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A Course In Miracles

CHAPTER 10: THE IDOLS OF SICKNESS

I. Introduction

“Nothing beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing is beyond you. Time and eternity are both in your mind, and will conflict until you perceive time solely as a means to regain eternity. You cannot do this as long as you believe that anything happening to you is caused by factors outside yourself.” (1:1-3)

“God created nothing beside you and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of Him. What except Him can exist?” (2:1-2)

“Your holy mind establishes everything that happens to you. Every response you make to everything you perceive is up to you, because your mind determines your perception of it.” (2:6-7)

“God does not change His Mind about you, for He is not uncertain of Himself.” (3:1)

“When anything threatens your peace of mind, ask yourself, “Has God changed His Mind about me?” Then accept His decision, for it is indeed changeless, and refuse to change your mind about yourself.” (3:9-10)

In summary, the “Introduction” is saying:

We often feel powerless against the happenings of our daily lives – especially when it is something we do not prefer. When such times come, it is paramount we remember it is but a lesson in forgiveness; a part of our mind still in need of healing. Then we reclaim our power, our ability to change our thoughts about what we see. Every response we make determines our future experience. Therefore, let our hearts and minds join in thoughts of peace about all things, for we remain as God created us. We are at war with no one and nothing, for all things are Us. I am you and you are me. We are them, and they are us. Do not resist the changeless Union that WE ARE, for God Himself has Willed it to be, and what can change His Will?

I. At Home in God

“You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. It is your decision to do so? You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real while you are asleep. Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all. You do not think this strange, even though all the laws of what you awaken to were violated while you slept. Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really waking?” (2:1-6)

“Would you bother to reconcile what happened in conflicting dreams, or would you dismiss both together if you discovered that reality is in accord with neither? You do not remember being awake.” (3:1-3)

“You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations.” (4:1)

“Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours.” (4:3)

In summary, section 1: “At Home in God” is saying:

We have never left God’s Heavenly Mind, yet we dream that we are someplace else and that this is our home. We do not remember what it’s like to be anywhere except here, within this dream. In order to waken from it, we must embrace the idea that nothing that happens here has any real effects, though the experiences are real indeed and we are learning real lessons. Just like our sleeping dreams, we are affected emotionally by what we perceive. And just like our sleeping dreams, all it takes is the realization, the authentic belief, that the dream is not real, and all its effects will be gone. Desire to waken then, with your whole heart and you will have healed your mind of all your dreams and this world will hold no power over you any longer; for dreaming is impossible once you wake.

II. The Decision to Forget

“You are fearful because you have forgotten. And you have replaced your knowledge by an awareness of dreams because you are afraid of your dissociation, not of what you have dissociated.” (1:4-5)

“Offer the Holy Spirit only your willingness to remember, for He retains the knowledge of God and of yourself for you, waiting for your acceptance.” (2:3)

“To remember is merely to restore to your mind what is already there. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what is already there but was rejected.” (3:1-2)

“All attack is Self attack. It cannot be anything else. Arising from your own decision not to be what you are, it is an attack on your identification. Attack is thus the way in which your identification is lost, because when you attack, you must have forgotten what you are.” (5:1-4)

“If you realized the complete havoc this makes of your peace of mind you could not make such an insane decision. You make it only because you still believe it can get you something you want.” (6:1-2)

“By deciding against your reality, you have made yourself vigilant against God and His Kingdom.” (6:5)

In summary, section 2: “The Decision to Forget” is saying:

We have forgotten the real world through dissociating from it; the decision to forget it completely. Now, the world we see as its replacement commands our total and undivided attention, and as far as our ego is concerned, IS the real world. Because of this disconnection from the truth, the suggestion that there is another dimension beyond this one, is very frightening to the ego, because it cannot conceive of such a place and what the ego does not understand, it automatically fears. Therefore, in order to remember our true Home, we must make way for it, through acknowledging its existence, accepting it as the truth, and finally allowing it to be. To do this here and now in our daily lives, we must apply these three simple steps to every brother we meet or think of. First, acknowledgethey are Light, second, accept that only this is true about them, and lastly, allow this identity to be the truth. Through this 3-step mindset of “acknowledge, accept and allow,” all forms of attack will disappear, for you are now willing to remember the truth. Your vigilance will be for God and His Kingdom rather than against it.

III. The God of Sickness

“You have not attacked God and you do love Him.” (1:1)

“When you think you are attacking yourself, it is a sure sign that you hate what you think you are. And this, and only this, can be attacked by you. What you think you are can be very hateful, and what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. Yet the destruction is no more real than the image, although those who make idols do worship them.” (1:4-7)

“What Comforter can there be for the sick children of God except His power through you?” (2:1)

“God’s remaining Communication Link with all His children joins them together, and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them because it is the awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick.” (2:6-7)

“Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Son of God even if he believes in it, for your acceptance of God in him acknowledges the Love of God he has forgotten.” (3:4)

“To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does.” (4:1)

“Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that power can be taken from you.” (4:4)

“And that is exactly what the ego does perceive in a Son of God; a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious and very vulnerable.” (4:7)

“Are you really afraid of losing this?” (4:10)

“God’s Son knows no idols, but he does know his Father.” (6:2)

“When a brother is sick it is because he is not asking for peace, and therefore does not know he has it. The acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion and sickness is an illusion.” (7:1-2)

“Very simply, then, you may believe you are afraid of nothingness, but you are really afraid of nothing. And in that awareness you are healed.” (9:1-2)

“Honor is not due to illusions, for to honor them is to honor nothing.” (10:9)

“You can give up the god of sickness for your brothers; in fact, you would have to do so if you give him up for yourself.” (11:4)

In summary, section 3: “The God of Sickness” is saying:

We cannot unmake ourselves and become something other than the Perfection God created us to be. Yet, this is exactly what the ego thinks it has done, and now we think we have become false gods; bodies or idols, made from a mind that has become sick. Sickness is merely the idea of separation. A mind that thinks itself separate from other minds, will perceive all living things as separate from itself. This is sickness, and what the mind sees has now become false idols. And yet, we must remember that what God created cannot be changed. What we see is not only untrue, but nothing. In order to heal the idea of separation, we must ask for peace to replace what we have tried to make of ourselves. Separation is attack, and peace is Union. Honor only our Union and not the illusionary persona in your brothers and you will give up the god of sickness for them and yourself as well. And you will both be healed.

IV. The End of Sickness

“Sickness and perfection are irreconcilable. If God created you perfect, you are perfect.” (1:3-4)

“Reality can dawn only on an unclouded mind.” (2:1)

“To know reality must involve the willingness to judge unreality for what it is. To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to let it go. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and illusions are irreconcilable.” (2:3-5)

“Oneness cannot be divided.” (3:3)

“The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call that is strengthened by joining. Because the miracle worker has heard God’s Voice, he strengthens It in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share. The power of one mind can shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark.” (7:1-5)

“In many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured.” (8:1)

“If you but see the little spark you will learn of the greater light, for the Rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the light will create.” (8:3-4)

“Put all your faith in it, and God Himself will answer you.” (8:7)

In summary, section 4: “The End of Sickness” is saying:

The end of sickness is the end of our belief in illusions. It is to believe only in our joint Perfection in God’s Love. It is to believe it is impossible that we be divided. In order to know this truly in our hearts, we must judge the world correctly; we must lay aside all thoughts about the effects this world seems to have on us. We must focus our attention only on the spark within the body and not the body itself. All its works are meaningless in the light of the Great Rays it obscures from our bodily sight. If we are willing to at least see the spark, God Himself will show us our brother’s Great Rays; the truth of his being and your own.

V. The Denial of God

“The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression means that you have forsworn God. Many are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not understand what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own Identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death.” (1:1-5)

“Do not forget however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others and not yourself have done this to you.” (2:1)

“Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that would bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, for whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God.” (2:4-5)

“Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion.” (3:1)

“Blasphemy, then, is self-destructive, not God-destructive. It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick.” (3:5-6)

“Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. Yet this can be corrected and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against Him.” (6:1-2)

“You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in His Love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free.” (10:1-2)

“If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions, and the many other forms that blasphemy may take, are refusals to accept creation as it is. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, that is how you must see yourself to learn of yours.” (12:1-6)

“If you would remember eternity, you must look only on the eternal. If you allow yourself to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are living in time. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand eternity and make it yours.” (14:6-9)

In summary, section 5: “The Denial of God” is saying:

Whenever we become immersed in the dramas of this world, we are denying God, Who knows no pain, suffering or depression. To experience these things, means we have stepped out of eternity and into the realm of time – a false place where the impossible seems possible. It is impossible for us to die or be harmed in any way. To believe in death and suffering is blasphemous because it flies in the face of our truth as eternal Sons of God. We Who can never die, suffer pain or loss must come to believe in only our eternal nature. It is blasphemous to believe we are less. No one has ever done anything to us; we have experienced all things at our own hand, as we projected our own Self-denial outward and hence received what we gave. Heal this now and withdraw all belief in the god of sickness; the ego, whom we project outward as a false idol, in form of the body. Cease to deny the spark of God within your brothers and He will step forward and carry you into His eternal Kingdom where you will know only joy.

This concludes CHAPTER 10: THE IDOLS OF SICKNESS

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A Course In Miracles: CHAPTER 10: THE IDOLS OF SICKNESS