We explore how ACIM redefines sickness as the belief in separation in our mind … and how our Inner Kindness teacher – through true forgiveness – helps us to shift our perception from division to inclusion in this video recording of a class (shared in one of the ongoing School For A Course In Miracles – SFACIM classes graciously hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise), we explore … the truly helpful teachings of A Course In Miracles. We read and discussed two sections in ACIM’s Manual for Teachers as well as portions of a closely related Workbook lesson:
- I. The Perceived Purpose of Sickness (ACIM, M-5.I)
- II. The Shift in Perception (ACIM, M-5.II)
- Lesson 136: Sickness is a defense against the truth. (ACIM, W-136)
In order to approach the context of these sections, we look at our purpose for every decision we make. When we look objectively at our motivation, we see that purpose is everything – it reflects our choice of inner teachers; either kindness or cruelty; inclusion or exclusion; forgiveness or condemnation, and all worldly decisions reflect the quality of this one important decision we make each and every moment. Here are a few purpose synonyms: Motive or motivation, cause, reason, justification, intention, aim, objective, goal, end, plan … the WHY!
We must seem to perceive value or benefit in something to follow it, to pursue it… but so often we don’t honestly evaluate the real value or benefit of ego’s wild goose chases.
“Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain.” (ACIM, M-5.I.1:1)
… could be restated as:
“Correction is completed when a mind – having chosen ego’s insanity – realizes that suffering is of no value whatsoever!”
Also,
“Who would choose suffering unless he thought it brought him something, and something of value to him? ³He must think it is a small price to pay for something of greater worth.” (ACIM, M-5.I.1:2-3)
… could be restated as:
“What decision-making mind would want actually want ego’s misery unless we bought the propaganda that rationalized that the “advantages” of personhood: the bizarre notion that identifying as a ‘silly, seemingly separate self’ miraculously outweighed the entire nightmare of the horrific thought system of sin, guilt, fear, oblivion, and death!”
We’re familiar with the phrase “back against the wall” … ACIM would seem to be constantly reminding us of the vertical choice WITH Holy Spirit as contrasted with ego’s “avoid at all costs” warning to not get our “minds against the wall” – the wall of duality that we made up but can just as easily (with HS’s help) unmake through true forgiveness.
Sickness is just one of numerous ego-made ideas that all relate to the insane belief in separation that we’ve all bought into and we’re largely oblivious to the core belief as we shift symbols from one distracting dream diversion of despair and desolation to another.
Here is a list I started a few years ago of words that have the letters SIN in them. Sickness is one of the three “go-to” expansions of those letters that I find helpful, along with Substitution and Separation; thanks to the participants in this class for adding a few more!
curSINg
defenSIveNess
diSINformation
illuSIoN
inSINcerity
iSolatIoN
repulSIveNess
SacrificINg
SectIoN (not the whole enchilada)
SeekINg (but not finding)
SegregatIoN
SensatIoN (not the neural impulses of a body, but making a big deal about ego’s miSINterpretations)
SeparatIoN
SessIoN (a chunk of eternity, wrested from the whole and ‘trapped’ in time)
SIckeNing, isn’t it! :-)
SIckNess
SINgle (the belief that we’re alone instead of all-one)
SINgularity
SINking
SIreN (luring us to shipwreck, or inStillINg fear)
SIxteeN (15 more than we really need)
SkIN (pretty superficial, huh!)
SneakINg
SomethINg (As RoseAnne Roseannadanna said, it’s always something!)
SpecIalNess
SpecIficatioN (fragmented identities crave specific outcomes)
SpellbINding
StarvatIoN
StrivINg
SubstItutioN
SufferINg (with or without succotash)
This iS INsanity!
Here is the first section from the Manual that started our class conversation:
I. The Perceived Purpose of Sickness
1. Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain. ²Who would choose suffering unless he thought it brought him something, and something of value to him? ³He must think it is a small price to pay for something of greater worth. ⁴For sickness is an election; a decision. ⁵It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength. ⁶When this occurs, real strength is seen as threat and health as danger. ⁷Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God’s Son on his Father’s throne. ⁸God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. ⁹Only by His death can He be conquered by His Son.
2. And what, in this insane conviction, does healing stand for? ²It symbolizes the defeat of God’s Son and the triumph of his Father over him. ³It represents the ultimate defiance in a direct form which the Son of God is forced to recognize. ⁴It stands for all that he would hide from himself to protect his “life.” ⁵If he is healed, he is responsible for his thoughts. ⁶And if he is responsible for his thoughts, he will be killed to prove to him how weak and pitiful he is. ⁷But if he chooses death himself, his weakness is his strength. ⁸Now has he given himself what God would give to him, and thus entirely usurped the throne of his Creator. (ACIM, M-5.I.1:1–2:8)
Here is the fifth paragraph from Lesson 136 (Sickness is a defense against the truth.) which has the sole reference in ACIM to the “double shield of oblivion” – a topic oft-mentioned in Ken Wapnick’s work and many Course students have found helpful. This metaphor helps us look at how we must persist in gentle vigilance with Holy Spirit’s help to go beyond the veils of forgetfulness – the outer shield of oblivion – projected by the belief in separation (making up a world of countless silly seemingly separate “selves” and bodies celestial and mundane from quarks to quasars). We first see that guilt isn’t “out there” and – looking with Holy Spirit also at the secret dream of guilt – the inner shield of oblivion – we discover … in glad astonishment … that the horrific guilt in our mind was totally unwarranted, made up, and has vaporized to nothing when we bring to the healing light of Truth. The separation that we dreamt of disappears when we awaken, and our shared reality is restored to its eternally pristine, innocent, omnipresent state in our minds.
“It is this quick forgetting of the part you play in making your “reality” that makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control. ²But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion. ³Your not remembering is but the sign that this decision still remains in force, as far as your desires are concerned. ⁴Mistake not this for fact. ⁵Defenses must make facts unrecognizable. ⁶They aim at doing this, and it is this they do.” (ACIM, W-136.5:1-6)
This video was recorded on December 12, 2022.
(I highly recommend Lyn and Tim’s almost daily SFACIM zoom classes!)