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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.

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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.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VIII. The Body as Means or End, Paragraph 2 10- 27-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End, P 2
2 The body exists in a world that seems to contain two voices fighting for its possession. In this perceived constellation the body is seen as capable of shifting its allegiance from one to the other, making the concepts of both health and sickness meaningful. The ego makes a fundamental confusion between means and end as it always does. Regarding the body as an end, the ego has no real use for it because it is not an end. You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When you have achieved it, it has not satisfied you. That is why the ego is forced to shift ceaselessly from one goal to another, so that you will continue to hope it can yet offer you something.

I have had many goals in my life, and I have achieved many of those goals. I have enjoyed the moment of achievement, but then it is over and I have never once felt completely satisfied. I simply look for the next goal. For awhile this just seemed normal, the way it was supposed to be, and I liked the challenge. Then it just got old, tiresome, and what little satisfaction there was, waned. I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me, but this is just the way it is if the goal is set by the ego mind.

My life is different now because more and more, I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me the goal He would have me pursue. No matter the form of the goal He gives me, the ultimate objective is the return to the Kingdom. I have been given the goal of becoming aware of my thoughts, of learning to discern the ego thoughts from the true thoughts, and of learning that I don’t value the ego thoughts, and am willing and can let them go. Each of those goals was for the purpose of returning my mind to the Kingdom.

He has given me the goal of seeing my brother as innocent in spite of appearances, of forgiving my projections onto my brother. As I came closer to withdrawing my projections onto others, I began to see the error as being mine and feeling guilty for it. So then my goal became one of forgiving my errors and seeing the innocence within my own mind.  But all of those goals were for the purpose of joining with my brothers in our innocence and so returning to the Kingdom.

I used to think that winning and being right was the ultimate goal and the ultimate high, but that was a disappointment, too, and often the cost of the “win” was far more than the value I had assigned it. Instead the Holy Spirit gave me a different goal. He asked me to see that the only way I could win was to surrender the idea of winning and making my brother wrong.

I discovered that there was no loss in not winning over a brother and that the joy of winning with a brother was truly satisfying. It was strange realization at first, but now I can’t see how I ever believed otherwise and it is just another step toward the ultimate goal of returning to the Kingdom.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that there is no value at all in defending myself, and in fact, it is in my defenselessness my safety lies. The ego had given me many goals aimed at defending myself. I defended myself against disease, old age, bad people, financial loss, and an endless number of dangers. The Holy Spirit gave me goals that led me to understand I was only defending a body and that body was not real and had little to do with me.

And this led to the goal He has assigned me now. I am letting go of the idea of the body as anything other than a temporary illusion, useful only until the goal has been met. I am learning to put aside the very limited vision of myself as a separated self. I am doing this a step at a time, but each step takes me to the one goal that He has given me. I am learning to accept my Self, to see my true nature, and it is a brilliant and beautiful thing to behold.

I had to stop writing for a moment as the ego mind rebelled. This vision is very scary to it, and it wants to stuff me back into the body and make me small again. I hear it. I even believe it a little. But I have glimpsed behind the veil and I have seen too much to go back. Here is what happens in the ego part of the mind when I get close.

It reminds me that I have to keep living in this body for awhile and I better get my mind on planning for that. I have money to save, a house to pay off, a car note, a job that is not guaranteed and if I lose it all the other goals are going down the drain. Then what would happen? And the body itself is getting old and I need to exercise it and buy it some more vitamins and vaccinate it against disease. There is so much to do and all of it is a defense against inevitable loss.

If it can’t keep my attention with these scare tactics, it brings out the big guns and suggests that the truth is not true. I am a fool for believing this nonsense about being the Son of God, and I am going to receive the ultimate punishment for this. If I am going to insist on staying with it, the ego mind swears that I cannot succeed, or at least that I cannot succeed this lifetime. Maybe later. It makes me want to cry.

Then I remember that this is just a little voice of separation and while it was made by me and served my purpose for awhile, it is not the Voice of Truth. I can listen to the winy little complainer or I can ignore it. I find it easiest to ignore it if I focus my attention on the truth. I read the beautiful passages from the Course and I quiet my mind and let the Holy Spirit whisper the truth into my heart.

I am not the character in this dream but the dreamer, the constructor of the dream. I am an eternal and Divine being. I am the Son of God and He loves me and believes in me. I remain as God created me, and nothing can change that. I have one goal and that is to return my mind fully and completely to the Kingdom.

© 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 1 10- 24-14

VIII. The Body as Means or End
1 Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward attack. The ego’s definitions of anything are childish, and are always based on what it believes the thing is for. This is because it is incapable of true generalizations, and equates what it sees with the function it ascribes to it. It does not equate it with what it is. To the ego the body is to attack with. Equating you with the body, it teaches that you are to attack with. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. The body’s condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function. Functions are part of being since they arise from it, but the relationship is not reciprocal. The whole does define the part, but the part does not define the whole. Yet to know in part is to know entirely because of the fundamental difference between knowledge and perception. In perception the whole is built up of parts that can separate and reassemble in different constellations. But knowledge never changes, so its constellation is permanent. The idea of part-whole relationships has meaning only at the level of perception, where change is possible. Otherwise, there is no difference between the part and whole.

Jesus has been talking to us about the body as a communication device. He has pointed out that we fail to use it to communicate when we use it to attack. Now he is helping us to understand how this works. The ego judges everything according to what it believes a thing is for. It sees the body as a way to attack, a tool for attack. If I believe I am the ego then I will think the body is for attacking. If I listen to the ego voice I will use the body to attack.

I started thinking about this and opened my mind to the ways I use the body to attack. I see that sickness is an attack. The body becomes the way I prove I am not invulnerable because it is so defenseless against sickness. I further use it to attack as I try to defend it by separating myself from my sick brothers so they don’t give me their sickness. I use it to further attack as I look to the ego for solutions to sickness rather than to God for the only Solution.

I use the body to attack when I move it away from someone who has offended me. If I gossip about someone, or say something unkind, I am using it for attack. If I use the body to attract or repel someone for purposes other than love, it is an attack. If I use the body to prove I could not be holy, it is an attack.  Any use to which I put it that promotes the idea of separation is an attack.

Sometimes I try to hide the attack under nice words, but if I examine my feelings and notice that I am annoyed, or frustrated, angry or fearful, if there is any thought of guilt, then I have used the body for attack. But there is a solution. I can remember what Jesus said about this.

Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. There is no attack, but there is unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness.

There is no attack. Attack is something we made up, like pain and guilt and death. It is not real. I can be free when I stop believing in these illusions, and my freedom lies only in not believing them. So as I use the body for attack, I also remind myself of the truth. The problem I am attacking is an illusion and the ego solution to the problem as attack is also an illusion. I choose not to believe in illusions and I ask that the Holy Spirit purify my thoughts and remove all those thoughts that illusion could be true.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 16 10- 23-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P 16
16 Do not allow yourself to suffer from imagined results of what is not true. Free your mind from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility lies your only hope for release. But what other hope would you want? Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. There is no attack, but there is unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power of wholeness is extension. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to creation in God.

There are two sentences that feel really meaningful to me this morning. One is that freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. I love this for its simplicity. Yes, it can feel difficult not to believe in what seems so real, but then that is the purpose of the illusion, to feel real. So when I experience the effects of believing in the illusion, I ask the Holy Spirit to remove those thoughts from my mind, the thoughts I believe that could not be real.

I felt harassed yesterday. There seemed to be too much work for one day and I felt overwhelmed. I noticed that I was projecting. These are illusions. They affected me because I believed them. I could easily have questioned them, but I didn’t. Normally, when I feel like I have too much to do, I ask that Holy Spirit decide for me what to do and what to let go. I remind myself that it is just a thought in my mind that I have more to do than I can do. For some reason, yesterday I didn’t question my thoughts and so I suffered until I changed my mind about that.

The second sentence that stands out to me says, do not arrest your thought in this world. When I accepted the idea that I was harassed and overwhelmed and did not question that thought, I arrested my thought in this world. When I finally realized what I was doing, and I asked for correction, the barriers that seemed to hold me hostage to my suffering fell away. I was in immediate peace and I was given ideas that corrected some of the errors I made while confused.

What I have discovered is that I can always choose to not believe the illusion. Sometimes it feels hard and I have to talk myself into letting go. Sometimes I have to ask for help over and over, not because I have to talk the Holy Spirit into helping me, but because I have to talk myself into accepting the help.  But this is something that I can do.

I can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, free my mind from the belief in illusions and the process is very simple. I notice I am not happy and I ask that my mind be healed, then I allow the aberrant thought to be removed from my mind. I remind myself that I am not this body or this story. I am spirit. I am the Thought of God, created by Him, like Him. This silly moment cannot be reality. Then I allow my mind to fly free of this world.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 15 10- 22-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P 15
15 Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is only God’s. When yours is unified it is His. Believe you can interfere with His purpose, and you need salvation. You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore it is not true. No more are any of its seeming results. When you see a brother as a body, you are condemning him because you have condemned yourself. Yet if all condemnation is unreal, and it must be unreal since it is a form of attack, then it can have no results.

God’s purpose is joy and when I interfere with that purpose, I have condemned myself. The good news is that this is not possible. While I believe it is, I will suffer, but since only God’s purpose has reality and what is His is mine, I can be saved from my suffering. Its very unreality is my salvation. To know that I am saved only requires my desire to know this.

It is God’s Will that I be saved from my mistaken beliefs and so everything I need to have this is provided for me. When I was ready for it, I was led to A Course in Miracles. When I needed a new teacher one would appear. When I needed to hear the truth in a different way, it was given to me in the form of a different course. When I was ready for a more direct experience, I was shown how I was to listen to the Voice within.

Recently, I have had a different experience. I am approaching the one mind, and the part of my mind that resists this is insistent that I not make this approach. The resistance took the form of doubt that led to depression. I have a very clear understanding that depression is not part of my life now even though it used to be very much a part of my identity as I saw it. So this was confusing and upsetting to me.

I wasn’t deeply depressed as I used to be, and for most of the day it was not there. But it kept occurring and my doubts turned into fear. The biggest difference was that I did not fall headlong into it, but remained in touch with my healed mind, constantly asking for help. I was led to the simple passage from the Course where Jesus says that I only need to ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me and it will be done. So I started that practice.

It quickly deepened until I was asking that He decide for me even what I was thinking and how I felt, and I realized that in so doing I was letting go of the ego mind altogether, and allowing my Self to rise in its place. At the same time, the dying ego was filling my mind with doubts and fear and this kept the depression in place. Finally, a couple of days ago I told Jesus I needed help, that I could not overcome this alone and I didn’t know what to do about it.

In typical miraculous fashion, the answer came that very day in a form I was certain to notice. Nouk Sanchez posted a message on my Facebook page. The message said, “Myron ...just got a nudge to share this with you.” This is the link she gave me: http://undoing-the-ego.org/noukblog/?p=1143. And from this there developed a conversation with Nouk that she put on her website: http://undoing-the-ego.org/noukblog/?p=1156.

Everything has changed in those two short days. I felt the doubts and fears come to me and I realized how unreal they were. I easily let that go and I turned my attention to the truth. Even though it has only been a couple of days it all feels so different now. It is also very important to me that I said to Jesus that I needed help, and he nudged Nouk to share with me what she had written. I see Nouk’s writings all the time and sometimes I read them, but often I don’t take the time. Because she said this was a nudge (and mostly because I felt Jesus nudging me to read) I stopped what I was doing and read it. We are not alone. We are guided. We are helped. Whatever we need is provided.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 13 10- 20-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P13
13 The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes depression instead of joy, you cannot be listening to God’s joyous Teacher and learning His lessons. To see a body as anything except a means of communication is to limit your mind and to hurt yourself. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, it becomes whole because the mind’s purpose is one. Attack can only be an assumed purpose of the body, because apart from the mind the body has no purpose at all.

I know the signs that I am using the body for separation instead of for communication. I see that this is so when I feel depressed, or when I feel angry. I know I am doing this when I feel confused and when I notice that I feel guilty or am making someone else guilty in my mind. I know it is happening when I judge, even if I don’t express the judgment aloud.

So what do I do when I notice I feel depressed? What do I do when I see that I am limiting what the Holy Spirit can heal because I am holding onto my grievances and my wrong minded thinking? Here is something I wrote earlier in this study of the Text.

“Here is what happens each time I bring a grievance to the Holy Spirit. I sit with Him and tell Him all about it. I show Him why I believe the problem is real and has serious consequences. I let Him see my rage. Or I let Him see how frightened I am or how hurt. Then I ask Him to heal my mind and He says, “It’s OK, Honey. It’s just a bad dream. You are sleeping and in your sleep you dreamed this happened. It’s time to wake up now.”

So this is what I do. I become transparent to the Holy Spirit. I express fully what I am feeling and thinking. I show him my rage, my fear and my guilt. I ask Him to help me, to remove from my mind the beliefs that are causing me to hang onto the dream. I ask Him to help me wake up. And I ask Him to decide for me, even asking him to decide what I should think about a certain thing. I ask Him to decide for me how I should feel about it. I am choosing to surrender completely, the ego, and allow my Self to rise up and take its place in my mind.

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