A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

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Chapter 28: the Undoing of Fear

Section VI. The Secret Vows

Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 28, Section VI. (pages 602-604)

Why do we punish the body and make it sick?

Jesus describes how insane it is to project guilt onto the body and punish the body because the body is not the decision maker. He shows us how the body is merely is the effect of a mind that wants to see a little gap between his separate mind and the united Mind of God.

He tells us: “You send [the body] forth to seek for separation and be separate. And then you hate [the body], not for what it is, but for the uses you have made of it. You shrink from what [the body] sees and what it hears, and hate its frailty and littleness. And you despise its acts, but not your own. It sees and acts for you. It hears your voice [the voice of the separated mind]. And it is frail and little by your wish. [The body] seems to punish you, and thus deserve your hatred for the limitations that it brings to you. Yet you have made of [the body] a symbol for the limitations that you want your mind to have and see and keep.” (3:2-10)

What is the secret oath we take when we perceive ourselves attacked?

The body is the vehicle the ego uses to experience separation as if it were real. The ego thought system hates the body and yet sees it as savior from its disappearance. Jesus explains it this way: “The body represents the gap between the little bit of mind you call your own and all the rest of what is really yours. You hate [the body] yet you think it is your self, and that, without it, would your self be lost. This is the secret vow that you have made with every brother who would walk apart. This is the secret oath you take again, whenever you perceive yourself attacked. No one can suffer if he does not see himself attacked, and losing by attack. Unstated and unheard in consciousness is every pledge to sickness. Yet it is a promise to another to be hurt by him, and to attack him in return.” (4:1-7 Italics added)

How do we reverse this oath of separation?

In order to perceive that we are apart, we secretly agree to attack and be attacked. That is why victimhood and being unfairly treated is the central recurring theme in our dreams of separation. “It is the obvious effect of what was made in secret, in agreement with another’s secret wish to be apart from you, as you would be apart from him. Unless you both agree that is your wish, it can have no effects. Whoever says, ‘There is no gap between my mind and yours’ has kept God’s promise, not his tiny oath to be forever faithful unto death.” (5:2-4 italics added)

Here we see that we can reverse this pattern of attack and defense. We can recognize that we are joined as one mind instead of being apart. As we are willing to forgive, or let go of our thinking about being separate and apart, we are instruments of healing both for our brother and ourselves.

What did our Father say in our creation?

In paragraph 6 Jesus tells us: “In his creation did his Father say, ‘You are beloved of Me and I of you forever. Be you perfect as Myself, for you can never be apart from Me.’ His Son remembers not that he replied ‘I will,’ though in that promise he was born. Yet God reminds him of [his promise] every time he does not share a promise [to the ego] to be sick, but lets his mind be healed and unified.” (6:4-7)

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