It only takes One
That One is you/me. The wonderful thing about the teachings of Jesus in A Course in Miracles is that he reminds me that my brother and I are One Being, One Son of God, who is healed wholly when I am wholly healed. Knowing our shared needs, is knowing that the only thing that stands between us is a tiny gap that can be bridged by a simple act of loving kindness. It is just being open to see that my interests and my brother’s are the same. A single act of kindness can end a war.
“To heal is the only kind of thinking in this world that resembles the Thought of God, and because of the elements they share, can transfer easily to it. 2 When a brother perceives himself as sick, he is perceiving himself as not whole, and therefore in need. 3 If you, too, see him this way, you are seeing him as if he were absent from the Kingdom or separated from it, thus making the Kingdom itself obscure to both of you. 4 Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom is. 5 If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving what is not of God.” (T-7.II.1.)
“To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother and yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. 2 This places you both within the Kingdom, and restores its wholeness in your mind. 3 This reflects creation, because it unifies by increasing and integrates by extending. 4 What you project or extend is real for you. 5 This is an immutable law of the mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom.” (T-7.II.2.)
In other words, I am made whole and healed by changing my own perception of my brother, by seeing him as whole and one with God. I do not need to explain this to him, he does not need to understand it. He does not need to cooperate, or want it or anything else. It is all up to me, and through the miracle of my own changed mind, I have healed the world.
It is all up to me, and through the miracle of my own changed mind, I have healed the world.
“When you heal, that is exactly what you are learning. 2 You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by realizing that he could not have changed his mind. 3 That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. 4 It is only the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His Mind. 5 He himself may think he can, or he would not perceive himself as sick. 6 He therefore does not know what his Self is. 7 If you see only the changeless in him you have not really changed him. 8 By changing your mind about his for him, you help him undo the change his ego thinks it has made in him. “ (T-7.V.8.)
The Good of the One
Think about someone you love. What is it you see in them that fills your heart with joy? Is it their sweet nature or inviting smile? Is it their open heart and willingness to share?
Now think about someone you don’t like so much. What is it in them that fills your heart with pain? Are they depressed and self-involved? Are they short tempered? Do you feel judged and diagnosed, like nothing you do can ever live up to their expectations?
In both cases, it is “ego” looking through an ego lens an another “ego”. A dreamer, dreaming a dream of differences and competition. Dreamers relating in a dream to an idea that has replaced the Truth.
Everything I see when I look at you is a reflection of a thought in my own mind. It cannot be anything else, because my thoughts are my own. No one is in my mind telling me things about you, I am making it all up in accordance with the rules of the thought system I choose. The ego thought system tells me that you are different than me, and I need to protect and defend myself from you. Spirit tells me that you are the same thing as I am, and that I can trust you. My reaction to you shows which thought system I am listening to. If I see that we are the same, I know that when I help you, I help myself. This is why the good of the One outweighs the good of the many. “When I am healed, I am not healed alone” is not just a nice idea – it is a fact.
Like you, your brother thinks he is a dream. 2 Share not in his illusion of himself, for your Identity depends on his reality. 3 Think, rather, of him as a mind in which illusions still persist, but as a mind which brother is to you. 4 He is not brother made by what he dreams, nor is his body, “hero” of the dream, your brother. 5 It is his reality that is your brother, as is yours to him. 6 Your mind and his are joined in brotherhood. 7 His body and his dreams but seem to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. – A Course in Miracles – T-28.IV.3.
