Excerpt from a teaching on Healing and Faith from A Course In Miracles T19.I
Rananda reads from paragraph 4 and comments:
Do not overlook our earlier statement that faithlessness leads straight to illusions.
Now, remember, when Rananda teaches that, he always teaches that you always have faith in something. So your faithlessness is actually faith, but it’s faithlessness because faith belongs to God. But it’s faith to Satan which is faithlessness to God. It’s always faith of one nature or another. It’s just where you apply it.
Like, you have faith in Satan. You have faith that -when you had enough- you can die. You’re planning on it. You have great faith in dying…! You have that “Hope springs eternal”, that you can still find happiness in a world which was made so you could be unhappy. And, you think - by not admitting it- you can still continue to put all your energy into trying to make happiness happen there, even though you know it’s not going to work. That – if you do truly want Happiness- you’ll going to have to function in a different way.
Then, Happiness is available to you but not because you found “it” seeking “it” where it is not. But you found It where It is. And It sustains you! It fills you with the Joy that you know that you deserve and you want it. It’s just that it came from a different location.
And that’s where Jesus will talk about two worlds, won’t He? In A Course in Miracles, he talks about two worlds.
And the one that you spend most of your time in, is the one of suffering. And the One that you like to avoid - for whatever reason you decide to avoid it – is where your Happiness is!
And you figure that the less pain that you experience is what happiness is. You are happy that you’re not experiencing so much pain. And you’re so deep in the darkness that you consider that being happy.
That’s why Jesus said, You’ve thrown away Everything that God gave You. Because you don’t even consider a Happiness that is self-effulgent within you. You consider it a response or a result, an effect of a cause.
You are what Happiness is. Your cause is God! The happiness that you think about requires a cause within the framework of physical manifestations. So you don’t find anything Eternal. And yet, you’re unhappy when the Eternal Happiness does not show up in the happiness that you called happiness, that that came from the world.
You really wanted it to be without end. Your friendships and …, you don’t want them to have moves. Right? You don’t want it to come and go. You want your friends to always be happy friend experiences. But you’ve never met anybody that with whom is that way, because you don’t see yourself that way and you won’t see anybody else be that way. Because you pretend you don’t have anything to do with circumstances until after they show up.
And then, that showing up, is what is telling you how you should think and feel and what you should do, based upon how you can be safe in those conditions. Safety first, happiness afterwards Safety is paramount. If I feel safe I can be happy. No way I can be happy if I am not safe. OK?
Now, that self that needs to be safe doesn’t know it is eternally safe. It has to be a false self, it has to be a thought system in the mind that we call … satanic, ego. It doesn’t matter, the words. Are you following what it is I’m saying?
Because, if you want to continue to be like that, if you want to continue to function in your mind like that, there’s no way you’re going to get to the faith that’s required to get to the trust that’s going to lead you out! Because you keep on putting your faith in faithlessness! You will have eternal hope that you’re wrong about God. Because You Know the Truth of God! You Know that what I’m speaking is True. You know it!
Why you would want to continue to have hope against that, doesn’t really make sense. That is why Jesus says, “you are imprisoned by insanity.” Because, only the insane would Know the Truth and yet continue to be in opposition to It, declaring that it wants truth.
Doesn’t everybody in this room declare that they want Truth?
Listeners: Yeah.
Doesn’t everybody in this room declare they want Happiness?
Listeners: Yeah.
Doesn’t everybody in this room declare they want the Peace of God?
Listeners: Yeah.
Doesn’t everybody in this room declare that they want to be healed.
Listeners Yeah.
Yeah! And yet, everybody in this room does what?
Everybody continues to have faith in the opposite, thinking that somehow it’s going to happen anyway. And yet, the first sentence* says that you have to be dedicated wholly to Truth. Not saying one thing and doing something different. Amazing, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Listeners: Yeah.
Isn’t it amazing that…, that you are sincere and yet you find extreme difficulty being true to it? It must drive you nuts. No, you’re already nuts,,,!
[Laughter]
So you’re twice removed from the Truth!
( Rananda continues reading.)
Do not overlook our …
Our! Oh, that’s right! We did that already, didn’t we? He’s talking about “our”. Our!
Do not overlook our earlier statement that faithlessness leads straight to illusions. For
faithlessness is the perception of a brother as a body …
For faithlessness is the perception of a brother as a body! Faithlessness is also the perception that you are a body…!
…and the body cannot be used for purposes of union.
Bodies cannot join! So, if your brother is a body or you are a body or you’re both a body, then you cannot join! And that, my friends, is an attack upon your Creator Who created You to be One, Oneness, forever. Amazing, isn’t it? Excited yet? Or are you continuing to go into a deeper disappointment about you? What are you choosing to do with this? Are you using the Truth to be worse or are you using the truth to be excited that, whatever you’ve been thinking is impossible, and you can let go of it? What are you doing in that little pea brain of yours? You are receiving enough information to find your freedom!
If, then, you see your brother as a body, you have established a condition in which uniting with him becomes impossible. Your faithlessness to him has separated you from him, and kept you both apart from being healed.
Your faithlessness to your brother has kept you both from healing! So, this is why Jesus says, you are your brother’s keeper? This is why! This!
This is why! Because he is depending upon You to find his True Self. And You Knowing Your True Self depends upon You seeing your brother’s True Self! That sounds to me like, your brother is pretty important to you! It sounds to me like… what is required of you is totally, wholly dedicated to your brother.
Ha! You just can’t walk out on your brother, can you? No! You cannot walk out and heal. Even when you’re sure he doesn’t deserve it. Because, the moment you are sure he doesn’t deserve it, you have condemned yourself and him to hell….! Oooooh! And, you know what hell means, right? Lack of God! So you condemn yourself and your brother to lack of God. And God is love! So, lack of love…! Although you think you are doing the right thing by walking out on your brother.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? You are your brother’s keeper! Your brother depends upon you.
You are the elders, especially you that have been with me for a long time. [Rananda laughs.] You are definitely the elders because you’ve been listening to this message for a long time! You are supposed to be living it and demonstrating it and embodying, being it.
You’re supposed to be this message. You are the example for your brothers! You’re not supposed to be teaching them that they can upset you so much that you won’t have anything to do with their healing…!
My goodness, when you see people that are in darkness, that should be telling you how much they need you, rather than you saying, “I’m going to walk away from here because they don’t want to hear anything.” How about the power of God?
Forgive everybody, as well as yourself, for all their belief in being separate from you and their Source!
I love you. Blessings be with you always and forever.
*Rananda refers to the first sentence of ACIM T19.I Healing and Faith: “We said before that
when a situation has been dedicated wholly to truth, peace is inevitable”
