Corresponding Manual for Teachers Section
Chapter 3: How Is Healing Accomplished?
4. Is Healing Certain?
Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to Truth and keep the illusions. Truth demonstrates that illusions have no value. The Teachers of the Divine see the Correction of their own errors in the mind of the patient, recognizing Correction for what It is. Having accepted the Atonement for themselves, they have also accepted It for the patient.
Yet what if the patient uses sickness as a way of life, believing true healing to be the guarantee of their own annihilation? When this is so, a sudden healing might precipitate intense depression, and a sense of loss so deep that the patient may even try to destroy themself. Believing that they have nothing to live for in the delusion they feel at home in, they may ask for death. For their protection, healing in this case must seem to wait. Healing will always stand aside when and where it would be perceived as a threat.
Where true healing has been given by the Teacher of the Divine on behalf of their brother or sister, it is assured that it will be received when it won’t be perceived as a threat. The instant it is welcome it is there. And what is time before the Gifts of the Divine? This Course has referred many times to the Storehouse of Treasures laid up equally for the giver and the receiver of the Divine’s Gifts. None of these Gifts can ever be lost, for They can only increase. No Teacher of the Divine should feel disappointed if they have offered healing and it does not appear to have been received. It is not up to them to judge when and how the Divine’s Gift of Healing, or any of Its Gifts, should be accepted. Let the teacher be certain that the Gift has been received by Spirit on behalf of the patient, and trust that It will be accepted by the patient when It is recognized as a blessing and not a curse.
It is not the function of the Divine’s Teachers to judge or even assess the outcome of the Gifts given through them. Who gives a gift and then remains with it, to be sure it is used as the giver deems appropriate? Such is not giving but an attempt to control. It is merely the function of the Teachers of the Divine to give the Gifts given them, according to the Guidance of their Teacher. Once they have done that, they have also given the Outcome, for that is Part of the Gift. No one can truly give if they are concerned with the result of their giving. That would be a limitation on the giving itself, and neither the giver nor the receiver would then have the Gift, which is unlimited.
Trust is an essential part of giving. In fact, it is the part that makes sharing possible—that guarantees that both the giver and receiver cannot lose, but only gain. It is the relinquishing of all concern about a gift that makes it truly given. And it is Trust that makes true giving possible.
Healing is simply the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient’s mind is seeking for the patient. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the Teacher of the Divine Who gives the Gift to the patient. How can it be lost? How can it be ineffectual? How can it be wasted? The Divine’s Treasure House can never be diminished. And if one Gift were missing It would not be full. Thus is Its Fullness guaranteed by the Divine. What concern, then, can a Teacher of the Divine have about what becomes of their Gifts? Given by the Divine to the Divine, who in this holy Exchange can receive less than Everything?
