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Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P2,11-10-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception
2 Wrong perception is the wish that things be as they are not. The reality of everything is totally harmless, because total harmlessness is the condition of its reality. It is also the condition of your awareness of its reality. You do not have to seek reality. It will seek you and find you when you meet its conditions. Its conditions are part of what it is. And this part only is up to you. The rest is of itself. You need do so little because your little part is so powerful that it will bring the whole to you. Accept, then, your little part, and let the whole be yours.

I used to misunderstand that first sentence that says a wrong perception is the desire for things to be as they are not. I thought that meant I should surrender to my story, but now I understand that I can use my story to undo the desire for a story. I also understand that it was my desire for things to be as they are not, that made the story. If the story of Myron is anything but joyful and peaceful, then it is witness to my desire for separation.

Without my desire for separation the world is harmless, and in its harmlessness I abide as the Christ. What a wonderful thing that is! I do have periods of time when I am at perfect peace, when joy is my being. As my mind heals those times are expanding. I would walk this earth as the Awakened Christ, and why shouldn’t I? It is my very nature and will arise in me as soon as I stop repressing it.

My very little and very powerful part is to desire awakening more than I desire the dream, until I finally desire it wholly. I, as Christ, chose the separation experience through the power of my holy Self, the power I inherited from my Father in my creation. Now that I have allowed myself to remember I did this, allowing Reality to return to my mind feels effortless. Until I run into something in my story that feels valuable to me. ~smile~. But even then, I remain the one who chooses and so I choose to let it go as quickly as I am able.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 1. 11-8-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception
1 I said before that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. He is the Answer to everything, because He knows what the answer to everything is. The ego does not know what a real question is, although it asks an endless number. Yet you can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego, and thus establish your ability to evaluate its questions. When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego’s belief that the body is the proper aim of healing. Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong.

I can hardly write this morning, I am so . . . something. I don’t know how to explain it. I feel peaceful, and happy and something else. I just want to sit here and stare at these words and feel gratitude. Then I notice the thought that I wonder if I am being judged by someone I know, and the thought that some other person is not what he pretends to be. I know that this is the mind that desires the ego separate self trying to reestablish dominance in my mind through judgment.

Then I notice thoughts about the past and I recognize this is more of the same. The ego mind perpetuates itself through recreating the past in the present and then projecting it into the future. At first I feel afraid because I remember how easy it is to follow these mental paths and I don’t want to lose what I have this morning. But then I remember that I choose, moment to moment, what I will experience. I let go of the fear and everything rights itself.

The questions were not in words this morning, but if I had expressed them in that way, the question might have been, “How can I sustain the beauty of this perfect moment?” If there were a question at all. The ego doesn’t answer questions, it simply reinforces guilt so as to reinforce itself. When I questioned the ego thoughts, I was asking the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit always answers. It reminded me of what I am and peace was reestablished. All of this without words, but very clear, none the less.

I absolutely understand and fully accept that the body is not the source of illness and so it makes no sense to ask that it be healed. I ask, instead, that my mind be healed of the sick thoughts that have been projected onto the body. Before I left for the workshop, I noticed that I had a cyst, and that I seemed to be getting congested.

I recognized this as resistance. I did not try to figure out what in my environment caused these problems, and what medicines I needed to take. I just asked that my mind be healed of the anxiety I was feeling about the upcoming trip. The symptoms vanished overnight. The thing that used to cause confusion for me is that serious symptoms seemed different to me than the mild symptoms.

I used to let fear of the symptoms cause me to look outward for the cause and for relief. The truth became apparent to me as I continued to work with the idea of suffering, pain and sickness. Over and over I proved to myself that the cause was in my mind, therefore, the solution must also be in my mind. As I have mentioned before, I use magic if I am unable to detach from the fear of the sickness enough to allow healing. I am not guilty for that, it is just where I was at that moment and something to take to Spirit for correction.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VIII. The Body as Means or End, Paragraph 9 11-5-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 9
9 The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so He can teach His message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you. Everything used in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit sees it cannot be sick. Everything used otherwise is. Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your decision to attack. Health is seen as the natural state of everything when interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, Who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life Itself.

Jesus finishes this section by stating very clearly what the body is for, and what happens to the body when we use it lovelessly. The body is for reaching our brothers so that the Holy Spirit can teach his message through us. This message is always some form of love. When I am with my coworkers, for instance, I can use this body to express kindness and understanding. I can use it to be compassionate, to bring humor to the workplace and a general sense of well being. I can overlook their errors and dwell on their kindnesses. In other words, I can use the body to teach only love.

Wherever the Holy Spirit has me take this body, I can surrender to His use. I can use it to convey His message of love when I am with family or with a customer. It is the same if I am shopping at Walmart or checking into the hotel. Always, I am sending a message, either of love or fear, from Spirit or from ego. In the mornings I receive love as I sit here reading the Course and asking for clarity. I give love as I share what I get. The words are helpful to the degree I set aside ego and allow Spirit to speak, but the intent to be a channel for love is the function I am giving the body now, and that is not lost even if my words are not perfect.

When I use the body for that exalted purpose it is perfectly healthy. When used lovelessly it is sick. My goal is to choose love every time. Jesus asks us not to allow the body to mirror a split mind. Right now my body does mirror the split in my mind. I teach love more than I teach fear so the body reflects love in the form of health more than it does sickness. However, I still use the body for attack and so it is not perfectly healthy.

Since I have become aware of the connection and since I have set the intention to use the body for love only, I am very aware of the split and also very aware of the projection of my beliefs onto the body. Here is an example. Yesterday I felt very energetic and peaceful until I had been at work for awhile. We had a meeting and I began to feel anxious about some of the things being said. There was no actual problem, but I started interpreting my brothers through the ego mind, and felt attacked.

It was not something “big” and so I was able to push it away, which is not the same as letting it be healed. So the anxiety slowly built. What I noticed is that I became enervated.  I felt so tired and lethargic and I wondered what was wrong with me. I had plenty of sleep and there was no reason to be tired. That thought stopped me because I know that how the body feels does not come from the body but from the mind. So I started watching my thoughts and I saw that I was using the body for attack and defense and it was wearing me out because it was in conflict with my function of allowing the Holy Spirit to use it for His message of love.

Having noticed this, I saw it happen a couple of other times during the day. I would get nervous about my trip, worrying I might not have enough money or trying to fit more into the day in preparation for being gone for several days, and I would start to feel drained again. Ha! I think I’m on to something, here. After watching and allowing correction during the day, by that evening I felt wonderful. I felt joyful and energetic. I got everything done that I wanted to do. I had some lovely thoughts to remind me of my purpose. My body reflected this change of mind as I allowed love to flow through it.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VIII. The Body as Means or End, Paragraph 8 11-4-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P8
8 You might well ask how the voice of something that does not exist can be so insistent. Have you thought about the distorting power of something you want, even if it is not real? There are many instances of how what you want distorts perception. No one can doubt the ego’s skill in building up false cases. Nor can anyone doubt your willingness to listen until you choose not to accept anything except truth. When you lay the ego aside, it will be gone. The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating your freedom of choice, which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore, never to undermine.

I bet lots of people have had that question. If the ego is not real, why do I hear it so persistently? Why is it so loud? Why does it never seem to go away? The answer is that if I hear the ego it is because I want to hear the ego. When I no longer want the ego, it will be gone. It is so simple. I am God’s Son and what I desire exists for me, even if it is something that is not real.

When I first accepted this must be true, I felt depressed instead of happy. The reason I felt that way is that I felt like I was fighting myself and losing. I couldn’t seem to want to put the ego aside. I would think I wanted to be free, but then I would go on thinking ego thoughts and believing them. It was very discouraging, but I believe what the Course says and so I kept at it.

The reason this is possible and the reason it is simple is that we have the Voice for God in our mind. It is not as loud or insistent as the ego because it is always respectful of our freedom of choice. But it is very persistent, and continues to gently remind us of our true self. I have slowly learned to tune out the ego and listen, more often, to the Holy Spirit.

What started out as a hope then became something more than hope, is now a certainty in my mind. I am God’s Son and I will accept this identity fully, and I am doing it now. Every time I notice the desire to be angry, to blame, to experience guilt or think I am in pain, and I realize this is not true nor is it what I want, I am choosing to lay the ego aside. I ask for the Atonement and I ask Holy Spirit to decide for me, and the ego fades away to reveal something of my Self. As I do this, I begin to remember that God is my desire.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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