Robert:
Today as we read in the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles, the following stood out to me:
What the body’s eyes behold is only conflict. …Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. It is the mind that interprets the eyes’ messages and gives them “meaning.” …Only the mind evaluates their messages and so only the mind is responsible for all seeing. (M-8.1:6, 3:3-4, 10)
This gives us an important key to waking up from the dream. While I identify myself with the body, I will continue to receive images through the body’s eyes. The key is to choose a new interpreter. From eons of habit, I automatically choose the ego as my interpreter. Since the body was made by the ego to provide a sense of “identity” it seems to be the path of least resistance to let the ego interpret what the body sees. This is just the way the ego wants it, because it keeps me firmly entrenched in the belief in separation.
If I want to be free of the belief in separation, I need to choose another Interpreter. This Interpreter will always show me that the images are unreal and therefore have no meaning. As I let my inner Interpreter replace the ego’s interpretations, I will realize that the images are illusions and they will be recognized for the nothingness they are.
Choosing the Holy Spirit as my Interpreter requires vigilance. It means choosing to use the body for a purpose opposite to what the ego gives it. It is a radical reversal of thinking. But the benefit of this reversal is deep peace and lasting happiness. It is worth the effort. And as I strengthen this new habit, it will become easier and easier to choose the Holy Spirit’s interpretation in each moment. Conflict fades away and the recognition of oneness replaces it with happy laughter.
Mary:
I have felt the peace of God many times. But I have also experienced that it comes and goes. I am now coming to the point where I want consistency rather than vacillation. I want to do the work necessary to allow the experience where peace remains constant and does not come and go.
In our reading this morning, we came across a paragraph in the Manual for Teachers that really stood out to me as the answer to this desire.
The body’s eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be “sicker” than others, and the body’s eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two, but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place — for differences cannot exist within it — so too are illusions without distinctions. The one answer to sickness is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth. (M-8.6)
If I want consistent peace that does not come and go, my daily practice must be to consistently be open to receiving the truth. To receive the truth I must be willing for the Holy Spirit to show me the difference between the real and the unreal. In Reality there are no differences and It does not change. It is only my true Self Who remembers the truth that can give the constant peace that I desire. Receiving what the Holy Spirit gives is my answer to maintaining an awareness of peace that does not come and go. This is my practice today and I give thanks.
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