Home CHAPTER 16 Contents
Are You Ready
To
Trade In
Mis-Creation
For
Creation?
“ Make your life a rose that speaks silently in the language of fragrance.”
Sai Baba
God created you to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy
In the beginning God created us just like Himself. He also created the world for us. After God created us, we co-created with Him. We were created to create with God, the good, the beautiful and the holy. God did not create on His own any more than we did. We became a team. Your creations are your gift to all, created in gratitude for your existence. They do not leave you, any more than you have left your Creator. You extend yourself to your creations as God extends Himself to you. Your creations love you as your soul loves God for the gift of creation.
Every creation is shared by all minds in the one mind of God. We were created to create in unity and harmony with all of creation. We had not the power to create in isolation. Neither did God, after we were created. Our creative power is always shared by all of creation.
Once we entertained the tiny mad idea, “What would it be like to create in isolation, to create independent of God?” ego was born. As it is impossible to create separate from God, ego is not a real creation, however, ego comes from energy and is endowed by its creator with the power to create. Ego is a mis-creation.
Your mind is a very powerful creator and never loses its creative force, which it gets from your soul. All things that you create have energy, because like the creations of God, they come from energy and are endowed by their creator with the power to create.
Mis-creation is still a genuine creative act in terms of the underlying impulse, but not in terms of the content of the creation. This does not deprive the creation of its own creative power. It does however guarantee that the power will be misused, or used fearfully.
Everything we see in the world of separation is unreal. It comes from creating with ego. Since we delight in our creations, we delight in ego, even though it is a mis-creation. It was our enchantment that caused us to ally with ego and to be mesmerized by it. Ego was made, not created, and ego does not love us, since it was not created in love as love is inclusive. Ego is an act of creating in separation or in isolation. All that comes from alliance with ego will be motivated by its selfish will to survive at our expense. Our only hope of freeing ourselves of ego and the ego distorted world of illusion is by choosing for selflessness.
To have all, give all to all
We are restored to our creative function through giving, as to give is to create. Having everything your soul keeps it by giving it. In this way you are creating as God creates. God created us in understanding, appreciation and love. To create is to love. Giving is the one act of mind that resembles creation. Sharing is God's way of creating and also ours. Baba is always giving of Himself. Sometimes He gives treats like apples, sweets or pens to the students or saris to the ladies and dhotis to the men, but His real gifts are His love, patience, compassion, charity and miracles of undoing our mis-creations when we give them to be undone.
Giving is one of God's laws. God's laws are always fair and perfectly consistent. By giving we receive. But to receive is to accept, not to get. It is impossible not to have, but it is possible not to know we have. The recognition of having is the willingness for giving and only by this willingness can we recognize what we have. What we give is therefore the value we put on what we have. And this, in turn is the measure of how much we want it. If you want peace, give peace. If you want love, give love. They are real and worth giving. In giving peace and love, you are assured of having them. Protect everything you have by the act of giving it away.
We do not need worldly wealth in order to give. Our treasure is in heaven and the more we give of peace, love and happiness, the more we will have as our direct experience. God's laws are the opposite of the world's laws, which tell us that to give is to lose. Is it possible that giving and losing can be meaningfully associated? If in giving something, you lose it, it was not real in the first place. When you give anything in the true spirit of giving, you cannot help but feel joy. It was the giving that made you joyful, thus it was joy that you gave and in so doing you increased your joy. Except you share it, nothing can exist. You exist because God shared His will with you, that His creation might create. We were all created equally. We all have everything and know it through the act of sharing.
To have all, give all to all. The more you give of yourself the more you will have to give and the happier you will feel. Do, however, guard against any temptation to use this teaching to make demands of your fellowman reasoning that their joy will increase by giving to you. Once I met a teacher who was teaching that lesson to her audience by urging them to give everything to her. God only gives. She claims to be a Goddess, yet she was choosing to play the role of a beggar by asking for something from her students. Ego is very subtle in its ability to ensnare you if you are not totally free of it. Always be vigilant. A true teacher only gives and does not ask for anything in return, trusting God to give her everything. A true teacher knows no lack, thus has no need of anything. It is all right to ask for things from others if you do not know God, but don't set yourself up as a teacher under those circumstances. Once you know that God is your Source and that you are sustained by His love, it would make no sense to ask for anything from anyone. You would trust God implicitly for everything.
We are mind, in mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because we were created out of love. We have not left our Source, so we are as we were created. We cannot lose that knowledge. Everything has that knowledge and by that knowledge it lives. To give is the way to recognize we have received. It is the proof that what we have is ours. It is the proof that we are who we are. Let us not however mistake bodies for God's creation. When we see the light beyond bodies, purity undimmed by errors or pitiful mistakes or fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin, we are giving as we have received. When we see no separation, but rather look on everyone, all circumstances, all happenings and all events without the slightest fading of the light, we are indeed giving and can be assured that we know who we are.
Ideas increase through sharing. The more who believe in them, the stronger they become. Everything is an idea. The more people who hold the idea that the world can be saved, the more likelihood that it will become a reality. Using the hundredth monkey idea, as soon as enough people invite God back into the world, the world will be saved. In this world, giving takes the form of healing as creation takes the form of giving in heaven. In heaven you create as you were created. Here you can choose to mis-create or to heal. To heal is to undo the unreal. That requires a miracle. Miracles come from God, but can be performed by you when you are in alignment with God's will. However, do not pretend to know on your own when or where to perform miracles. Perform only those miracles that God directs you to perform. This will save you from exhaustion. Every day as you awake pray to be shown what miracles God would perform through you this day.
Expect miracles
In general we are not used to miraculous thinking, but we can be trained to think that way. Expect miracles. Do not leave your mind unguarded. Miracle working entails a full realization of the power of thought and a real avoidance of mis-creation. Every time you think an unloving thought and do not give it to God for correction, you are mis-creating. The whole world is unreal. All unreality comes from mis-creating, which comes from wrong thoughts, which in turn come from alliance with ego. Experiences of darkness, contraction, lack and loss are due to mis-creating. They are impossible in God's creation. They are all equally unreal, and are transformed into real experiences when we stop giving them energy of reality.
The world teaches you to get what you can at another's expense. Ego leads you to believe that you can only gain if someone else loses. That is impossible because everyone was created to have everything forever. No one lacks anything. What should we do when we see a beggar or a hungry child? Hopefully we will feed them, but we can also make a shift in consciousness so that lack is impossible both for us and for everyone we meet. We can choose to transform unreal perceptions into experiences of abundance for all of humanity by healing our minds that thought lack possible. We raise our consciousness by taking only what we need.
When you give freely and generously to everyone you are giving to yourself. Help everyone. The biggest help you can give is to help others see that truth is unaffected by experience, not with your words, but with your prayers to God in their behalf. It is not enough to conceptually or intellectually see that the beggar is not really a beggar. Be in your heart, not your head. Baba says, “Help ever; hurt never.” When you truly see that another's experience is unreal, it must be transformed before your very eyes. Until it is transformed, you have not seen truly. Always act with compassion.
Lack is impossible in God's creation. Only you can deprive yourself of anything. Abundance, fullness and completeness are all attributes of God's creation. When that is your experience, your relationship to God becomes one of total gratitude and appreciation. If ever there is a sense of ingratitude toward God or anyone it comes from not knowing who God is or who your family is. All are your family, worthy of your eternal gratitude and deepest appreciation, for everyone is giving you everything in every interaction no matter what it may look like. All those seeming others in your life are only doing what you have asked and are thus your savior. There are no victims.
We cannot create in the world as it is. We can heal and when healed the world will be restored to its original purpose. When our minds are healed our mis-creations will disappear and we will be realigned with our true function of creating the true, the beautiful and the holy. Mis-creations disappear in the presence of our true creations created with God.
There are those who say that maya, illusion, is God's play. Illusion is not God's idea. All illusion is due to man's unloving thoughts. We have a grave responsibility, for our minds are all-powerful and everything we think has all the power of God behind it. Never underestimate the power of your mind. Where do you think the unreal comes from? It comes from a mind that is all-powerful and has misused its power. There are no mysteries. There are no secrets. Watch your mind for purity in thought, word, and deed. When you are not thinking loving thoughts, turn to God and ask for help to change your mind. All thoughts are under your control. You are in charge. You are not mercilessly bombarded by thoughts that are not of you. Loving thoughts come from alliance with God.
Allied with ego, your Divine power is being misused. It is being used for suffering, sickness, death, disease, atrocities, wars and strife. This is not God's will. This is God's power being misdirected by you who were entrusted with God's all-powerful mind. You are responsible for every one of your thoughts. You are their generator. They do not come out of nowhere. And they are the cause of everything you see. If you want a real world, a healed world, then it begins with your real thoughts. That is why you should think of God constantly. In your remembrance of God you can only think loving thoughts and those thoughts will have real effects, where all benefit. Your unreal thoughts are undone when you give them to God for healing and that's a miracle. A miracle merely undoes what never was.
Miracles heal
Unless a miracle actually heals it is not a miracle at all. There was once a pompous yogi who had mastered walking on water. He came to visit Ramakrishna by walking across the Ganges River. When he arrived, Ramakrishna commented that for 20 annas, that is for as little as 5 cents, he could have ferried across. Ramakrishna was pointing out to the proud yogi that his yogic accomplishments were worthless. He should have focused the power of his mind on the salvation of the world. There are those who teach lay people how to walk on burning coals and not get blisters. That is not a miracle for it does not heal and thus serves nothing except to demonstrate the power of mind. This may be helpful, but more often than not leads to arrogance and feelings of specialness.
When we will to heal the separation by letting it go we return to wholeness. To heal is the only kind of thinking in this world that resembles the thought of God. To heal is to correct our perception. Whenever you heal someone by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. We heal our brothers and sisters simply by accepting God for them.
When anyone is sick, it is because he is not asking for peace and therefore does not know he has it. The acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion and sickness is an illusion. Every child of God has the power to deny illusions anywhere merely by denying them completely in himself. If you have denied the power of illusions, you cannot fall ill. If you fall ill illusions are still real to you. Do not be discouraged. Ask God to show you the way to your full recovery. Do not suppress symptoms, as that is not healing. To go beyond conceptual understanding is to turn to God for a miracle that will restore you to perfect health.
Miracles come from God and are elicited through prayer. Prayer is natural communication between God and His creation. Through prayer love is received and through miracles love is expressed. Miracles acknowledge the truth and restore reality. Sickness is separation. Healing overcomes the separation. When you know your oneness with God you cannot fall ill.
Sickness is not God's will
Some Sai Baba devotees hold an idea that sickness is God's will. They say everything is God's will and therefore when they are sick it is because Sai Baba willed it for them out of His love and is therefore in their best interest. There are many people who have stories of how their sickness gave them wonderful insights, teachings and opportunities to slow down, so sickness is justified.
But if you love someone do you really will them to be sick and then tell them it is for their own good? It wouldn't make me feel loved. I wouldn't like that god. Once someone asked Sai Baba if everything unfortunate that happens is due to bad karma. He said to think of it as God's grace. He did not say it is God's will. If you think of it as bad karma, you may feel guilty. If you think of your illness as God's grace you will be grateful and this attitude will help you to heal and keep you from making more karma for yourself. And undoubtedly due to God's grace you are better off than had God not intervened.
The masses are not yet ready for the awesome responsibility that everything that happens to them is by their choice. That can be very fearful, so accepting suffering as God's grace serves the situation and at the same time prevents contraction into terror. That nothing happens but by your will is really good news, but sometimes good news looks bad when we are too afraid of the truth. It is good news because if you are all-powerful, then you have the power to change your experience if you don't like it. It changes when you are willing to make a shift toward personal responsibility.
A broken body shows the mind has not been healed. Miracles of healing are witness to the truth that sickness is not real. If sickness can be undone, then it must follow that it is not real. If unreal then it cannot be of God. A sick body does not make sense. It could not make sense, since sickness is not what the body is for. Only if your body were for attack as the Muslim suicide bombers believe, or if you thought you were your body, would sickness make sense to you. S ickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. If you are sick, you are vulnerable, which is exactly what ego wants you to believe. The truth is you are invulnerable, as that is how God created you. Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use your body lovelessly. Only when you do not value yourself do you become ill.
There are those who say, “I am not a body; therefore I can use my body in any way I like as who I am remains unaffected.” This is mis-creating through erroneous thinking. Your body is a temple for God. Take good care of it and it will serve you well. Eat to live. Don't live to eat. Food does affect your health and well-being. Eat consciously. Ask to be shown what to eat. There are those who say, “My body may be sick but as it is not real, I am not sick even if it experiences illness.” If you think this, you are dissociating and missing the opportunity to use your sickness as the learning device it was sent to be. Nor are you stepping into personal responsibility for your ailment. When sickness is seen as God's grace, it can be used as a classroom. It is God's grace because it exposes to you that your mind is not yet healed. Everything can be used. Ask to be shown what the sickness is telling you.
A friend was suffering pain in his left shoulder. I understand the left side to be our passive or feminine side and the right to be the male or active side. If too passive, it will reflect in pain on the left side of the body, and too active or aggressive it will show up on the right side. I asked my friend if he felt remiss about shouldering responsibilities in any areas of his life. He admitted that he did. He committed to discharging his duties and the pain subsided. A woman was having heart pain. She was asked if she beat herself up a lot. She confessed that she was hard on herself. It was shown to her that every time she put herself down she was stabbing herself in the heart. She understood and the heart pain vanished instantly. We can be shown the contents of our minds by what is playing out in our bodies. Everything can be used. Live a life of integrity and realize that all pain is self-inflicted punishment for crimes that were never committed.
How do you enlist God's healing as your direct experience? The invitation to be healed must come from you. God can only heal you when you are ready to be healed. He does want you to be whole and performs miracles where invited. Healing is release from fear. All healing involves replacing fear with love. God is love and can only enter where there is no fear. Unless you have hurt yourself, you could never suffer in any way, for that is not God's will for you. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. Pain is the ransom we gladly pay not to be free. When we experience pain, we can ask for miracles instead.
The miracle does nothing. It merely undoes. It cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add; it merely takes away. Miracles are the translation of denial into truth. If to love yourself is to heal yourself, those who are sick do not love themselves. Therefore they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are denying themselves. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick. Our task thus becomes to deny the denial of truth. The sick must heal themselves because the truth is in them. They heal by enlisting the power of God. Only God can heal, but everyone can access God's healing grace, and that by faith. When Jesus healed he always acknowledged the person being healed as their own healer. He frequently said, “Go your way, your faith has made you whole.”
You do have a role to play in healing, and that is to hold the light of truth for the person who is sick. Having obscured it, the light in another mind must shine into the patient's mind, because that light is theirs. When a friend is sick I might tell him or her, “I am holding your perfection for you. When you are ready, please join me there.” I pray to God to let wholeness be restored. Sometimes the miracle happens instantly. Sometimes it takes a little longer. Time is given to overcome the fear or feeling of unworthiness that gets in the way of the healing.
Sickness is a call for love
When you perceive sickness as a call for love, you offer the sick what they believe they cannot offer themselves. There was a lady in a Course in Miracles study group who was diagnosed with cancer and was in the hospital. The others in the group went to visit her, but instead of coming to cheer her, they expressed anger toward her for having fallen ill. As a student of ACIM they thought she should know better than to get sick. They felt the truth of ACIM to be threatened by her illness. Had they come with compassion and love, they may have witnessed the miracle of healing that the course offers.
Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible and what has been learned can be recognized only by its results. We do not know our own minds. We will know that we have understood when we experience miracles. If we do not experience miracles we can know that we are still too fearful. There is no order of difficulty in miracles. Each is a gentle winning over from the appeal of guilt to the appeal of love.
Not one illusion is less amenable to truth than are the rest. It is possible that some are given greater value and less willingly offered to truth for healing and for help. Cancer or aids can be healed as readily as the common cold. They are all illusion. You have the power to heal others because of your oneness with everyone. You are responsible for how they see themselves. It is given you to change another's whole mind, which is one with you, in just an instant. Though everyone must heal themselves, you can be the light that gives the courage to another to dare to be healed. It does require your alignment with God's will. Healing always happens where fear has been replaced with love. Perfect love castes out fear. Give perfect love and see loved ones restored to perfect health.
Sai Baba says there are times when suffering serves a remedial purpose. Where sickness, suffering, or deformities are due to evil deeds perpetrated in the past and where the present experience is serving to heal an individual of a degenerate behavior pattern, it would not serve to heal that person. This sounds like a justification for suffering, but sometimes suffering is remedial. If they want to make a shift in consciousness they are free to do so and that shift will permit miracles, through God's grace. We do not know the past or future of anyone and therefore do not know which miracles are appropriate. God knows what is best in every situation.
Heal yourself to heal the world
There is no need for anyone to suffer. There is need that you be healed because the suffering of the world has made it deaf to its salvation and deliverance. The resurrection of the world awaits your healing and your happiness that you may demonstrate the healing of the world. I have personally undergone a number of instant healings. Baba healed me, but I had to have no further purpose for my illnesses. Of myself I can do nothing, but with God all things are possible.
Once at Prasanthi Nilayam I had an angry foot infection. The foot was badly swollen and it was almost impossible to walk. One day, as I was hobbling to my room, I jokingly asked Baba in my heart, “What shall we do, shall we cut it off and throw it into the fire?” That was the remedy Baba had recommended for someone else who was very sick. Baba does not take sickness seriously because He knows it is not real. Instantly, I felt a wonderful warm healing energy on the wound. By morning it was completely healed. Sickness is my attempt to make myself my cause and not allow God to be my Source.
Another time in darsan I had a nasty cold. I had gone through all my tissues when it dawned on me that I absolutely had no need of that congestion. Amazingly, instantly, my head cleared and that was the end of that. It was a direct confirmation of the power of my mind. When I am healed, there is hope for the healing of the world.
Allowing yourself to be healed demonstrates to the world that healing is possible. Truth gathers momentum. The world is a projection of your mind. However, true healing is never about healing bodies. The miracle is useless if you only learn that your body can be healed, for that is not the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the mind was sick that thought your body could be sick. Projecting out its guilt caused nothing and had no effects. The world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering and of sin and guilt.
Any more, when I start to feel ill, I simply remind myself of my Source and affirm the impossibility of sickness and do not get sick, by God's grace. People who reason that their illness doesn't matter as their body is not real anyway, have only conceptual understanding. They still think their body real, otherwise it simply could not get sick. You do not have to accept what I say as your truth. You need only be willing for it to be true and you open the door to miracles of healing. If you insist that it is impossible to have a miraculous cure, you have closed the door to that possibility. Stay open and let the miracle be gently given you. You need not struggle. You need not try to force miracles.
What can be sick that was created by God and what that was not created by God can be at all? Sickness is a demand your body be what it is not. Its nothingness is guarantee that it cannot be sick. It is not difficult to heal, as all that is really required is your willingness. I have given talks on this subject. Once a young lady in my audience had been suffering from a flu for over two weeks. She tried what I was suggesting but had no success. She talked to me about it and by the end of our conversation commented in frustration, “I guess I just have to figure it out.” “No,” I said, “That is just what you do not have to do. You have asked, now just say, “Thank-you.”'
The next day she happily reported how she felt completely cured and was eager to try her new understanding of miracles on everything. Yes, expect miracles in every walk of life. Remember that your Source wants you whole, perfect and happy, and wants to heal your mind so that wholeness can be your experience right now. You need do so little to receive so much. If you do more, you only get in the way. Don't try to figure it out. You don't have to do anything but want to be healed and then thank God that He has healed you. You do not even have to trust that this is so. With experience of the miracle, trust will be gained.
Use the mind to heal rather than suppress symptoms
There are those who suppress symptoms, using the power of their minds to stave off illness. This is not healing. Healing comes from a willingness to change your mind about who you think you are and who your Source is. It is the mind that needs to be healed. Then the healing of the body will follow automatically. Perhaps you are a student of ACIM and think that if you haven't been successful in healing yourself, you are guilty or you are not a good student. When you feel ill, do not deny your illness or suppress your symptoms. You are sick because that is still real for you. That does not make you bad or guilty. It is simply that unreality is still more real than reality in this moment. Be patient and allowing. When you resist, you fight your illness and thereby affirm its reality in your mind.
If you feel ill, simply ask to have that place in your mind healed that thinks you could be other than how you were created. Then let it go. We do not know our own minds because we have allowed ego to convince us that we are ignorant and powerless. Be gentle with yourself whatever is happening. Surround yourself with those who love and cherish you and feel compassion and do not judge you because you are ill.
The world and our bodies are gifts. They can help us to discover our minds. Use everything as an opportunity to know yourself, as a learning device. Then you are seeing all as God's grace. Know that you can change your mind. Be loving, kind and compassionate toward yourself, and if the healing does not take place miraculously, do not become impatient. Maybe there is too much fear associated with the idea. Under those circumstances, do what you need in order to feel safe. Don't become fanatical and refuse doctor's care. You are a precious child of God. Be gentle with yourself wherever you are in your consciousness.
Once one of Sai Baba's students who was sitting on the verandah had a bad cold and flu and felt very sick. Baba manifested a packet of antibiotics for him. Al Drucker, who was also there, wrinkled his nose. Baba commented to Al, “He believes in them. What can I do?” The young man was perfectly fine the next day. It was the power of his mind that healed him, but the drugs supported his faith. Baba says, “I give you what you want so that you will come to want what I have really come to give you, namely eternal life.”
Hold wholeness in your mind to see it in the world
When you heal yourself and others too, it becomes easier and easier for the rest of humanity to trust the power of mind to heal. Only when you yearn with all your heart for the healing of all humanity do you really wish your own healing and release. Once you have been restored to your original state of wholeness, you will naturally find yourself unable to tolerate a lack of love in yourself or in anyone else and must join the great crusade to correct it. Make a commitment to participate in God's plan for the healing of the whole world. As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. Complete restoration to wholeness for all of humanity is the only true goal of the miracle-minded. Everyone in the world must play his part in the redemption of the world to recognize that the world has been redeemed. Your part is essential, for in your part lies all of it, without which is no part complete, nor is the whole complete without your part.
Perhaps you are a doctor who feels threatened that you will not have work if everyone learns to heal through the power of mind. If there is no sickness, rest assured that the world has been healed and all of humanity is in the consciousness of being sustained by the love of God, thus you also will not need to be sustained by your profession. To be a true doctor is to wish yourself out of business. Then only can you really call yourself a doctor. Sai Baba has set up hospitals for people to come and have free medical care. He advocates gradual though permanent change. When people know they will be cared for if they are sick, they are less fearful, thus less prone to sickness. Baba's work is slow but effective. He knows the remedy that will give a permanent cure.
You can be healed instantly
Your mind is all-powerful and the world is a projection of your mind. When you want to heal your mind, you invite the world's healing simultaneously. Everyone wants a healthy body. Healing is of the mind and will be reflected in the body and in your experience in general. To want your body healed is not enough. To be willing to be wrong about what you hold in your mind opens the door to the healing of your mind, reflected in a healed body and a healed world when enough minds have become truly miracle minded. Until your experience reflects the peace of God, your mind is not whole.
If you sincerely feel you do want to be healed and yet find you are not whole, then you have to start with where you are. Be tender and gentle with yourself. It is good news to know that you are getting what you want. When you accept that you do want what is happening right now due to the purpose it is serving, you open the door to a change of mind. Maybe it is time to reevaluate your purpose. If you were not getting what you want, you would not be all-powerful. When you are that honest, you are expressing a willingness to change your mind. A shift in consciousness about who you are will heal and is the only true and lasting cure for all disease, whatever form it takes. An admission that only you can get in the way of your healing will inspire the necessary shift in consciousness. All that is necessary is your desire attended with an admission that you are responsible for your particular set of circumstances.
There are those who look to Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Ramakrishna as examples for what awake looks like. They were all fully enlightened beings of tremendous light in the last century and yet they each died a very painful death, where their bodies were wracked with festering, angry cancers. If they were awake and yet experienced such deaths, what hope do we have? Some claim that they did not suffer. I look into Ramana Maharshi's eyes in a picture taken just days before his death. His eyes reveal such peace and freedom that I believe he really did transcend his pain and did not suffer.
But suppose you could choose between consciously leaving your body in perfect health or contracting a terminal illness in which you could rise above the pain? What would you choose? Who would want the “benefits” of sickness, when he has received the simple happiness of health? Is it realistic to lead a healthy life, sound of body and mind right now? It really comes back to a willingness to accept that you are all-powerful. If you are, then you must be in charge of your own destiny and it must be possible to choose for health, wholeness, completeness and perfection of body and mind, as that is how you were created. Your body is a projection of your mind and when it is well, it indicates a healed mind. Let your healing be a demonstration to the world of what is possible.
There are those who don't contract physical ailments who might not be all that enlightened, thus a healthy body is not the only indicator of your state of mind. The sparkle in your eye and the laughter in your smile are also helpful pointers.
Perfect health is possible right now
Does Sai Baba get sick? There are a number of occasions where He has taken on illnesses of His devotees. In one case a woman in Dehre Dunn, nearly a thousand kilometers away, suffered a severe heart attack. She was a teacher of Sai Baba's human values program for young children. She had five daughters. Her husband was a drunkard. The heart attack would have taken her life had Baba not intervened and taken it into His own body. Her girls would have been in the street. When asked why Baba had to take it into His body, He explained that it was the law of nature. He said that once something starts in a body it has to finish in a body. Perhaps Baba took it into His body because her consciousness was not able to permit it to simply be undone. Baba said it was His duty.
An older man from Australia also suffered a heart attack. He took some vibhuti (sacred ash) and was instantly healed. Baba did not take it into His own body in that instance. In any case, I do not remember a time when Baba fell ill unrelated to taking on another's illness. Recently His walking is impaired and He has explained that His body has become so attracted to the earth's magnetic field that walking has become difficult. He assured those looking on in pain that He is in perfect health. Baba does not get sick and so for me He is a model of what is possible. He says, “My life is my message.” We also needn't get sick if we want healing and health above all else. If a sufficient number of people become truly miracle-minded quickly, the shortening process becomes immeasurable.
When you heal yourself, everyone benefits. Your healing is proof that healing is possible and that is good news for everyone. When you are healed, you have the capacity to bring peace to the minds of others. Everything meets in God, because everything was created by Him. You are part of everything, as everything is part of you. You can no more pray for yourself alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is a restatement of inclusion. We begin the journey back by setting out together and gathering in all God's children everywhere as we continue together.
When we uncover the key to healing and share it with all who yearn for a better way, the world becomes a place where hope of happiness can be fulfilled. No one remains outside this hope because the world will have been united in the belief that the purpose of the world is one which all must share, that hope be more than just a dream.
You are here only to be truly helpful and to represent God who sent you. You do not have to worry about what to say or do, because the One who sent you will direct you. Be content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with you. You will be healed as you let Spirit teach you to heal. Healing is the undoing or correction of errors so that the awareness of your true creative function can be restored to you. The only error that needs correction is the thought that separation is possible. In full awareness you will know the separation never occurred.
To heal is to forgive
When truly healed, the past is remembered in purified form only. That happens through forgiveness. To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. Be willing to forgive another for what he did not do. That is true forgiveness. Unjustified forgiveness is attack. This is what you do when you think someone has sinned, but in your magnanimity you forgive them. That is not forgiveness. It makes errors real. Forgiveness looks past error and sees only the truth of God's wholly innocent child. If you can see your brother merits pardon, you have learned forgiveness is your right as much as his. Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal.
No one can do anything to you that you have not ask for. If they could, they would be more powerful than you. Nothing happens to you without your consent. When I was raped, it was because I had given my consent. I forgave my rapist by seeing that I was responsible for what happened to me. In that way I was forgiving him for what he did not do. That is forgiveness and allows the mind to be healed. If you do not understand that you are responsible for everything that happens to you, you are giving your power away and are in victim-victimizer consciousness. If that is your consciousness you can ask to be healed. When you are healed you will have nothing to forgive. That is forgiveness.
However, forgiveness does not ask that you take a beating with a smile on your face, because nothing is happening that you have not asked for. Forgiveness is an active process of transformation both within yourself and the other. I forgive myself by being responsible. I forgive him by praying that he desire a shift in consciousness where he recognize me as his sister, given to him by God for the purpose of enhancing his joy. I do not condone his actions. Forgiveness means you do not wish the other to suffer for his actions in relation to you, though they may have been hurtful. You do act to prevent his hurtful actions in future. I sent my rapist to jail to prevent him hurting others. I know his innocence is unaffectable by anything he may have done. I hold his perfection in my mind and pray that he choose to act in accordance with the purity and holiness that he is in truth, because that is in his best interest. Forgiveness sincerely wants another's salvation and knows his innocence, no matter how hurtful his behavior.
In this world we cannot create. We come closest to ourselves through forgiveness. Forgiveness is acquired. God does not forgive because He has never condemned and there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness undoes what fear had produced. The major difficulty we find in genuine forgiveness is that we still believe we must forgive the truth and not illusions. When we truly forgive we will see clearly what is true and what are illusions. True forgiveness requires clarity about who we are.
We naturally think of forgiving when we have been hurt. It is the time to forgive, but the action is not necessarily obvious. If we feel hurt by anyone, it could only have happened with our consent. If we had not agreed to the violation, we would be less powerful than the one who hurt us. That is impossible, for we are all-powerful. There is no one more powerful than you. And it is also true that there is no one less powerful than you. If no one can hurt you, it means that if you are hurt it is because that is what you chose. You may have chosen it to prove yourself vulnerable or because you thought you were guilty and deserving of punishment. You can change your mind by accepting that you are as God created you and that you deserve the very best no matter how shady your past may have been. Once your mind is healed, it will be impossible for anyone to hurt you.
When some Sikhs came to the ashram with sub-machine guns, planning to snuff out Baba's life, Baba had them intercepted at the gate. His third eye vision saw them coming. It was not possible for them to harm Baba because He had no victim-victimizer consciousness. Another time some students who were disgruntled decided to storm the ashram one night to kill Sai Baba. Baba was not to be found. He had warned His faithful attendant to leave his post, but the attendant, in a determination to protect Baba was killed. That was sad. The point is that Baba could not be touched because He had not given His consent to their plans. There are no victims. No one is more powerful than you. If you are hurt, it is because you have given your consent.
You can protest that you did not agree to some of the things that happened to you, but if they happened without your consent, you are a victim. Either you are responsible for all that happens to you or you are not all-powerful. What is your choice? Ego wants you to think things can happen to you against your will. That is what ego is: an idea that things can happen to God's holy child, created all-powerful and perfect, against his holy will. Once you see that you are the cause of everything that happens to you, you have understood forgiveness. Once you see that nothing can happen to who you are as God created you, you have understood forgiveness. Once you see that, who is there to forgive? Who hurt you?
Do not however use this teaching to keep yourself in harms way. You are a precious child of God worthy only of the deepest honoring and tenderness. Also, do not use this teaching to justify hurting others, as ‘they are doing it to themselves.' If you hurt someone, whether intentionally or unintentionally, learn from your mistake and vow not to repeat it. You do not want to hurt another because they are your very self. In hurting them you hurt yourself. And when you recognize your mistake let them know you are sorry. Saying that you are sorry heals the pain that another feels due to your conscious or unconscious acts against them. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When you know who you are, it will be impossible to hurt anyone. ‘Help ever; hurt never.'
Should you forgive yourself if you are accosted in any way? If you feel the need to forgive yourself, you are stating that you really were violated and you are making the error real. Once I see that I am not a body I also realize nothing happened. Then the past is truly healed and all that remains of it are the flowers, the good and joyful memories. If you knew the glorious goal that lies beyond forgiveness you would not hold onto any unforgiving thought, however light the touch of corruption on it may appear to be. How great is the cost of holding anything God did not give in your mind. Your mind was given to direct your hand to bless and to lead all your brothers and sisters out of darkness into the glorious light.
Creation is your true function in heaven as healing is your true function here. Healing includes miracles and miracles undo the unreal. Sickness and suffering can be undone because they were never real. Healing happens through compassion and forgiveness. Compassion is love, non-judgment and caring. Forgiveness means that what you thought another did to you never happened. It shifts you out of victim-victimizer consciousness into God consciousness. May your complete healing of mind and body stand as a splendorous beacon of hope to all the world.
Beloved Heavenly Father, Thank You for the beautiful world You created for us. Thank You for creating us to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Thank You for Your solution to our mis-creations. Please heal the whole world of all our mis-creations. Sorry that we have misused our minds to mis-create, when they were given to us by You for creating. Thank You that forgiveness, healing, and miracles undo our mis-creations and restore us to our original function of creating with You and all our brothers and sisters everywhere. Please show us what miracles You will perform through us today. Please instill faith in all your children in the whole world that miracles are natural expressions of Your love. May all the world be healed.
May all beings in all the worlds be happy and blest, Amen.
What is creation?
(Questions for on-line course - all are welcome to participate. Please share your answersat www.groups.yahoo.com/group/joiningintruth)
- What is the act of creation? What exactly is created in the act of creating? If you were created in God's image are you a God replica, or are you free?
- What is the difference between a creation and its creator? What is ego? How is a mis-creation the same as a creation? How is mis-creation different from creation?
- Did God create you? How do you know? Does He love His creations? Are God's creations gender specific?
- Did God create the world? Is the world we see God's creation? What does it mean that God only creates creations of light?
- For what purpose were you created? From where does your mind derive its ability to create? If you were created to create, do you create now? How can we be restored to our creative function?
- What is meant by to give is to receive? How can this idea be misapplied? What does ego tell you about giving? Should giving be for the purpose of filling a lack? If you see a person shivering or a child hungry and you give a blanket or a bowl of soup are you acting in their best interest?
- What is meant by ideas increase through sharing? What can expecting miracles do to save the world?
- What is a miracle? What do miracles do? Can we perform miracles? How are miracles elicited? Would bending spoons, walking on coals, getting parking places… constitute miracles? Are miracles real?
- What is healing? How does forgiveness heal? How should we respond when our body falls ill? Is healing the body without healing the mind a miracle?
- What is sickness of the body? If the body is not real, what does its illness have to do with us? If your body is sick, is it God's will? If your body is sick, is it part of your transformation? Is it a cleansing? Can suppressing symptoms heal you?
- Is sickness due to karma from the past? Is karma due to choices made in the past? If we change our minds now, can we alter our destiny? If karma can be altered, is it real? If karma is not real, is sickness real? If not real, can it be healed? If sickness can be healed, can it be God's will? What happens when you deny sickness on the premise that it is not real?
- Who is responsible when we fall ill? How can we experience miracles? What if the miracle does not happen?
- What are the justifications for sickness? Are any of the justifications valid?
- How do we overcome sickness and suffering?