Healing and the Conscious Mind

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We are aware of the regrettable fact that a cult is growing around ACIM (the book A Course in Miracles). That is really too bad, for it does have a number of good teachings. It is largely the common sense (anything but common) of the twelve-step programs. We do not subscribe to the mythical superstition that this book is infallible, incapable of error, or that it was "channeled from God," or "actually" written by Jesus Christ. This is, you might recognize, the same lie that fundies have been telling for years about the Bible; it serves only those who are too lazy, too ignorant, or too weak to think for themselves.

One problem with healing is that people want to assign very simplistic causes to diseases. If disease has a very simple cause, then it also has a very simple solution. Usually, it is something along the lines of "changing your thought-patterns."

This simplism not only "blames" the sick person, instead of extending compassion to her, but it is absurdly simple. It is, in fact, far too simple to account for the facts.

Simplicity, of course, has a very wide place in the philosophy of enlightenment. But intellect also has its proper place. For, historically, many people who never allowed a "negative thought" within a hundred yards of them have suffered from some major illnesses. To claim, or to imply, that all illness is the result of "negative thinking" simply does not tally with the known facts-- of history or of medicine.

The conscious mind is not the "cause" of all illness. It can and does affect the body, but its power is not unlimited. If these "positive thinkers" were right in their simplistic explanations, everyone would have followed them years ago, and there would be no serious health-problems in our world. For mind-based systems of "positive thinking" have been widely available, to everyone, for well over a hundred years, in just recent history.

For an example, the cult called "Christian Science" (founded 1879) ascribes all illness to "wrong" thinking. Yet this is a microcult, with only a few million members worldwide. But if Mary Eddy's theories were correct, if her "practice" actually worked, by now, the cult would have converted the entire world. You could not keep people from converting to the cult! It would be madly, astonishingly popular, and you could not pull people away with bull-dozers. And no Christian Scientist would ever suffer from any major disease; they would all, and always, enjoy perfect health.

But this has not been the real situation "on the ground" (in the real world). These facts show its flaw: There are still practicing Christian Scientists (as members call themselves) who become very sick with major illnesses; indeed, despite continuous practice and programming, some die every year, making the cult lethal for sick people.

The whole idea of "mind-healing," or healing through exclusively positive thinking, underwent a massive revival in the US and the whole world in the 1890's, and millions converted to various related "positive thinking" schools. But many, if not most, remained either sick or poor, or both. Why?

Because they mistook the conscious mind for the Mind of God, the One. The conscious mind is indeed a part of the great Mind that controls the universe-- indeed, creates it. But the conscious mind has never been assigned control of the material cosmos, including the body.

The best that this little mind can do, say the wise Taoist sages, is to learn cooperation with the cosmic Mind of God; and this includes acceptance-- the opposite of trying to change everything, and trying to force the universe to be the way that we personally want it to be. This "grunt and groan" struggle to control the universe produces a person of increased tension, and it amplifies fears.

But the philosophy summed up by Jesus is very different: (He was also a Taoist) in his famous words to God: "Not my will, but thine."

This is also the foundation of the Model Prayer that we should pray always: "Thy will be done."

This "thy will" recognizes a pre-existent will in the great Mind that rules the cosmos. God has plans, and outcomes, that He/She wants, and they are not always what we want. Jesus, unlike "positive thinkers," who want to grab hold of the cosmos and alter it according to their personal wills, saw a distinction between his personal will and the will of God. It is only when we lose this distinction (usually, because we want so powerfully to believe that God's will is always the same as our personal will) that we "fall" for the easy but ineffective "wishful thinking solutions" of "positive thinking."

Yes, positive thinking can change very much in our lives. It is wonderfully superior to negative thinking. But, as human beings, we have limits regarding our control of the cosmos, and this is the one fact that extremists of "positive thinking" do not want to recognize:

In the end, the cosmos, including our births (we had nothing to do with them, as the conscious mind that now exists, except peripherally) and our deaths, are not controlled by us personally. Where was "your" mind when the sperm first entered the egg, and formed your current body? No, this was not controlled by you, but by Nature (symbolized by the ancient Christians as the Goddess Sophia).

Our only task is to use these lives to learn to cooperate with Sophia, our "heavenly Mother," and with Love, our "Father." So, we do not have strictly to regulate each and every thought, always fleeing from the "demons" of negative thinking. For this is how "positive thinking" can increase the "demons" of fear.

Instead, we follow the words of Jesus' most "Taoistic" sermon, the famous Sermon on the Mount, and live like the birds and the flowers, who know, and need/want to know, nothing about "positive thinking."

We can then simply relax and trust, "going with the Flow." When Jesus said his famous words, "Lest ye be as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom," the Greek word translated "little children" means literally "nursing infants"-- another group of minds that knows nothing about control or "positive thinking."

This Taoist life of full trust (faith) is far better, for it is God-dependent and not egocentric or human-dependent. Human beings have tried, metaphysically, for thousands of years to control the cosmos with their conscious minds; the idea goes way back to ancient Greece; it was not invented by the "modern cult" of Christian Science. (Similar ideas were also found in ancient India.)

The key, for us, is to find the courage to dare to trust. For, deep down, many of us distrust the universe. We might even distrust Love. For we have never found any solid evidence of a "God" "out there," in the universe.

This is simply because there is no God in the universe. That is, there is no "exterior" God. God does not exist in the universe. But, as Mind, the universe exists in Him/Her. This is the beautiful and glorious discovery of the mystic, and it frees us from all desperate illusions and delusions.

Mind alone is Reality, so the mystics called God "Reality." This is one meaning of Jesus' famous words, "You will know the truth [reality], and the truth [reality] will set you free." (Jn. 8:32) Reality, the truth, is God in the world, and in the heartmind. It alone can free us from desperate illusions, bathing us in the Light of sweet, saving Love.

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The Way of Mysticism

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When most people hear the adjective "mystical," they think of something occult, or even magical. They don't quite know what it is, but are sure that it is something "spooky"! Actually, the histories of intercultural forms of mysticism (such as gnosticism, kabbalism, and sufism, in their most generic forms, as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism) prove that this Way has nothing to do with the occult or with magic.

The mystic has begun a tentative knowing of the cosmos. She knows that it is not a separate collection of objects, like the universe's largest yard-sale. Instead, she comes to see the entire "material" cosmos as a complex dream. and the mystic knows that it is not her dream; it is being dreamed by a greater, immense Mind through her tiny human mind.

This dream was called by our Hindu sisters and brothers maya, a Sanskrit word meaning "illusion." The entire material universe, together with all of spacetime, are a part of this dreamillusion. When the kabbalists spoke of "creation," they were also referring to this same dreaming Mind.

But if the cosmos is being dreamed into being by a perfect, flawless Mind, why is it so imperfect, even ugly, in some ways? Because the material cosmos, before it can be sensed/perceived, must flow through the "filters" of other mindlevels. One of these Mindlevels is called the "Soul," and it makes sure that the cosmic dream also contains all personal karma. So, the projection of this karma alters the "perfect world" of a perfect Mind. We end up living in precisely the exact "virtual reality" that we need in order to grow and develop.

And if anything is "ugly," the mystic says, the problem is within the "labelmaker" within your head! If, for example, a person truly believes that a rainy, cloudy day is "beautiful," then, to her, it really can be, and is, "a beautiful day."

Every effect has a cause. And there is not the slightest object or event in your world that "just happens" or "comes from nowhere." In a nightdream, if you encounter a fly, there is a reason for it; the mind has chosen it as a symbol, in order to teach you. And so it is with the "real," ordinary or everyday world. There is no such thing as "random chance"; that is simply a cover-up for ignorance, when the causes are not known.

Knowing karma as the ultimate servant of Love, the mystic does not believe in "innocent victims." But the most important aspects of her mind are yearning and longing to "become one," meld, or merge, with Lovemind. This Supermind is deep within her unconscious Mind. So, she takes an interior heartvow always to act and react with the most Love possible. The mystic is not yet perfect; she makes mistakes. But she does her honest best, in all circumstances, to respond with her maximum Love.

She believes in Love. Even more, she believes that "God is Love," as the ancients said. So, she worships Love; it is Number One, all the time, her first priority. This makes her a happy and courteous person who loves harmony, and who renounces actively all violence, egocentricity, and superiorism. She actively contemplates humility and lives in simplicity.

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This article was written by a franciscan taoist who has been exploring the Path for thirty years. If you have any questions about the Way of intercultural (universal) mysticism, which is not a religion, please write: rmfrancis@juno.com
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