Chapter 4: The Root of All Evil

VIII. True Rehabilitation

¹ Every mind which is split needs rehabilitation. The medical orientation to rehabilitation emphasizes the body, while the vocational orientation stresses the ego. The “team” approach generally leads more to confusion than to anything else because it is too often misused as a way of exerting the egoʹs domination over other egos, rather than as a real experiment in the cooperation of minds. Rehabilitation as a movement is an improvement over the overt neglect of those in need of help, but it is often little more than a painful attempt on the part of the halt to lead the blind.

² The ego is likely to fear broken bodies because it cannot tolerate them. The ego cannot tolerate ego weakness either without ambivalence because it is afraid of its own weakness as well as the  weakness of its chosen home.

When it is threatened, the ego blocks your natural impulse to help, placing you under the strain of divided will. You may then be tempted to withdraw to allow your ego to recover and to gain enough strength to be helpful again on a basis limited enough not to threaten your ego, but too limited to give you joy. Those with broken bodies are often looked down on by the ego because of its belief that nothing but a perfect body is worthy as its own temple.

³ A mind that recoils from a hurt body is in great need of rehabilitation itself. ALL symptoms of hurt need true helpfulness, and whenever they are met with this, the mind that so meets them heals itself. Rehabilitation is an attitude of praising God as He Himself knows praise. He offers praise to you, and you must offer it to others.

The chief handicaps of the clinicians lie in their attitudes to those whom their egos perceive as weakened and damaged. By these evaluations, they have weakened and damaged their own helpfulness, and have thus set their own rehabilitation back. Rehabilitation is not  concerned either with the egoʹs fight for control, or its need to avoid and withdraw. You can do much on behalf of your own rehabilitation and that of others if, in a situation calling for healing, you think of it this way:

          I am here only to be truly helpful.
          I am here to represent Christ, Who sent me.
          I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do because He Who sent me will direct me.
          I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.
          I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.

<< Previous Lesson                                                                                                                                     Next Lesson >>