death (9.2), but the Holy Spirit needs our help if these laws we have made are to be replaced by His laws. He needs our help to free us from all the pain we have caused ourselves. Bodies get sick, whither, and die, so if we are betting on our bodies, we are betting on a losing proposition. So today we are again asked to question what we are believing about who we are. Those thoughts we identify with become our reality, not in truth, but in our beliefs. When we open the mind to the truth is when we can experience the infinite Self that we are.

Longer practice: we are asked to take ten minutes in the morning and again in the evening when we start the practice period with the statement that:

"When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would share my healing with the world, that sickness may be banished from the mind of God's one Son, Who is my only Self." (14.3) First become aware of the pain, the thoughts of sickness, of not being well, of physical symptoms you feel, of discomfort of any kind in your mind, of anger, of attack thoughts, of grief and sadness, and recognize that these thoughts are secret decisions to exclude yourself from love. The cause of these thoughts is in the mind and not in some external event or agent. Now be willing to look at those thoughts. This practice of healing does not make sense if we don't apply it to something going on in our minds that keep us separate. Recognize that the discomfort in your body is a reflection of discomforting thoughts in your mind. Remember that you can have the peace of God instead of the experience you are holding onto.

Then we rest in quiet and receive the Word of God to replace all our insane thoughts. Try not to let this lesson be forgotten today remembering your purpose at least hourly with this thought: "When I am healed I am not healed alone. And I would bless my brothers, for I would be healed with them, as they are healed with me."

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