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Study of Manual for Teachers 3-11-12

Day 71
5 The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body’s condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. To do that would be to give the body another purpose from the one that keeps it holy. God’s Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as It tells him what his function is. He does not suffer either in going or remaining. Sickness is now impossible to him.

This is very simple. If I use my body for attack it will become sick and die. It is strange how often I choose attack, especially now that I am fully aware of the consequences. I was trying to think of the last time I attacked someone when I realized that my thoughts count. Uh oh. Seriously, since attack leads to suffering and death, I am amazed that my body has held up for this long. I have this casual litany of attack going through my mind nearly continually.

Every time I make someone separate in my mind, I have attacked him. I see someone walk by and my mind judges their body, their fashion sense, their posture… whatever catches my eye. I have seen this person as separate and this is an attack. It is an attack on them, and an attack on myself.

If I am alone, my mind dredges up old grievances to replay. This is an attack. I often think that I would be happier if circumstances were different. This is an attack. I compare myself unfavorably to someone else. This is an attack. I behave in self-destructive ways, and this is an attack.

I could get depressed thinking of how many ways I attack and the unlikelihood of me changing all of them. But the Holy Spirit has told me many times that it is not necessary to be concerned about the many different forms. All those forms of attack are the result in a mistaken belief. It is only the belief that I will have to change.

And the belief is beginning to change. When I notice I am judging someone it feels bad. I don’t want that thought in my mind. I often realize that I don’t believe that thought. Other changes indicate to me that my vigilance and my willingness have made a difference. For instance, I was with someone that I have judged in the past and that I have felt separate from, and when by chance our eyes met, I felt gladness and gratitude swell up in my heart. Nothing said or done created this feeling; it was grace alone and had nothing to do with the ego.

Without attack the body would be perfectly healthy and would not suffer or die, but would simply be laid aside when no longer needed. This is an amazing statement. The Course has said that death is a decision I make and I see that this is true. As I choose attack as a way of life, I am choosing a slow death. When I choose oneness instead of attack, the body cannot die or suffer. Both are decisions I make.

I has been slowly coming, but I now realize that everything that happens to the body is the result of a choice I have made, a belief that I hold. All sickness, pain, suffering are the result of believing in separation, and separation is an attack on myself. I know that I have moved from an intellectual understanding of this idea to a deeper knowing, because when I feel suffering in the body I don’t look for an outside cause, but go immediately to the mind as cause.

And if, out of habit I think for awhile that a germ or a virus or an accident got me, I quickly remember the absurdity of this idea; as if the germ, the virus or the accident could come into play without my decision that they do so. These seeming agents of suffering and death are merely attack taking form within my dream of separation. When separation is no longer desired, what use will I have for agents of death?

The other statement that is important to me is that while setting the body aside is a decision I make, it is not one that I make alone, because the idea of alone is an attack, as it is a return to the idea of separation. It is with the Holy Spirit that this decision is made. Of course it is! I am learning to ask the Holy Spirit for His guidance in all things as let go of the false identity of ego. When my lessons are done, and there is no longer any use for the body, the Holy Spirit will guide me to that decision as well. Nothing could be more perfect.

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