My mind holds only
what I think with God.
Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
Forgiveness offers everything I want.
ACiM - Workbook Lesson 141
ACiM - Workbook Lesson 141
Pray - period! Don't expect anything. Or better, expect
nothing. Prayer cleanses us of expectations and allows holy will, providence,
and life itself an entry. What could be more worth the effort - or the
non-effort? Thomas Moore
"A spiritual guide taught his class, 'You want to change your life without changing yourself. Impossible. You _are_ your life. You and your life are the very same thing. This can be understood with the illustration of ground for planting crops. Healthy soil produces good crops, while inferior ground can only produce worthless harvests. The nature of the ground and the nature of the crops cannot be separated. Neither can your nature be separated from the results of that nature. So self-change alone creates life-change.'" Vernon Linwood Howard
My mind holds only
what I think with God.
No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.
I loose the world from all I thought it was.
ACiM - Workbook Lesson 146
It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can the sacrifice of nothing mean? It cannot mean that you have less because of it. There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the "hero" to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what it really is. ACiM - Manual for Teachers - Section 13 - What Is the Real Meaning of Sacrifice?
I am sustained by the Love of God. Here is the answer to every problem that will confront you, today and tomorrow and throughout time. In this world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God. Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers. All these things are your replacements for the Love of God. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you. ACiM - Workbook Lesson 50
The Atonement is not the price of your wholeness, but it is the price of your awareness of your wholeness. For what you chose to "sell" had to be kept for you, since you could not "buy" it back. Yet you must invest in it, not with money but with spirit. For spirit is will, and will is the "price" of the Kingdom. Your inheritance awaits only the recognition that you have been redeemed. The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish your investment in death, or you will not see life though it is all around you. ACiM Text - Chapter Twelve - The Holy Spirit's Curriculum - Section 1
Your true function is to forgive. You are not here to make a lot of money, or to raise your children, or to be happy, or to save the world through your holy work, your profession, etc. You are here to learn that you made the wrong choice, and now can make another choice. the function that we all share, which is to realize, again, that we bet on the wrong horse, that we made a mistake. We chose the ego's lies instead of the Holy Spirit's truth. Our function is to realize this each time we are tempted to make some aspect of our world real, or to justify our experience of victimization. FACIM Part III I. Rules for Decision
The Question of Payment
No one can pay for therapy, for healing is of God and He asks for nothing. It is, however, part of His plan that everything in this world be used by the Holy Spirit to help in carrying out the plan. Even an advanced therapist has some earthly needs while he is here. Should he need money it will be given him, not in payment, but to help him better serve the plan. Money is not evil. It is nothing. But no one here can live with no illusions, for he must yet strive to have the last illusion be accepted by everyone everywhere. He has a mighty part in this one purpose, for which he came. He stays here but for this. And while he stays he will be given what he needs to stay.
Only an unhealed healer would try to heal for money, and he will not succeed to the extent to which he values it. Nor will he find his healing in the process. There will be those of whom the Holy Spirit asks some payment for His purpose. There will be those from whom He does not ask. It should not be the therapist who makes these decisions. There is a difference between payment and cost. To give money where God’s plan allots it has no cost. To withhold it from where it rightfully belongs has enormous cost. The therapist who would do this loses the name of healer, for he could never understand what healing is. He cannot give it, and so he does not have it.
The therapists of this world are indeed useless to the world’s salvation. They make demands, and so they cannot give. Patients can pay only for the exchange of illusions. This, indeed, must demand payment, and the cost is great. A “bought” relationship cannot offer the only gift whereby all healing is accomplished. Forgiveness, the Holy Spirit’s only dream, must have no cost. For if it does, it merely crucifies God’s Son again. Can this be how he is forgiven? Can this be how the dream of sin will end?
The right to live is something no one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God. Therefore it is a right the therapist and patient share alike. If their relationship is to be holy, whatever one needs is given by the other; whatever one lacks the other supplies. Herein is the relationship made holy, for herein both are healed. The therapist repays the patient in gratitude, as does the patient repay him. There is no cost to either. But thanks are due to both, for the release from long imprisonment and doubt. Who would not be grateful for such a gift? Yet who could possibly imagine that it could be bought?
It has well been said that to him who hath shall be given. Because he has, he can give. And because he gives, he shall be given. This is the law of God, and not of the world. So it is with God’s healers. They give because they have heard His Word and understood it. All that they need will thus be given them. But they will lose this understanding unless they remember that all they have comes only from God. If they believe they need anything from a brother, they will recognize him as a brother no longer. And if they do this, a light goes out even in Heaven. Where God’s Son turns against himself, he can look only upon darkness. He has himself denied the light, and cannot see.
One rule should always be observed: No one should be turned away because he cannot pay. No one is sent by accident to anyone. Relationships are always purposeful. Whatever their purpose may have been before the Holy Spirit entered them, they are always His potential temple; the resting place of Christ and home of God Himself. Whoever comes has been sent. Perhaps he was sent to give his brother the money he needed. Both will be blessed thereby. Perhaps he was sent to teach the therapist how much he needs forgiveness, and how valueless is money in comparison. Again will both be blessed. Only in terms of cost could one have more. In sharing, everyone must gain a blessing without cost.
This view of payment may well seem impractical, and in the eyes of the world it would be so. Yet not one worldly thought is really practical. How much is gained by striving for illusions? How much is lost by throwing God away? And is it possible to do so? Surely it is impractical to strive for nothing, and to attempt to do what is impossible. Then stop a while, long enough to think of this: You have perhaps been seeking for salvation without recognizing where to look. Whoever asks your help can show you where. What greater gift than this could you be given? What greater gift is there that you would give?
Physician, healer, therapist, teacher, heal thyself. Many will come to you carrying the gift of healing, if you so elect. The Holy Spirit never refuses an invitation to enter and abide with you. He will give you endless opportunities to open the door to your salvation, for such is His function. He will also tell you exactly what your function is in every circumstance and at all times. Whoever He sends you will reach you, holding out his hand to his Friend. Let the Christ in you bid him welcome, for that same Christ is in him as well. Deny him entrance, and you have denied the Christ in you. Remember the sorrowful story of the world, and the glad tidings of salvation. Remember the plan of God for the restoration of joy and peace. And do not forget how very simple are the ways of God:
You were lost in the darkness of the world until you asked for light. And then God sent His Son to give it to you.
ACIM: Psychotherapy Pamphlet
PSYCHOTHERAPY: PURPOSE, PROCESS AND PRACTICE
An Extension of the Principles of A Course in Miracles
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