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Study of the Text, Chapter 8, IX. Healing as Corrected Perception P 4,11-13-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 4
4 How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not given to the Holy Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to His purpose. You can indeed be “drugged” by sleep, if you have misused it on behalf of sickness. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Complete unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in peace only because you are awake.

I am very aware that I can give my sleep the Holy Spirit, and sometimes I do this and sometimes I don’t. It would seem that I often forget to do this little thing and I remember only when I wake up dispirited that I could have rested in peace. Of course, I am well aware that I don’t “accidentally” forget to ask. If I don’t ask it is because I am holding this bit of self in a little corner of my mind, this hospital for pain. Being reminded that Spirit has a different use for my sleep, right now I am asking Him to remind me to do this.

Jesus has brought up the idea of resting in peace twice now. We have this crazy idea that death is peace and that to have peace we must first die. Death brings us nothing, because death is nothing. It is as much of an illusion as the world we see and the bodies we think of as our selves. The only way we will rest in peace is to allow the mind to be healed or as Jesus puts it, to accept the Atonement for ourselves.

Accepting the Atonement is the way out of the dream and the way to awaken. It is the way we are healed from sickness in all its forms; the sick mind, the sick relationship, the sick bank account, the sick body. The Atonement corrects the wrong minded perception and all is healed. Jesus also talks about being conscious and says that we are never completely unconscious.

We deliberately choose to ignore the guilt we feel is too fearful, and we deliberately choose to ignore our true self so that we can have this experience, but we cannot go completely unconscious. We know the guilt we bury and at the same time, we know what we are and so we know there is no guilt. How amazingly clever we are and what powerful creators we are.

We cannot hold the belief in guilt and the knowledge of our Divinity at the same time, so we dissociate from our Self and we bury and project the guilt. In order to return our mind to wholeness we must accept the Atonement (forgive) the guilt and our Divine Self will become immediately apparent to us because it has gone nowhere.

For such a long time I have perceived myself as small and frail, weak and vulnerable. At the best of times I have seen myself as less small and weak. And yet, I am the creation of God and I am created in His image. In my creation He gave me everything that He is. I am a divine being, eternal, powerful, and I am love. How likely is it that I am also a frail, sickly body, guilt ridden and fearful?

I remind myself often that I am the Son of God. When I feel like the ego, I ask for the Atonement for that thought, and my perception is corrected and I am healed. Without the fear, I ask with conviction, “What am I?” Slowly, fear is falling away and I am remembering what I planned all along to remember.

© 2014, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text, Chapter 8: IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 3 11-12-14

IX. Healing as Corrected Perception, P 3
3 Wholeness heals because it is of the mind. All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce sleeping out of fear of waking. This is a pathetic way of trying not to see by rendering the faculties for seeing ineffectual. “Rest in peace” is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is joining. Dreams are illusions of joining, because they reflect the ego’s distorted notions about what joining is. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on behalf of waking if you will let Him.

I still use sickness and pain on occasion to avoid awakening, but I am very aware of what I am doing. If I do get sick or have pain, I never believe I got sick because I caught something, or I am in pain because I hurt myself, or anything like that. I know that I am sick or in pain because I am holding onto an ego belief. I am projecting it onto the body in an attempt to prove I am this body and nothing else, and so prove the illusion is real. Because I know what I am doing and why, I quickly return to sanity and ask that my mind be healed.

Sickness not only serves as proof the body is real, but that it is separate and in need of defense. It seems to prove that there is a whole world of separate and threatening things and people, and I need to be on the alert at all times, ready to fend them off. People spread their germs and make me sick is a common ego strategy to keep us separate and defensive.

This seems very real and unavoidable. The person on the plane seated practically on top of me had a cold and was sniffling and sneezing. If I believe in the ego idea of sickness as an attack from outside me, I would try to turn away from this person and protect myself so I don’t get his cold. Doing this for a couple of hours would probably cause me to become resentful. So in other words, I would believe he was guilty. Now I have reinforced the belief in guilt in my own mind, so I have attacked him and my self.

Here is the way I have learned to understand this situation. I believe in sickness and suffering, in defense and attack, and in separation and guilt, and so I populate my world with separate people who seem to be attacking me.  The projection of my separation thoughts appear as sick people who attack me with their germs. Now I must defend myself against these guilty people. It seems to be happening in the world and I am a victim of the situation and those around me, but it is not like that at all. In truth, I projected the situation, and I did so for a specific purpose, to keep the separation story going.

Understanding that the entire situation came from my mind, I can allow the problem to be healed through accepting the Atonement for the false beliefs that sourced the situation. Instead of trying to correct the effect, I can allow correction of the cause. This is equally true of all the problems in the world. I had all sorts of problems with my flights, and it was very frustrating. I noticed many blaming thoughts in my mind. I really wanted someone else to be guilty of this, but I was also aware that I was the source of the problem.

I could keep the conflict going for as long as I could stand the discomfort, or I could rest in peace during the situation, knowing I created it, but also knowing that I could use it for healing. I projected the situation onto the world through the ego thoughts in my mind, but now that I had done so, the situation was flushing up beliefs that needed to be released. I wrote the situation into my script and now it was up to me what I did with it. Just as I can give my night time sleep to the Holy Spirit to use on my behalf, I can give my day time “sleep” to Him and He will use it to help me awaken from the dream of separation.

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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.

© 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 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.

© 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 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.

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