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− | #REDIRECT [[ACIM Workbook - Lesson 137]]
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| + | <center>'''Only salvation can be said to cure.'''</center> |
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| + | Only salvation can be said to cure. |
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| + | "Cure" is a word that 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. |
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| + | 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. |
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| + | 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. |
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| + | 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 makes the sickness possible. And that |
| + | is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can |
| + | return. |
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| + | 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. |
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| + | 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 that 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. |
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| + | 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 that have no substance, no reality, no core, and |
| + | nothing that is truly different? |
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| + | Today we seek to change our minds about the source of sickness, for we |
| + | seek a cure for all illusions, not another shift 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. |
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| + | 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. |
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| + | So do we lay aside our amulets, our charms and medicines, our chants and |
| + | bits of magic in whatever form they take. 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. |
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| + | We waken hearing Him, and let Him speak to us five minutes as the 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. |
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| + | With nothing in our hands to which we cling, with lifted hearts and listening |
| + | minds we pray: |
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| + | <center>''Only salvation can be said to cure.''</center> |
| + | <center>''Speak to us, Father, that we may be healed.''</center> |
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| + | 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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| + | [[Category: Workbook I]] |