The body is in need of no defense. This cannot be too often emphasized. It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond its scope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish.
The “self” that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over.
Defend the body and you have attacked your mind. For you have seen in [the mind] the faults, the weaknesses, the limits and the lacks from which you think the body must be saved. You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions. And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its Source.
These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with truth. This is the body’s only real defense. (A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 135, W-pI.135.7:1-3;8:1-2;9;10:1-2. See also ACIM Lesson 135 Insights.)
The body is the manifestation of the ego’s wish to limit the mind to an identity separate from the oneness of Love. The ego needed to build a wall around this separate self to “protect” it from Love. If Love’s oneness were accepted, the ego’s choice to deny Love would be recognized as a meaningless fantasy that could have no effect on the Mind of Love. So the ego’s purpose for the body is to hide from Love.
Perceiving ourselves as lacking Love is painful. It denies What we are. This pain is manifested in the body as vulnerability, sickness, pain, fear and guilt. All this comes with assigning the body the role of protecting a limited self from the unlimited Love of our true Self.
When we accept the Holy Spirit’s purpose for the body, it is used on behalf of extending Love to the world. When we accept that the mind is not limited to the body, we become open to the Holy Spirit’s perception. We welcome His lessons in Love. As we let the Holy Spirit express through the body, the body is healed. It is no longer used to maintain the illusion of a separate self. It is used to bring healing to the world by using it to express the oneness of Love.
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