ACIM Workbook Lesson 140 ~ May 19
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" Lesson 140
"Only salvation can be said to cure."
- Cure is a word which cannot be applied
to any remedy the world accepts
as beneficial. What the world perceives
as therapeutic is but what will make
the body better. When it tries to heal
the mind, it sees no separation from
the body where it thinks the mind exists.
Its forms of healing thus must substitute
illusion for illusion. One belief
in sickness takes another form, and so
the patient now perceives himself as well.|
- He is not healed. He merely had a dream
that he was sick, and in the dream he found
a magic formula to make him well.
Yet he has not awakened from the dream,
and so his mind remains exactly as
it was before. He has not seen the light
that would awaken him and end the dream.
What difference does the content of a dream
make in reality? One either sleeps
or wakens. There is nothing in between.|
- The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings
are different from the dreaming of the world,
where one can merely dream he is awake.
The dreams forgiveness lets the mind perceive
do not induce another form of sleep
so that the dreamer dreams another dream.
His happy dreams are heralds of the dawn
of truth upon the mind. They lead from sleep
to gentle waking, so that dreams are gone.
And thus they cure for all eternity.|
- Atonement heals with certainty, and cures
all sickness. For the mind which understands
that sickness can be nothing but a dream
is not deceived by forms the dream may take.
Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come,
for it is but another form of guilt.
Atonement does not heal the sick, for that
is not a cure. It takes away the guilt
that [made] the sickness possible. And that
is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone,
with nothing left to which it can return.|
Peace be to you who have been cured in God
and not in idle dreams. For cure must come
from holiness, and holiness can not
be found where sin is cherished. God abides
in holy temples. He is barred where sin
has entered. Yet there is no place where He
is not. And therefore sin can have no home
in which to hide from His beneficence.
There is no place where holiness is not,
and nowhere sin and sickness can abide.|
- This is the thought that cures. It does not make
distinctions among unrealities.
Nor does it seek to heal what is not sick,
unmindful where the need for healing is.
This is no magic. It is merely an
appeal to truth, which cannot fail to heal
and heal forever. It is not a thought
which judges an illusion by its size,
its seeming gravity, or anything
that is related to the form it takes.
It merely focuses on what it is,
and knows that no illusion can be real.|
- Let us not try today to seek to cure
what cannot suffer sickness. Healing must
be sought but where it is, and then applied
to what is sick so that it can be cured.
There is no remedy the world provides
that can effect a change in anything.
The mind that brings illusions to the truth
is really changed. There is no change but this.
For how can one illusion differ from
another but in attributes [which] have
no substance, no reality, no core,
and nothing that is truly different?|
- Today we seek to change our minds about
the source of sickness, for we seek a cure
for all illusions, not another ****ft
among them. We will try today to find
the source of healing, which is in our minds
because our Father placed it there for us.
It is not [farther] from us than ourselves.
It is as near to us as our own thoughts,
so close it is impossible to lose.
We need but seek it and it must be found.|
- We will not be misled today by what
appears to us as sick. We go beyond
appearances today, and reach the source
of healing from which nothing is exempt.
We will succeed to the extent to which
we realize that there can never be
a meaningful distinction made between
what is untrue and equally untrue.
Here there are no degrees, and no beliefs
that what does not exist is truer in
some forms than others. All of them are false,
and can be cured because they are not true.|
- So do we lay aside our amulets,
our charms and medicines, our chants and bits
of magic in whatever form they [took].
We will be still and listen for the Voice
of healing Which will cure all ills as one,
restoring saneness to the Son of God.
No voice but This can cure. Today we hear
a single Voice Which speaks to us of truth,
where all illusions end and peace returns
to the eternal, quiet home of God.|
- We waken hearing Him, and let Him speak
to us five minutes as [our] day begins,
and end the day by listening again
five minutes more before we go to sleep.
Our only preparation is to let
our interfering thoughts be laid aside,
not separately, but all of them as one.
They are the same. We have no need to make
them different, and thus delay the time
when we can hear our Father speak to us.
We hear Him now. We come to Him today.|
- With nothing in our hands to which we cling,
with lifted hearts and listening minds we pray:
"Only salvation can be said to cure.
Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed."
And we will feel salvation cover us
with soft protection, and with peace so deep
that no illusion can disturb our minds,
nor offer proof to us that it is real.
This will we learn today. And we will say
our prayer for healing hourly, and take
a minute as the hour strikes to hear
the answer to our prayer be given us
as we attend in silence and in joy.
This is the day when healing comes to us.
This is the day when separation ends
and we remember Who we really are. "
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