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.
