On Healing and Wholeness
As I begin to write this post, it is the start of Advent, which heralds the arrival of Christmas. This is a favorite time of year in our household. Just as the hours of daylight here in Frankfurt, Germany are growing fewer, homes all over our neighborhood are lighting up with stars, electric candles, and string lights. Soon we will start decorating ourselves. For us, Advent is a time of reflection, as well as joyous anticipation.
Throughout this year, I have often thought of my sadly neglected blog. I have wanted to write more posts, but so much of my time and energy has been taken up with establishing our new life here in Germany. This disjunct has been a small forgiveness opportunity of its own, alongside plenty of more challenging ones that are part and parcel of moving to a new country and embracing a new culture and language. I am grateful that as the year is drawing to a close, I am able to carve out the time to write one more post.
In this last post of 2022, I feel inspired to write about the theme of healing and wholeness, which is the title of Chapter 5 of A Course in Miracles. The first sentence of Chapter 5 states simply, “To heal is to make happy.” (T-5.in. 1:1) Later on in the Text, in Chapter 8, the Course says, “...to heal is…to make whole.” (T-8.V.2:4) Our everyday understanding of healing centers on the body, but the entire emphasis of A Course in Miracles is on the mind. While a healthy body is certainly something to enjoy, we can also intuitively understand that it does not guarantee happiness. Perhaps less obvious is that it is entirely possible to experience both wholeness and happiness despite also experiencing the effects of illness and aging. This is because “…healing is of the mind…” (P-2.I.1:2). As we undo our investment in a belief system centered on a body separated from other bodies, we heal our minds and experience both wholeness and happiness.
In addition to tying together healing, wholeness, and happiness, Chapter 5 ties together light and joy, saying, “The light that belongs to you is the light of joy.” (T-5.in.1:4) This light, which is mentioned over 700 times in A Course in Miracles, is accessible to everyone through the mind. It is greater than the sun, and indeed, than the whole universe. This is because it is the light of Spirit, eternal and limitless. Being of Spirit, it makes perfect sense that this light in our minds is completely joyful, because joy is the state of being in Spirit. The Introduction of Chapter 5 says, then:
⁴The light that belongs to you is the light of joy. ⁵Radiance is not associated with sorrow. ⁶Joy calls forth an integrated willingness to share it, and promotes the mind’s natural impulse to respond as one. (T-5.in.1:4-6)
Even at the level of the day-to-day, we have probably all experienced the contagiousness of joy, and the genuine impulse to share it with others, even people who are apparent strangers to us. This type of experience is a reflection of our oneness—in light and joy—with everyone.
The Introduction of Chapter 5 then speaks of love, elaborating on central teachings about love introduced in the very first paragraph of A Course in Miracles:
⁶The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. ⁷It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. ⁸The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. (T-in.1:6-8)
This means that only love is real and that nothing else is real. While fear is an unreal state, the vast majority of us are all too familiar with the experience of fear. The Introduction of Chapter 5 turns the seeming reality of fear on its head, while also tying together love, joy, healing and wholeness:
²If fear and love cannot coexist, and if it is impossible to be wholly fearful and remain alive, the only possible whole state is that of love. ³There is no difference between love and joy. ⁴Therefore, the only possible whole state is the wholly joyous. ⁵To heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make one. (T-5.in.2:2-5)
As I come to the end of writing my post, the season of Advent is drawing to a close, and Christmas is now almost upon us. My thoughts turn to Jesus and what he represents. The Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles explains: “The name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. ²But it stands for love that is not of this world.” (M-23.4:1-2) This “love that is not of this world,” is the love of our natural inheritance. In the Course, quoting the Bible, Jesus says, “⁷When I said ‘I am with you always,’ I meant it literally. ⁸I am not absent to anyone in any situation.” (T-7.III.1:7-8) This means that everything that we need to heal and to feel more whole is within our reach right at this moment, because we can call on Jesus—or any other symbol of this love—any time at all to help us remember what is already there and has never left us. My wish, then, is for joy to the world, not just at Christmas, but all through the year.
A Course in Miracles is published by The Foundation for Inner Peace. All the books comprising the Course, along with the supplemental pamphlets, are found online:
https://acim.org/acim/en
All quotations of A Course in Miracles in this blog post are drawn from this version of the Course.