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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VIII. The Body as Means or End, Paragraph 7 11-3-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 7
7 A learning device is not a teacher. It cannot tell you how you feel. You do not know how you feel because you have accepted the ego’s confusion, and you therefore believe that a learning device can tell you how you feel. Sickness is merely another example of your insistence on asking guidance of a teacher who does not know the answer. The ego is incapable of knowing how you feel. When I said that the ego does not know anything, I said the one thing about the ego that is wholly true. But there is a corollary; if only knowledge has being and the ego has no knowledge, then the ego has no being.

Oh my! I never thought of sickness and the ego like this before. When my body is sick it is like I asked the body how I feel. The body can’t tell me how I feel because it is a simple learning device. It is like asking my pencil what I feel like writing, or asking my car where I feel like driving. I used to say things like, “I check in with my body to see what it needs.” That’s just funny, really. This is just more ego confusion. Whatever my body “tells” me is just a message from me to me through this device I call my body. Why not just skip the middle man?

Sickness is not something that just happens to the body and the body doesn’t decide if it is sick or not. Sickness is a deliberate choice to use the body as a defense against God. I make the choice to use the body as a symbol of my defense against God. I choose sickness and use the body to express that sickness. Then I pretend to myself that it just happened to me, and I use it to convince myself that I am weak, fragile and the furthest thing from the divine being the Course talks about.

So this morning I woke up feeling stiff and achy. What could be the cause? I worked extra hard both during the week and on the weekend and I haven’t been taking my body for its daily walks with the regularity it needs. This is the way I used to interpret the sensations in the body. Now I am willing to withdraw my projections and own my decision to pretend I am a victim of my work schedule and time constraints.

I don’t need to project onto this body the fears, guilt, and resentments of life in my story. I can stop asking the ego, which doesn’t know anything, what is going on. I can stop using the body to defend against love and give my willingness to know what I am, and to express that instead. I am not forced by circumstances into any amount of work, or bound by the laws of the world in any way. I am the one who decided on the circumstances and made the laws of the world.

As Jesus says, the ego has no knowledge so the ego has no being. This morning, at least, I am sane enough to stop taking advice from imaginary sources, and to ask Reality how I feel. I do this as I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me how I feel, to decide for me what I think about this, to decide for me what I am to do, to say, where I am to go. I am not surrendering anything of value when I do this, because the ego is nothing and nothing is not valuable. I can let go of any remaining resistance to full surrender because I remember now that this is my true will. I am not giving anything up; I am embracing what I really am.

Jesus, this all seems so clear and even self-evident as I sit here with you. Please help me to remember it as the day goes on and the distractions of life attract my attention. Please help me to remember what I am when the ego mind vies for my attention. When I project onto the body and experience discomfort, remind me that this comes not from the world, but from the confused mind, and help me remember that the body is not me, but only a useful tool. Help me remember that I don’t need or want to defend against my loving Father and I don’t want to use sickness to hide from my holy Self. Thank you.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, VIII. The Body as Means or end, P 6. 10-31-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 6
6 Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same situation, does not bother to analyze it at all. If data are meaningless there is no point in analyzing them. The function of truth is to collect information that is true. Any way you handle error results in nothing. The more complicated the results become the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine all possible outcomes to which premises give rise in order to judge them truly.

I am trying to remember what it feels like to be really sick so that I can bring these ideas into my mind and visualize them first from ego and then from Holy Spirit. It occurs to me that this is just as true when applied to someone else since there is no one else. So I am thinking about my son who has experienced sickness and injury in the last few years.

When he was very sick and we didn’t know why, I was very frightened that I would lose him. I pushed him into seeing one doctor after another, trying to find the cause and so find a solution. My fear drove my thoughts and my actions. My fear kept me from recognizing the nothingness of the sickness.

In the end, I finally desired peace more than I desired anything else and so that is what I received. In the end, the doctors never discovered a cause or a solution, but his body recovered anyway. The Holy Spirit didn’t need to take x rays or MRIs. It didn’t need to do anything with the body because the body was not the cause and so the body could not be the solution.

“The function of truth is to collect information that is true.”

So in the end, the Holy Spirit showed me the truth that sickness is an illusion and is not the Will of God, therefore it cannot exist. It collected the truth for me and showed it to me.

Only the mind can be sick and only the mind can be healed. When my mind was ready to accept healing, my son’s body was healed. This is not really surprising when it is remembered that there is only one of us and that the idea of body is in the one mind. It is not necessary that I accept healing once and for all to experience a miraculous healing of the body, mine or someone else’s. It is only necessary that I have a moment of pure clarity, a whole hearted desire, and in that holy instant, the miracle occurs.

My son also had a back injury that has not healed, even with surgery. He suffers so much and the ego mind has gone all over the place with this. I feel guilty because I have not been able to do anything about this. His pain triggers the belief in pain in my mind and I suffer with him. When I am away from him I get on with life and don’t think about him and his pain and then I feel guilty for that. I have had so much guilt and fear about his suffering that I project it onto him and resent him for this, and make the whole thing his fault which of course only increases the guilt.

As we have been learning in this section, sickness is caused by the belief that the body is for attack and the belief that I am the body. Everything that the ego says about this situation is that I am guilty. Guilt is an attack. I am using the body for the purpose of attack when I choose to believe in guilt. We are also learning that a sick body does not make any sense. Jesus says this:

Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of the body rests are true; that the body is for attack, and that you are a body. Without these premises sickness is inconceivable.

Here is what I have learned so far from this experience with my son.

Guilt is an attack whether it is directed inward or outward.

I am innocent and so is my son.

Sickness (pain, suffering, death) is inconceivable.

If I perceive sickness it is because I have mistaken myself for a body that is for attack.

Healing is of the mind.

When I notice my mind looking for solutions outside itself, and when I notice I believe the guilt thoughts in the mind, and when I notice the desire to project (attack), I realize my mind is sick and I need to be healed. I ask for healing and accept the Atonement to the degree I am able.

I am learning that healing that is requested is given. I am learning to disregard appearances and see with Christ Vision the answer that is before me, not the illusory effects of the mistaken thoughts.

I am learning to forgive myself for not doing this perfectly.

My mind is being healed and the more this happens the more I desire this healing above all else. The world is an accurate projection of the beliefs in my mind, so whatever I see in the world (including a sick son) is healed within my mind because that is where they originated. It is being reinforced in my mind that I need do nothing. I let go of the guilt which drives the fear which provokes the need to attack, and all that is left is peace.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Myron Jones.

Study of the Text, Chapter 8, VII. The Body as Means or End, P 5. 10-30-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 5
5 It is still true that the body has no function of itself, because it is not an end. The ego, however, establishes it as an end because, as such, its true function is obscured. This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to lose sight of the function of everything. A sick body does not make any sense. It could not make sense because sickness is not what the body is for. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of the body rests are true; that the body is for attack, and that you are a body. Without these premises sickness is inconceivable.

Understanding that a sick body makes no sense because sickness is not what the body is for, helps me to loosen the hold the belief in sickness has on me. When my body is sick, I am reminded that this could only appear to be true if I accept the ego’s use for the body. The ego thinks the body is for attack and that I am a body.

To further simplify, I understand that attack occurs only where there is the belief in guilt. If I believe that someone is guilty I have attacked that one. If I attack anyone I have attacked myself, or to put it another way, if I see anyone as guilty, I have attacked myself. None of this could happen unless I thought I was a body. Only bodies attack and if I did not believe any of us were bodies, I would never see guilt.

This paragraph is very important because Jesus is telling us that if we did not use the body to attack and if we did not believe we are bodies, then sickness would be inconceivable. I could throw away my medicine and never see another doctor if I let go of the idea that I would attack my brother or myself. To know myself as spirit and never to confuse myself with the body would insure perfect health for the body.

The next time I feel sick or am in pain, I will remember that I must have used this body for attack, otherwise it would not be possible for it to be sick. The solution must be forgiveness. Actually, I know this. I rarely get sick, and when I do, I know what caused it. So I ask for the Atonement for my mistaken belief that I am a body, and I ask for the Atonement for the belief that attack has any value at all.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VIII. The Body as Means or End, Paragraph 4 10- 29-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 4
4 It is hard to perceive sickness as a false witness, because you do not realize that it is entirely out of keeping with what you want. This witness, then, appears to be innocent and trustworthy because you have not seriously cross-examined him. If you had, you would not consider sickness such a strong witness on behalf of the ego’s views. A more honest statement would be that those who want the ego are predisposed to defend it. Therefore, their choice of witnesses should be suspect from the beginning. The ego does not call upon witnesses who would disagree with its case, nor does the Holy Spirit. I have said that judgment is the function of the Holy Spirit, and one He is perfectly equipped to fulfil. The ego as a judge gives anything but an impartial judgment. When the ego calls on a witness, it has already made the witness an ally.

The ego says that sickness proves I am vulnerable and so of course I could not be the Son of God. But Jesus says that sickness is a false witness. What sickness really witnesses to is that I want to prove I am vulnerable and so could not be God’s Son. I am reminded that I but do this to myself, and so sickness is done by me, to me. I am reminded of Lesson 152, which tells me that no one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants.

I will always find the witnesses I want to find. If I want to support and uphold the ego thought system, I will find witnesses to do so. Sickness is just one of those witnesses. If I want to find witnesses to the strength and power that are mine as an extension of God, then I will find those. In fact, I find that even sickness can be a witness to my power as I see that in sickness I have found a way to make even God’s Son appear weak and helpless. What I see and how I see it are both up to me according to which part of the mind I use as judge, ego or Holy Spirit.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VIII. The Body as Means or End, Paragraph 3 10- 28-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 3
3 It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego’s belief in the body as an end, because it is synonymous with the belief in attack as an end. The ego has a profound investment in sickness. If you are sick, how can you object to the ego’s firm belief that you are not invulnerable? This is an appealing argument from the ego’s point of view, because it obscures the obvious attack that underlies the sickness. If you recognized this and also decided against attack, you could not give this false witness to the ego’s stand.

I have decided that sickness is a defense against God in every case. No matter what kind of sickness I am experiencing, what pain or discomfort, I know that it is the symbol of an attack thought in my mind. I still hear the ego suggest reasons for the sickness. For instance if I have a headache, the ego mind checks the barometric pressure. It thinks about what I have eaten that might have triggered the headache. It suggests that the headache is the result of stress from dealing with a difficult person.

I have learned to ignore this chatter as completely irrelevant. The headache is a projection of an attack thought. That is the cause every time. I have an attack thought and I want it away from me so I project it outward and use it to prove I am blameless because someone or something else is to blame. A pain pill might bring me temporary relief simply because the pain pill is a magical solution I decided on, but no magical solution will heal me.

I am healed as I give up attack thoughts. Attack thoughts are interesting, too. I attack someone at work because he caused me a problem. I might say something to him or I might just attack in my own thoughts but it is the same either way. I see the attack and I recognize that I am never upset for the reason I think. I ask the Holy Spirit for clarity and eventually, I am led to the belief that I am separate from God. That is the real attack thought, the one that sources all other attack thoughts.

Here is how it is working for me. I started out watching my mind for attack thoughts, and as I found one I would use a forgiveness process to undo it and to accept the Atonement in that situation. Slowly, as more and more was undone in my mind, I began to see the end game. I saw that the real problem was the belief I was separate from God and that idea began to unravel. As it did so, and continues to do so, my reality is being revealed to me. I am beginning to remember what I am and attack in any form loses its appeal as it loses its purpose.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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