One of the toughest concepts I have encountered in A Course in Miracles is Lesson 136, Sickness is a Defense Against the Truth. I had a chance to use it this weekend. Coughing woke me up in the middle of the night, and I had a tight chest and a slight fever.
This lesson came into my mind immediately, but it is very hard to think about spiritual ideas of wellness when your body is telling you something very different!
The world takes sickness for granted; physical illness is something everyone expects will happen at some point, from mild colds to Stage IV cancers – and I’ve had both!
I would wager that if you took a poll, 99.9% of humanity would agree, getting sick is inevitable.
After all, who can deny it when bodily aches and pains, fevers and chills come on?
And then there are the more serious and chronic conditions. Affirming perfect health, peace and ease does not seem to make any sense when debilitating muscle weakness, nerve damage, joint pains nausea and other symptoms flare up.
We seem to be prey to viruses, bacteria and other pathogens that cause rashes, indigestion, constipation (or the opposite), and a thousand other “symptoms,” evidence that we are physical beings, mortal, and vulnerable, helpless victims of the world and its Pandora’s Box of ills.
You probably recall the story from Greek mythology: Pandora was given a box but told not to open it. Of course, she opened it, and many horrible things flew out: greed, envy, hatred, pain, disease, hunger, poverty, war, and death. All of life’s miseries had been let out into the world.
These many ills have plagued (pun intended) humankind ever since.
Physical ailments with their various, and serious indicators that “something’s wrong” demand attention and will not be ignored. Yet the Course tells me this:
Healing involves an understanding of what the illusion of sickness is for. Healing is impossible without this.
(ACIM, M-5.1:1-2 emphasis added)
Understanding what the “illusion of sickness” is for! Yet sickness hardly seems an illusion when pain screams loudly or a fever is raging, right?
It’s a great coincidence that many of my spiritual paths for growth – paths that have healed me from debilitating addictions and physical illness, and have given me some measure of emotional balance, and more than a few mystical experiences – they all describe themselves as “practical.”
My Unity Church, a New Thought movement for developing a spiritual life of prosperity, abundance, healing and enlightenment describes itself as Practical Christianity.
Unity itself was founded largely upon Myrtle Fillmore’s healing. Using spiritual affirmations and spiritual principles/laws that govern the Universe, Myrtle was able to live to a ripe old age, by healing herself of physical illnesses, including tuberculosis and malaria.
Like Unity, my 12-Step recovery programs (of which I have a few) often are called a “Practical Programs.” They use spiritual principles to help us heal from a very insidious form of illness: addiction, which itself is a physical, mental, and spiritual malady, a disease of the mind and body.
Then too, my 30+ year journey with A Course in Miracles has proven to be a very practical path for healing. The Course has this to say about itself:
You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course, and one that means exactly what it says.
And:
You may complain that this course is not sufficiently specific for you to understand and use. Yet perhaps you have not done what it specifically advocates. This is not a course in the play of ideas, but in their practical application.
And this very powerful passage:
The Holy Spirit, ever practical in His wisdom, accepts your dreams and uses them as means for waking. You would have used them to remain asleep. I said before that the first change, before dreams disappear, is that your dreams of fear are changed to happy dreams.
(Emphases added)
This last passage sums up the shift that is necessary to overcome the “illusion of illness.” If a person is even a little bit open-minded, they can conceive of the possibility that everything the world teaches us about life, bodies, illness, and pain is wrong.
After all, the world is a chaotic, insane place that at its core seems to have no rhyme or reason. If we decide to be of the world we are signing up for a life of random chance and good/bad luck.
Illusions, dreams, sickness is a way – a powerful way I admit – for us to remain asleep. We have powerful evidence that the physical realm – aka our body – is running the show and that our minds must go submissively along with what’s going on physically.
Yet, there is a practical answer to sickness, illness, disease, injury, etc. and it lies in the spiritual.
If we say we want healing, we will have it! It is possible! Decide to be healed….
But, if we want to wake up in a world of perfect peace and ease, abundance, and freedom – we must turn our eyes away from illusions of what seems to be true, and begin learning to focus our blurry eyes on the Truth!
One of my favorite sayings along these lines is:
Be realistic! Expect a miracle!
I expect miracles every minute of every day!
So, back to Lesson 136, “Sickness is a Defense Against the Truth.” The Course describes this phenomenon that keeps us pinned on the point of pain and away from the healing that we say we want:
No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve.
Sickness is not an accident…. it is an insane device for self-deception…. its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it...
Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you…which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make…when….truth arises in your own deluded mind… Now are you sick, that truth may go away and threaten… no more.
To break this down as simply as I can:
Our ego has created a dream of separation. It believes that we are separate from everyone else, including God.
To stay asleep, our ego beguiles us with the illusions of the world.
When the Truth “threatens” to destroy the ego and the dream it has made, sickness arises. It is a decision we make to hide in the darkness away from the Reality that we are Perfect Light, Perfect Love.
Sickness “proves” that the mind – God’s Mind – is not in charge.
Once we decide we are sick, we can avoid the Truth of our miraculous awesomeness and infinitely amazing wholeness.
A miracle is nothing more than a change in our perspective, a shift in consciousness, away from illusion and toward Ultimate Truth.
In the very first section, the Course says:
Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction.
There it is! The decision to stay asleep or the decision to wake up. The decision to see pain and sickness, or the decision to see a miracle.
I can tell you this with 100% confidence: Whenever I have manifested serious physical illnesses – HIV/AIDS in 1996 or Stage IV cancer (lymphoma) in 2016, or any number of other dis-eases – I have taken the physical treatments offered, the medications, chemotherapy.
But I have also used spiritual means to bring me to the place I am today: in remission (aka healed) from the manifestations of physical illness.
Any good physician will tell you that they do not cure or heal. The facilitate healing. They make it possible for us to heal ourselves!
When the decision is made to heal, the healing must happen!
If sickness is separation, the decision to heal and to be healed is the first step toward recognizing what you truly want….Healing thus becomes a lesson in understanding, and the more you practice it the better teacher and learner you become.
(ACIM, T-11.II.1:1–2:1 emphasis added)
Make the decision to heal!
Use this affirmation, say it and come to believe it:
The thought of sickness or illness has no power over me.
God is the Source of my wellness and my wholeness.
And you are healed!
Happy Sunday,
Johnny
I am available to do Prosperity Now! individual or group sessions or general life-coaching, I Ching readings, dream interpretation or join us for our weekly Wednesday Course in Miracles group.
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