¹ A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already, you will still have the problem because you cannot recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized.

² Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a problem has been solved if he thinks the problem is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance.

³ That is the position in which you find yourself now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the problem is. A long series of different problems seems to confront you, and as one is settled the next one and the next arise. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of problems and at peace.

⁴ The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vast number of problems, each requiring a different answer. This perception places you in a position in which your problem solving must be inadequate and failure must be inevitable.

⁵ No one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms, and with such varied content that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.

⁶ All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the problems which confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means because you recognize the problem.

⁷ In our longer practice periods today, we will ask what the problem is and what is the answer to it. We will not assume that we already know. We will try to free our minds of all the many different kinds of problems that we think we have. We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solution to it. And we will be told.

⁸ Our exercises for today will be successful to the extent to which we do not insist on defining the problem. Perhaps we will not succeed in letting all our preconceived notions go, but that is not necessary. All that is necessary is to entertain some doubt about the reality of our version of what our problems are. We are trying to recognize that we have been given the answer by recognizing the problem, so that the problem and the answer can be brought together, and we can be at peace.

⁹ The shorter practice periods for today will not be set by time but by need. You will see many problems today, each one calling for an answer. Our efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer. In this recognition are all problems resolved. In this recognition there is peace.

¹⁰ Be not deceived by the form of problems today. Whenever any difficulty seems to rise, tell yourself quickly:

¹¹ Let me recognize this problem so it can be solved.

¹² Then try to suspend all judgment about what the problem is. If possible, close your eyes for a moment and ask what it is. You will be heard and you will be answered.

Course in Miracles

Original Edition

TEXT

Chapter 7

The Consistency

of the Kingdom



VI. Healing and the

Changelessness of Mind

par 39-53

³⁹ The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities. It is therefore a means for developing potentials, which is quite apart from what the potential is used for. That is a decision. The effects of the ego's decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no elaboration here, but the Holy Spirit's decision to use the body only for communication has such a direct connection with healing that it does need clarification. The unhealed healer obviously does not understand his own vocation.

⁴⁰ Only minds communicate. Since the ego cannot obliterate the impulse to communicate because it is also the impulse to create, the ego can only teach you that the body can both communicate and create and therefore does not need the mind. The ego thus tries to teach you that the body can act like the mind and is therefore self-sufficient. Yet we have learned that behavior is not the level for either teaching or learning. This must be so, since you can act in accordance with what you do not believe. To do this, however, will weaken you as teachers and learners because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you do believe. An inconsistent lesson will be poorly taught and poorly learned. If you teach both sickness and healing, you are both a poor teacher and a poor learner.

⁴¹ Healing is the one ability which everyone can develop and must develop if he is to be healed. Healing is the Holy Spirit's form of communication and the only one He knows. He recognizes no other, because He does not accept the ego's confusion of mind and body. Minds can communicate, but they cannot hurt. The body in the service of the ego can hurt other bodies, but this cannot occur unless the body has already been confused with the mind. This fact, too, can be used either for healing or for magic, but you must remember that magic is always the belief that healing is harmful. This is its totally insane premise, and so it proceeds accordingly.

⁴² Healing only strengthens. Magic always tries to weaken. Healing perceives nothing in the healer that everyone else does not share with him. Magic always sees something "special" in the healer which he believes he can offer as a gift to someone who does not have it. He may believe that the gift comes from God to Him, but it is quite evident that he does not understand God if he thinks he has something that others lack. You might well ask, then, why some healing can result from this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for this.

⁴³ However misguided the "magical healer" may be, he is also trying to help. He is conflicted and unstable, but at times he is offering something to the Sonship, and the only thing the Sonship can accept is healing. When the so-called "healing" works, then, the impulse to help and to be helped have coincided. This is coincidental because the healer may not be experiencing himself as truly helpful at the time, but the belief that he is, in the mind of another, helps him.

⁴⁴ The Holy Spirit does not work by chance, and healing that is of Him always works. Unless the healer always heals by Him, the results will vary. Yet healing itself is consistence since only consistence is conflict-free, and only the conflict-free are whole. By accepting exceptions and acknowledging that he can sometimes heal and sometimes not, the healer is obviously accepting inconsistency. He is therefore in conflict and teaching conflict. Can anything of God not be for all and for always?

⁴⁵ Love is incapable of any exceptions. Only if there is fear does the idea of exceptions seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are fearful because they are made by fear. The "fearful healer" is a contradiction in terms and is therefore a concept which only a conflicted mind could possibly perceive as meaningful. Fear does not gladden. Healing does. Fear always makes exceptions. Healing never does. Fear produces dissociation because it induces separation. Healing always produces harmony because it proceeds from integration.

⁴⁶ Healing is predictable because it can be counted on. Everything that is of God can be counted on because everything of God is wholly real. Healing can be counted on because it is inspired by His Voice and is in accord with His laws. Yet if healing is consistence, it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding means consistence because God means consistence. Since that is His meaning, it is also yours. Your meaning cannot be out of accord with His because your whole meaning, and your only meaning, comes from His and is like His. God cannot be out of accord with Himself, and you cannot be out of accord with Him. You cannot separate your self from your Creator, Who created you by sharing His being with you.

⁴⁷ The unhealed healer wants gratitude from his brothers, but he is not grateful to them. This 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. 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 created for change.

⁴⁸ 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 does place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which seems contradictory—you must learn to change your mind about your mind. Only by this can you learn that it is changeless. When you heal that is exactly what you are learning. You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by realizing that he could not have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is only the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he can, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self is.

⁴⁹ If you see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him at all. By changing your mind about his for him, you help him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him. As you can hear two voices, so you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol which you may worship out of fear but which you will never love. The other shows you only truth, which you will love because you will understand it. Understanding is appreciation because what you understand you can identify with, and by making it part of you, you have accepted it with love.

⁵⁰ That is how God Himself created you—in understanding, in appreciation, and in love. The ego is totally unable to understand this, because it does not understand what it makes; it does not appreciate it; and it does not love it. It incorporates to take away. It literally believes that every time it deprives someone of something, it has increased. We have spoken often of the increase of the Kingdom by your creations, which can only be created as you were. The whole glory and perfect joy that is the Kingdom lies in you to give. Do you not want to give it? 

⁵¹ You cannot forget the Father because I am with you, and I cannot forget Him. To forget me is to forget yourself and Him Who created you. Our brothers are forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of me and Him Who created me. Through this remembrance, you can change their minds about themselves, as I can change yours. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours. I do not want to share my body in communion, because that is to share nothing. [Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father?] Yet I do want to share my mind with you because we are of One Mind and that Mind is ours.

⁵² See only this Mind everywhere because only this is everywhere and in everything. It is everything because it encompasses all things within itself. Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you perceive only what is true. Come therefore unto me and learn of the truth in you. The Mind we share is shared by all our brothers, and as we see them truly, they will be healed. Let your mind shine with mine upon their minds and by our gratitude to them, make them aware of the light in them.

⁵³ This light will shine back upon you and on the whole Sonship because this is your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the Sonship because it is acceptable to Him and therefore to His Sons. This is the true communion of the Spirit, Who sees the altar of God in everyone and, by bringing it to your appreciation, calls upon you to love God and His creations. You can appreciate the Sonship only as one. This is part of the Law of Creation and therefore governs all thought.

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