HEALING AND THE MIND

The body cannot heal, because it cannot make itself sick. It NEEDS no
healing. Its health or sickness depends entirely on how the mind
perceives it, and the purpose which the mind would use it FOR. And
it is obvious that a segment of the mind CAN see itself as separated
from the Universal Purpose. When this occurs, the body becomes its
weapon, used AGAINST this Purpose to demonstrate the “fact” that
separation has occurred. The body thus becomes the instrument of
illusion, acting accordingly; seeing what is not there, hearing what
truth has never said, and behaving insanely, being imprisoned BY
insanity.

Do not overlook our earlier statement that faithlessness leads straight
to illusions. For faithlessness is the perception of a brother as a
body, and the body cannot be used for purposes of union. If, then, you
see your brother AS a body, you have established a condition in which
uniting with him becomes impossible. Your faithlessness to him has
separated you from him, and kept you BOTH apart from being healed. Your
faithlessness has thus opposed the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and brought
illusions, centered on the BODY, to stand between you. And the body WILL
seem to be sick, for you have made of it an “enemy” of healing, and the
opposite of truth.

It cannot be difficult to realize that faith must be the opposite of
faithlessness. Yet the difference in how they operate is less apparent,
though it follows directly from the fundamental difference in what they
are. Faithlessness would always limit and attack; faith would remove all
limitations and make whole. Faithlessness would interpose illusions
between the Son of God and his Creator; faith would remove all obstacles
that seem to rise between them. Faithlessness is wholly dedicated to
illusions; faith wholly to truth. Partial dedication is impossible.
Truth is the ABSENCE of illusion; illusion the ABSENCE of truth.

Both cannot BE together, nor perceived in the same place. To dedicate
yourself to both is to set up a goal forever impossible to attain, for
part of it is sought through the body, thought of as a means for seeking
out reality through attack, while the other part would heal, and
therefore calls upon the mind and NOT the body. The inevitable
compromise is the belief that the BODY must be healed, and NOT the mind.
For this divided goal has given both an equal reality, which could be
possible only if the mind is limited to the body, and divided into
little parts of seeming wholeness, but without connection. This will not
harm the body, but it WILL keep the
delusional thought system in the MIND.

Here, then, is healing needed. And it is here that healing IS. For God
gave healing not APART from sickness, nor established remedy where
sickness cannot be. They are TOGETHER, and when they are SEEN together,
all attempts to keep both truth and illusion in the mind, where both
MUST be, are recognized as dedication to ILLUSION; and given up when
brought to truth, and seen as totally unreconcilable with truth, in any
respect or in any way.

Truth and illusion have NO connection. This will remain forever true,
however much you seek to connect them. But illusions are ALWAYS
connected, as is truth. Each is united, a complete thought system, but
totally disconnected to each other. Where there is no overlap, there
separation must be complete. And to perceive this is to recognize where
separation IS, and where it must be healed. The result of an idea is
never separate from its source. The IDEA of separation produced the
body, and remains connected to it, making it sick because of its
identification with it. You think you are protecting the body by hiding
this connection, for this concealment seems to keep your identification
safe from the “attack” of truth.

If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your
mind, and how confused your own identification has become because of it!
You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your faithlessness.
For faithlessness is an attack which seems to be justified by its
RESULTS. For by withholding faith, you see what IS unworthy of it, and
cannot look beyond the barrier to what is joined with you.

To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you have accepted the
Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you
offer the gift of freedom from the past, which YOU received. You do not
use anything your brother has done before to condemn him NOW. You freely
choose to overlook his errors, looking past all barriers between your
self and his, and seeing them as one. And in that one you see your faith
is fully justified. There IS no justification for faithlessness, but
faith is ALWAYS justified.

Faith is the opposite of fear, as much a part of love as fear is of
attack. Faith is the acknowledgment of union. It is the gracious
acknowledgment of everyone as a Son of your most loving Father,
loved by Him like you, and therefore loved by you as yourself. It is His
Love that joins you, and for His Love you would keep no-one separate
from YOURS. Each one appears just as he is perceived in the holy
instant, united in your purpose to be released from guilt. You saw the
Christ in him, and he was healed because you looked on what makes faith
forever justified in everyone.

Faith is the gift of God, through Him Whom God has given you.
Faithlessness looks upon the Son of God, and judges him unworthy of
forgiveness. But through the eyes of faith, the Son of God is seen
ALREADY forgiven, free of all the guilt he laid upon himself. Faith sees
him only NOW because it looks not to the past to judge him, but would
see in him only what it would see in YOU. It sees not through the body’s
eyes, nor looks to bodies for its justification. It is the messenger of
the new perception, sent forth to gather witnesses unto its coming, and
to return their messages to you. Faith is as easily exchanged for
knowledge as is the real world. For faith arises from the Holy Spirit’s
perception, and is the sign you share it with Him. Faith is a gift you
offer to the Son of God through Him, and wholly acceptable to his Father
as to him. And therefore offered YOU.

Your holy relationship, with its new purpose, offers you faith to give
unto each other. Your faithlessness had driven you apart, and so you did
not recognize salvation in each other. Yet faith UNITES you in the
holiness you see, not through the body’s eyes, but in the sight of Him
Who joined you, and in Whom YOU are united. Grace is not given to a
body, but to a MIND. And the mind that receives it looks instantly
beyond the body, and sees the holy place where it was healed. THERE is
the altar where the grace was given, in which it stands. Do you, then,
offer grace and blessing to each other, for you stand at the same altar,
where grace was laid for BOTH of you. And be you healed by grace
together, that YOU may heal through faith.

In the holy instant, you stand before the altar God has raised unto
Himself and BOTH of you. Lay faithlessness aside, and come to it
together. There will you see the miracle of your relationship as it was
made again through faith. And there it is that you will realize that
there is nothing faith cannot forgive. No error interferes with its calm
sight, which brings the miracle of healing with equal ease to ALL of
them. For what the messengers of love are sent to do THEY
DO, returning the glad tidings that it was done to you who stand
together before the altar from which they were sent forth.

As faithlessness will keep your little kingdoms barren and separate, so
will faith help the Holy Spirit prepare the ground for the most holy
garden which He would make of it. For faith brings peace, and so it
calls on truth to enter and make lovely what has already been prepared
for loveliness. Truth follows faith and peace, completing the process of
making lovely which they begin. For faith is still a learning goal, no
longer needed when the lesson has been learned. Yet truth will stay
forever.

Let, then, your dedication be to the eternal, and learn how NOT to
interfere with it and make it slave to time. For what you think you do
to the eternal you do to YOU. Whom God created as His Son is slave to
nothing, being lord of all along with his Creator. You can enslave a
body, but an IDEA is free, incapable of being kept in prison, or limited
in any way except by the mind that thought it. For it remains joined to
its source, which is its jailor or its liberator, according to which it
chooses as its purpose for itself.