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Study of the Text, Chapter 8, VII.The Body as a Means of Communication, P 7. 10-19-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication P 7
7 The Bible says, “The Word (or thought) was made flesh.” Strictly speaking this is impossible, since it seems to involve the translation of one order of reality into another. Different orders of reality merely appear to exist, just as different orders of miracles do. Thought cannot be made into flesh except by belief, since thought is not physical. Yet thought is communication, for which the body can be used. This is the only natural use to which it can be put. To use the body unnaturally is to lose sight of the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and thus to confuse the goal of His curriculum.

Again, in this paragraph I am reminded that I can make form through my belief, but I cannot make it real. My thoughts are powerful and what I believe, is true for me, and so becomes my experience. I am perfectly safe, however, because they do not become reality. Still, my experience can be one of extreme suffering if I misuse the power of thought, and real or not, this is not something I am willing to continue. That is why I am a student of the Course and why I am willing to be led to the truth that has always been in my mind, but which I have hidden from myself with the illusions I made.

I am also, again, being reminded that I have made an illusion of a body and have used that body to prove to myself that I am separate. Because I am ready to awaken from this dream, the Holy Spirit is helping me to use the same body to guide me from the illusion. Instead of using the body to prove I am separate, I am learning to use it to prove I am one with all other Sons of God. I do this as I use the body for communication. As he says, this is the only natural use to which it can be put.

I use the body to maintain the illusion of separation when I judge others as if they really were others. I use it for communication when I look past the behavior and the visual impact of my brothers and sisters and see the light of their being instead. It is a seeing that has nothing to do with the eyes. It has taken me a long time, it seems, to experience this. I began by trying to see with the body’s eyes something different and this didn’t work. Then I would ask to see more or to see differently, but I could only see what I believed. I could only see in others what I saw in myself.

As I continued to accept the Atonement consistently and my mind began to heal, I was treated with moments of clarity in which I saw only love everywhere I looked. Now it is expanding so that it is happening more often. I am also very much more aware of when I am judging or even when I am off my game and feeling isolated. It feels uncomfortable and wrong, and I want to move out of that feeling. I think that one big difference is that, more often than not, I am automatically rejecting the ego judgments that flow through the mind, and what is really there simply shows its self to me. I think this is using the body for communication.

I have known for awhile now that I have a purpose and no matter what kind of process I was passing through, or how confused I became in my ego mind, I remained true to that purpose. So while I have slipped in and out of ego thinking, I have not forgotten for long what I am here to do. Maybe this guiding vision of purpose is what alerts me to the misuse of the body.

When I return, however long or however briefly, to using the body for separation purposes, I have moved away from my purpose and I feel that. It is like being unmoored, drifting and lost, and because I have been exposed to the certainty and safety of the Holy Spirit’s purpose for me, I feel the loss acutely. I return my mind to Him as quickly as I can, and gladly give my body over to His use.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8, VII. The Body as a Means of Communcation, P 6. 10-8-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication P 6
6 Rejoice, then, that of yourself you can do nothing. You are not of yourself. He of Whom you are has willed your power and glory for you, with which you can perfectly accomplish His holy Will for you when you accept it for yourself. He has not withdrawn His gifts from you, but you believe you have withdrawn them from Him. Let no Son of God remain hidden for His Name’s sake, because His Name is yours.

I am intrigued by the last sentence, “Let no son of God remain hidden for His Name’s sake, because His Name is yours.” How do I remain hidden? I hide my true nature beneath a thin veneer of ego. I see myself as weak and vulnerable. I pretend to be sad and fearful and filled with guilt. I refuse to look at the power and glory that remain in me because God put it there. Now the Son of God is hidden and all I see is my little made up self.

This smallness is not God’s Will for me. He wants me to know my Self and to live from that Self. He wants me to be joyful and peaceful. My Father wants me to return to full, unbroken communication with Him. If the ego was truly a creation and I was actually alone as this self, I could not do this. I would be stuck in the maddening cycle of wrong-minded thinking. But I am not alone.

I am joined with my brothers, with Jesus, with my God. I have His Voice as a permanent part of me, guiding, healing and comforting me. Through His Voice, God speaks to me all through the day, gently reminding me of my Home and my true nature. I am one with All That Is, and there is nothing I can do about that. In this Onenes, I am holy, I am powerful, I am glorious! I can blind myself to this truth, but I cannot change it, and through the power and glory that was given me I can come out of hiding as soon as that is my desire for myself and all my brothers.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 5 10-7-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication P 5
5 Yet all loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of any kind is impossible. But when you look upon a brother as a physical entity, his power and glory are “lost” to you and so are yours. You have attacked him, but you must have attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your own salvation, which must bring him his. Do not allow him to belittle himself in your mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and thus escape from yours. As part of you, he is holy. As part of me, you are. To communicate with part of God Himself is to reach beyond the Kingdom to its Creator, through His Voice which He has established as part of you.

Jesus is telling me a lot in this short paragraph.

Loss is impossible.
I can believe I am lost when I think of my brother as a physical entity.
We are holy.
We are part of each other and part of Jesus.
We communicate with God Himself through His Voice which is part of us.

Someone I know was behaving badly. I saw the behavior but I didn’t believe it. I know this is not who he is, but is just a reaction to the fear thoughts in his mind. I didn’t correct him or berate him. I didn’t judge him, even in my thoughts. I didn’t attack him because I wasn’t, in that moment, attacking myself. I felt close to God and so close to the truth of my own power and glory.

My steadfast belief in myself made it possible for me to hold that same certainty for my friend, and helped him return to peace. Whether he is aware of it or not, he experienced a shift that will help him the next time his fear thoughts are triggered. My decision to see the truth instead of the confusion that his fear thoughts were causing strengthened my own faith. Now it will be easier to make that same decision the next time I am faced with a choice about how to see my brother.

My eyes show me a physical entity with all the frailties that go with the belief that using a body is the same thing as being a body. I can choose to believe what I see, or I can choose to believe what I know. Each time I choose to use my spiritual vision I come closer to full remembrance of my true nature. Remembering that to do less is an attack on both myself, and my brother, motivates me to be vigilant in my choices.

When I first started the study of A Course in Miracles I was not comfortable with the idea of communicating with God. I was too afraid, too full of self-loathing. I liked the idea of communicating with the Holy Spirit. This seemed safer. But now, with more mind healing and less fear I am ready to accept that the Holy Spirit is the Voice for God, that when I speak to the Holy Spirit I am speaking to God, and that when the Holy Spirit speaks to me, God is speaking to me.

I am not alone in returning my mind to the Kingdom. I am fully joined with all my brothers, including Jesus. I am also joined with God, through the Holy Spirit which He placed in my mind for that purpose. How could I experience loss of any kind except that I choose to willfully turn from my own power and glory? Alone I can do nothing, but then I am never alone, and in my true Self, which includes my brothers and my Father, I can do all things.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 4 10-6-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication P 4
4 Communication ends separation. Attack promotes it. The body is beautiful or ugly, peaceful or savage, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which it is put. And in the body of another you will see the use to which you have put yours. If the body becomes a means you give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of union of the Sonship, you will not see anything physical except as what it is. Use it for truth and you will see it truly. Misuse it and you will misunderstand it, because you have already done so by misusing it. Interpret anything apart from the Holy Spirit and you will mistrust it. This will lead you to hatred and attack and loss of peace.

My body will be whatever it is I decide according to the use to which I put it. It will reflect that use which will always be attack or loss in one form or another. How I see another body will depend on my interpretation and that depends on what use I have given mine. So what I see in myself or in another is completely dependent on what I think, and what I believe.

I’m thinking about how I used my body this weekend. I used it to communicate as I willingly and gladly stepped back and allowed Spirit to speak through me with no desire to direct the words or give them meaning apart from His. I used my body to communicate as I did my grandson’s chore for him as an expression of love; a quiet gift, a little surprise, an expression of appreciation.

I misused my body while shopping as I wrapped myself in my own little world and spared not a smile or acknowledgment to those around me. I misused my body as I used it to attract admiration of its decorations, and equally when I used it to repel joining, and thus attacking our oneness. I misused it when I used it to teach myself that my discomfort was caused by my body. How ridiculous that was, as if the body is creative and could cause anything.

So it was a mixed bag for me, and that reflects my decision for God. My decision is not absolute, but as I think about it, my decision is stronger than it used to be and I know I will continue to choose for God over and over until that is the decision I make every time. I feel a sense of anticipation as I look forward to another day of opportunity to use my body as the communication device it is.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, Paragraph 3 10-3-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication P 3
3 If you use the body for attack, it is harmful to you. If you use it only to reach the minds of those who believe they are bodies, and teach them through the body that this is not so, you will understand the power of the mind that is in you. If you use the body for this and only for this, you cannot use it for attack. In the service of uniting it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion is. This is God’s way of making unlimited what you have limited. The Holy Spirit does not see the body as you do, because He knows the only reality of anything is the service it renders God on behalf of the function He gives it.

How do I teach others that they are not bodies? By not attacking them. Only bodies can attack or be attacked, so by not attacking and by not defending against attack, I teach myself and others that we are not bodies. And of course, the opposite is true as well. In defense and attack I teach that we are bodies and separate and limited.

As a sales person I used to think of my customers as a means to earn a living and other sales people as competitors, enemies who were a threat to that goal. This is how the ego uses the body. It promotes separation and thinks of its needs as different from, and more important than, the needs of others. It can be very single minded in getting its own needs met.

As I began to experience more mind healing, I began to see my customers and even my competitors in a different way. Instead of seeing bodies that could be used to meet my perceived needs, I began to see brothers and sisters. I began to see opportunities to practice kindness and to extend love. I began to ask the Holy Spirit how He would have me serve God in these relationships.

Now, with this practice, I recognize when I am misusing the body by putting it into service to the ego, and I ask for correction. Usually, my vision shifts pretty quickly, but even if fear blocks that shift temporarily, I know the goal and I persist. I want to use the body as a communication device rather than a separation device. I want to teach myself and everyone else that we are one in spirit regardless of the appearance of separation.

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Study of the Text, Chapter 8,VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P 2. 10-2-14

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication P 2
2 Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body only as a means of communication. Being the communication link between God and His separated Sons, the Holy Spirit interprets everything you have made in the light of what He is. The ego separates through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches through it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does, because you do not regard bodies solely as a means of joining minds and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has none.

The body has no value of itself. You wouldn’t guess this by the way the body is glorified in this world. The more beautiful and the more perfect the body, the more esteem it is given. People even tend to judge the person according to the body it is using, as if a sick or imperfect body were an indication of the state of the soul that is abiding as that body.

You would think that the body is a god, we spend so much time protecting it, glamorizing it, decorating it, and worshipping it. And yet, Jesus says it has no value of itself. Of itself it was made by the ego mind to stand for separation, as proof we are not connected to each other or to God, and as proof that we are unlike God. But everything made by the ego mind to prove separation, can be used by the Holy Spirit to undo separation.

I was checking into my hotel last night and there was a new clerk who was slowly and uncertainly doing her job of checking me in. As I noticed my eyes rolling and my fingers tapping in impatience, I remembered that this is the use the ego has for bodies. In my frustration I was assigning needs to this body that were not being met in a timely manner. She had given different goals to her body and that was her focus. I didn’t see our sameness in that moment, rather, I saw her as an obstruction to what I needed. That took me up short.

I saw this holy, Divine Being, disguised as the body of hotel clerk, as merely an obstruction to the perceived needs of this body. Let us all bow down before the body which takes precedence over kindness and whose needs are more important than love. Let us use this body to prove, once and for all, that there is no oneness, only many separate needy bodies scrambling to get their desires met before it is too late and someone beats them to it. What a sad and depressing little story of deprivation this is.

As I saw that moment for what it was, I changed my mind. I didn’t want my room in a timely manner. I didn’t want to be treated with respect. I didn’t want to put this body on a pedestal for all to worship. I just wanted to know this woman as my sister and self, and so that is what I asked for. No, I didn’t freak out the clerk, it was the Holy Spirit I spoke to. I asked Him to heal my mind so that I could allow the body to be used for a different purpose.

“I give this body to You today, Spirit. Please use these feet to bring this body where you need it to be. Work through it to bring us together. Please speak through this mouth words that bring understanding, use these hands to bring comfort and ease. Spirit, this body was made to symbolize and sustain separation; convert it to Your use so that it might become a symbol of oneness instead.”

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