healing

 

healing

Root meaning: The restoration of wholeness, the remedy for sickness.

Conventional: Sickness and healing are primarily of the body.

ACIM: Sickness and healing are entirely of the mind. The mind’s sick thought system is the source of all pain. Healing is thus the replacement of wrong thinking with right thinking; the release from fear and the acceptance of love. The “Holy Spirit is the only Healer” (T-13.VIII.1:2), and the Atonement is the principle behind all healing.

  1. Healing is not needed in Heaven, where unchangeable wholeness reigns.
  2. In this world, the ego tells us that we are beyond the hope of healing (see magic). This belief, however, is an expression of our underlying fear of healing.
  3. We ultimately find healing through letting go our perception—of self and others—that we are separate and sinful, which lets us see past sick appearances to the underlying wholeness which has never changed.
  4. In this world, healing others is our only function, our one true response to all that happens and our one proper mode of communication. Through forgiveness we overlook the sick appearance of others and see their true wholeness.
  5. This extension of healing to the minds of others can heal their bodies, yet this is only a shadow or symptom of true healing.
  6. Only through allowing healing into our own minds can we extend healing to others (see accepting the Atonement for oneself).
  7. Healing and joining go together. Healing comes from and results in the joining of minds (see holy relationship).

See teaching.