Have you ever noticed that the physical form or shape of objects, is touted as making something "unique", but really they're all the same thing?
In the company I work for I have to add thousands of products to a website, and so I see all these variations on a theme.
Then I find myself asking myself, why would anyone want to have 3000 different types of this item? One with a little but of a more rounded look, one with more fancy bits, one in a different color, one with shiny metal on it. And companies are churning out these products by the thousands as if they are all important and worth having. We have become quite obsessed with possession of such crap.
After a while I become completely disillusioned, which is a good thing.
The human race has become really good at manipulating forms, designing objects, and creating appearances of differences. The explosion of "creating" (making stuff) is on a roll.
Since the industrial revolution especially we've really gone wild exploring every conceivable "version" of the same thing, every way to take advantage of material properties and differences, and all the different forms we can come up with.
Amazon now sells almost half a billion products, and most of them are just variations on a theme. There are now 60,000 t-shirts for sale. Do you really think the differences between these t-shirt is SO VAST that they are all completely unique? How many ways are there to cover up the upper torso?
This is something of a madness which humanity has pursued and doesn't really know how to stop pursuing. This notion that if the form is different, it is a unique thing. some forms or shapes are more desirable, and finding the "best ones" is some kind of salvation. This is mental illness.
Unique tools are needed to solve unique problems. The ego loves this. It loves to create new appearances of unique situations which call for a custom solution which is nothing like any other solution, does not extend to solve any other problem, and keeps the solution isolated and limited to this one need.
This belief that all forms are unique and different and worth existing, is the ego's insanity. Exactly why do we need 60,000 t-shirts, or 100,000 different kinds of trousers, or a million songs?
You might say well, this is human nature, to create and express and explore. No, it's not. It's UNNATURAL.
Personally I have grown significantly disillusioned with physical objects. To want to have certain special objects or toys or whatever, to try to receive their specialness or to think that I am somehow better off by choosing exactly the right items.
I used to buy into the illusion of differences of form much more and wanted to have this item or that item or be very careful about choosing. Now I care much less. Much more laid back in terms of how I think these things are going to save me or how I need to have the best this or that.
Sure it can be fun to shop, no harm done. But perceptually and psychologically, "civilized humanity" has become lost in its obsession with forms - particularly the illusion of form, its appearances and its special isolated different properties. This is a huge world filled with junk.
It's funny when Jesus talks about this and how we think that we're doing important things, earning little bits of paper and metal discs, spending them on ridiculous things we don't need or really want, to decorate and adorn our fake bodies and our fake homes, all as substitutes and distractions away from God. lol
"This world holds nothing that I want".
"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.
It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.
These are not laws, but madness. "
JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE AWAKE, DOES NOT MEAN OTHER PEOPLE WANT TO SHARE IT WITH YOU
JUST BECAUSE YOU PERCEIVE CORRECTLY, DOES NOT MEAN OTHER PEOPLE STOP PERCEIVING INCORRECTLY
Moving into the LIGHT, does not necessarily bring others with you, until they are WILLING to join you.
God is 100% awake right now. There is no sickness or death or suffering in God. It is "true" that these things do not exist, that separation is impossible, and no-one can die.
HOWEVER
It SEEMS. ... in an illusory way.... that we can SEEM to separate from God, to go off into a nightmare, have a bad dream, IMAGINE it is really happening, confuse it with reality temporarily, and SEEM to suffer and die.
Any such suffering, sickness or dying, is not real, and every single person who has sickness or suffering is not REALLY suffering. They are just having a bad dream.
But let's look at this with some compassion. Those "people", even if those people are not really individuals, no matter who or what they are, even if they are split of bits of the Son's mind, there is still some kind of ILLUSORY EXPERIENCE of terrible things happening.
A nightmare. A bad dream. Stuff that seems horrible, but in truth, is not happening. Yet still SEEMS to be happening to those "to whom" it seems to be happening.
And while these people are having these FALSE EXPERIENCES, God is already 100% awake, 100% healed and whole, 100% knowing that sickness and death are not possible.
WHY DOES GOD NOT UNDO THOSE NIGHTMARES IMMEDIATELY?
WHY DOESN'T GOD's INFINITE POWER AND IMMORTALITY stop people from killing themselves in the dream?
WHY DOESN'T THE FACT THAT GOD's MIND IS TOTALLY AWAKE, "cause" all "people" to NOT BE ABLE To create dreams of suffering?
Putting aside the illusion of linear time for a moment, God does not do that ONLY because those people having the nightmares keep REFUSING TO RECEIVE THE HELP. They use ILLUSIONS of denial, to pretend that they do not want the help, and that they need to suffer.
Even though God is offering 100% eternal life right now, immortal spirit is attempting to PRETEND to be stuck in a mortal body, confused with what can be sick and suffer and die.
And while we're in this illusion, having this nightmare, I think most people would AGREE that these "nightmares" can seem pretty dam real TO the person who is having them. Like if someone was mentally ill, having a terrible distorted vision of a horrible monster trying to eat them, freaking out and running around screaming because they THINK they're being attacked, even if they are NOT.... what is the loving response?
The loving response is TO LOVE.... always... the same.... unconditional love OFFERED at all times, but not being FORCED onto the person. Why not? Why doesn't God just wake us up out of the nightmare right now "against our will". Because we have FREE WILL, or at least love does not do that because it sees no NEED to do that, because it knows nothing real is happening.
Since God is 100% aware right now, and we, here, in this forum, for the most part, ARE NOT 100% AWARE RIGHT NOW, what that means is..... even though it's ultimately not true that we are unaware, it SEEMS like we are. We are having a false nightmare, a dream, a fantasy experience. Which SEEMS real to us.
And some of us here are experiencing what we think is real suffering. Maybe someone had a stroke, or has terrible pains, or anxiety about food, or had a heart attack, or their kidneys aren't working, or they have some "rare disease". Or maybe someone close to them is sick and it keeps them up at night worrying.
These are all false experiences, unreal nightmares, BUT the person having them DOES NOT KNOW THAT at this point. The illusion is so convincing, that we seem to have this twisted sense of "reality"... where we perceive and think these things are "really happening". And that produces ALL of the suffering, fear, and torment in this fictional world.
And none of it is real. And no-one is really sick. And there is no suffering. BUT.. .. that's not what people are SEEMING to experience.
What would love do about this? How would love respond to someone with mental illness, who hallucinates problems, who psychosomatically puts sickness into their body and writhes in torment over the pain they feel? What would love's response be?
TO LOVE THEM. TO OFFER A MIRACLE OF HEALING.
They might not accept the healing. Just as we seem to sleep "against God's will"... something which is really IMPOSSIBLE, yet which we are PRETENDING is possible....the person might refuse to JOIN YOU in being 100% awake. They might keep pretending that denial is real and possible and can block love. They might still manifesting artificial make-believe terrible sickness. They might PERCEIVE differently than you perceive.
Just because you go into true perception, or even go beyond perception to TOTAL AWARENESS of everything real, does NOT MEAN that other people automatically go there as well.
This is why Jesus was able to walk around the earth in a MORE HEALED state than other people, and OFFER THEM healing. He was still able to PERCEIVE that these "people" - whatever they are - parts of his mind or whatever - these people were having nightmares. Some split-off part of mind was still twisting "reality" and SEEMING to experience a terrible state of suffering. And to that piece of mind, that person, that suffering seemed VERY REAL and horrible.
Even though love knows that suffering is NOT REALLY THERE and has no real consequence and minds cannot be sick etc.... that none of this even happened.... IT IS STILL LOVING to offer miracles of healing to those "parts" which seem to be in need. This is part of the atonement process. The plan of salvation. That we are BRING LOVE to ALL PARTS OF MIND.
As Jesus says, he offers us salvation and love right now, but if we are not ready to receive it, HE WILL WAIT.
In time, people CAN REFUSE LOVE. Or at least seem to. They can produce forms of sickness in the body EVEN THOUGH God does not contain any real sickness. They can make illusions of being sick, and have horrible nightmares about those sicknesses being real. It is LOVING to alleviate that suffering IF THEY ARE WILLING to RECEIVE IT, through your offering of a miracle.
Just because there is total awareness or total perception, and even if that shows you there is NO DEATH and sickness is an IMPOSSIBLE ILLUSION, in time.. there is STILL a "need" for healing. That's why the Holy Spirit is here. His function here is healing, and we are supposed to share that with him, to OFFER HEALING to everyone who still seems to suffer from self-made nightmares. It is the loving thing to do, to offer a miracle, EVEN IF it is refused, and in spite of the fact that people can CHOOSE NOT TO PERCEIVE AS YOU DO.
Additionally, just because your perception is true and whole and healed, it does not STOP you from seeing what these "other people" or "split off bits of mind" - from the one whole son - are doing to themselves. It's possible to have COMPASSION for them, to recognize they are MISTAKEN and to not believe their sickness is REAL... yet to STILL OFFER HEALING of *THEIR BELIEF* that sickness is justified. And if they continue to spend time refusing to learn the curriculum, which is their free will right, they may well refuse to undo that illusion of sickness and will STILL EXPERIENCE SUFFERING, even if God can never suffer.
So yes, there IS no real sickness. Yes, there ARE no separate people. Yes, there are not even any bodies TO heal. Yes, no-one really needs real healing because healing is an illusion. BUT WHILE WE ARE HERE.... inside this dream illusion, where people DO choose to make illusions of attack and sickness, IT IS our role to offer and bring healing through love, to perform miracles, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and to HELP "those" who seem to suffer. And they will thank you, because what they were experiencing before, even if it was an illusion, was WORSE to them than what they are experiencing now. How is that not KIND?
This is our function here. To offer love and truth to those who THINK they are really sick and suffering. To undo that suffering if they will ALLOW. To recognize they cannot be sick or suffer or die FOR THEM while they refuse to see it FOR THEMSELVES. Just because you wake up, does NOT mean "their sickness" disappears from THEIR EXPERIENCE. Otherwise, because God is awake NOW, it would be impossible for anyone to experience sickness. And truly they can't because sickness MUST therefore be AN ILLUSION, but people are still TEMPORARILY INSANE believing otherwise.
No-one needs saving, yet they do. In this dream, they do. There is healing to be performed. There are miracles to work. There are people who, if you walked up to them and asked, "would you like me to take away this cancerous growth", would say, "sure"... and you extend God's love in prayer and IT DISAPPEARS, and they are totally over the moon because they were suffering for years and thought they are going to have the NIGHTMARE of dying.
It's all mental illness, but love STILL HEALS IT. There is no real need to heal it, BUT LOVE DOES ANYWAY. Love just loves. While we dream, God wants us to awaken. While we refuse God's will, or try to, pretend to, God wills that we be happy and accept his will.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER, even if it is just a made-up dream of made-up suffering. You don't even NEED TO HAVE a nightmare dream. You can have a HAPPIER DREAM. A dream which is gentler and softer and precedes awakening in a smooth and non-jarring way. You do not need to be sick, or tolerate it, or try to transcend it in order to deny it. IT CAN BE REMOVED. No-one has to have dreams of death and suffering and sickness and pain, EVEN IF it is just a dream. This is not God's will.
It is God's will for you to EXPERIENCE PERMANENT HEALTH AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, to no longer have that broken leg, or that missing arm, or that defective lung, or that cancer, or any of it. A broken body proves the mind is not healed, so these breaks MUST BE HEALED if the mind is to be healed. We do not need to find ways to "be at peace with it". We need to UNDO IT, in form, in the body, to prove and demonstrate the truth that we cannot be hurt against our will. No-one needs to be having a dream of limitations.
If sickness is real, and given that God is the author of Reality, it would have to mean that God created the sickness. And since God is Reality, this would mean that God Himself IS the sickness.
The belief that sickness is real, is therefore actually a belief that God is sick and that God wants you to be sick. If the sickness is truth, ie reality, then God cannot be a loving God.
Love would not create sickness. Love would not want someone to be dead. To suggest that sickness is real, is to suggest it was created by Love, and that Love wants you to die. This is utterly ridiculous!
Sickness therefore CANNOT be reality. It simply cannot be real at all. It MUST be an illusion of sickness. ALL sickness must be an illusion. It may look like sickness, behave like sickness, be caused by things like sickness is, etc, but IT IS NOT REAL SICKNESS.
There cannot be real sickness. If reality is associated with sickness in any way, God would have to be sick.
The belief that sickness is real is the belief that an ILLUSION is actually real. It is the belief that illusions are real that IS sickness. Sickness is the belief that Reality is not reality, and therefore that illusions have taken the place of reality. It is the belief that God is not healthy, and therefore it is true and real that God must be dying or dead.
Sickness is therefore an attempt to kill God and His creation, to destroy His son, and to render God nothing. Anyone believing in sickness as something real, something serious, something to be afraid of, or something to struggle with, is believing that sickness is not an illusion, that God is dead, that sickness is the truth, and that it is God's will that you die. Again, UTTERLY RIDICULOUS!
So, let's all learn this and learn it well. Every single person or establishment or governing body or hospital or clinic or doctor or researcher or scientist or anyone in the public or anyone struggling in their home with sickness etc, ANYONE that claims that sickness is REALITY, they MUST be out of their mind! They are not sane and they are not telling the truth. This MUST be a false belief.
God cannot and does not create suffering. God is LOVING. And God is REALITY, and therefore only love is real. And since love would not create suffering in any way - love only creates love and health - ANY and EVERY form of sickness, suffering, lack, death, loss, pain and misery must be a complete illusion. It is NOT REALITY.
We need to wake up to this. We need to become clear about this and recognize this. And we need to stop accepting and listening to everyone who says that sickness and suffering are real. It is a lie. Even told by those who are sick or those who are jist onlookers. People who look at the sick and think others are sick but they themselves are not sick, ARE sick, because sickness is real to them.
People are doing the best they can to try to deal with the sickness, rarely finding a cure. There is a better way. Miracles are everyone's right!
Not believing in sickness means not believing that an illusion is real, which means being SANE. And sanity is the solution to all sickness, because all sickness is mental illness.
Who and what you are in REALITY cannot be sick. You are fucking immortal! You cannot be sick, you cannot die, you cannot change, you cannot be unwell or tired or lacking or depressed. You cannot be dead. You cannot be dying. And you cannot be suffering in any way. Anything that looks like it is contrary to that it MUST be an illusion. And if you believe it is not an illusion but a reality, then you are mistaken and you need correction by the Holy Spirit.
One of the simplest but biggest lessons is learning that people are not bodies. And nor are you.
The human body is an illusion which is bring projected by the minds of those who seem to inhabit them. The body is a wall of flesh around the mind designed to keep others out, and to imprison the soul. It is a device for separation.
The purpose of its image and form and shape is to blind you when you look at it, so that you do not see the real person. When you look at a person "as" a body, you are not seeing them. You will see the outer surface of their body, which seems like a person, with shapes and eyes and a mouth and so on, but these are actually decoys. They hide the spirit.
The big problem the world has is identifying with bodies. That means both identifying or associating other people with their bodies, and also identifying or associating your own "self" with your own body. This is a state of mental illness because you are not a body. While you see yourself as one, you will see other people as one also.
The senses of the human body were also designed so that you DO NOT know what exists. The eyes were made to fixate only on the surface of objects so that you would be blinded by appearances and unable to see God. The ears were made to listen to artificial sounds which are all illusions, in order to block out the Voice for God. All body senses do the opposite of what they seem to do.
"To sense is not to know." So when you use your body senses to sense other people, including seeing their bodies, you *seem* to sense them but you are in fact sensing illusions - things which are not there, as if they are. This is insanity. The body is not really there. It is a projected 3D image like a thick layer of clothing hiding the spirit and it doesn’t really exist. You have to be mentally ill to see one. Which accounts for most of the planet.
If you have "special rules" or values or judgements which apply to some types of bodies and not others, you have egotism. This is unloving. Relating to special bodies is not love. The body is in fact designed to reinforce specialness, exclude others, and block wholeness. A special relationship with a special body is based on separation and exclusion. This doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice, or that you should be special with all bodies. You should relate soul-to-soul, mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart.
It is not possible to have some bodies be special while others are less so or different, and maintain that there is equality. It is also not possible to accept all bodies equally. Bodies are NOT equal. They are fundamentally different and unalike. They were designed to BE different so that you would isolate yourself and others to specific locations in space, identified by and separated by the differences in their forms. To be equal is to not relate to bodies at all, but to the Christ beyond them.
It is literally impossible to have unconditional love for bodies. Bodies cannot be SEEN, or maintained, when love is truly present. When love is present, there must be wholeness, in which partial bodies made of parts are impossible. This is why "to see a sinless body is impossible." It is also why "a mind and body cannot both exists." You cannot see the body and behold spirit. It is also why "God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there."
It also means that if you have issues about some body types, preference for some body types, favor toward or against some body types, or any kind of special belief about some particular body and not others, you have a split mind and are blinded by sight of form. Worse, you have blocked sight of yourself, have identified yourself with a body, and no longer seeing your brother at all. Unconditional love goes beyond sexual preferences as well.
Absolutely all body preferences must be put aside. Jesus says that you must not have issue with certain "body forms" or "body structures". The PERSON, is not the body. You are to love ALL PEOPLE, ALL THE TIME, EQUALLY. And to do that you need to generalize the learning that NONE of the appearances of bodies are true. That differences are not really there. That forms are lies. And to look past ALL bodies to the Christ within/beyond, which requires paying literally no attention to bodies at all.
So if you think you cannot or will not love certain types of people, all that has to go, because there AREN’T certain types of people. "You cannot enter into relationship with any of God’s children unless you are willing to love them all and equally." This includes loving murderers, rapists, paedophiles, warmongers, criminals of all kinds, your arch nemesis, all enemies, everyone from your past, your neighbors, the government, people of other races and genders, and absolutely everyone regardless of any reason why not. Because they are NOT thsoe things.
Jesus loves everyone equally. Holy relationship means WHOLE relationship with THE WHOLE of God’s Kingdom. And in God’s Kingdom there are no bodies at all because we are all perfectly identical in the image and likeness of God, as One. "Healing is when two minds perceive their oneness and become glad."
Love the heart, not the hologram.
"We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "demonstrate that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This ***demonstration*** ***EXONERATES*** those who misperceive, BY ESTABLISHING BEYOND DOUBT that they have NOT hurt anyone."
The curriculum of ACIM ends in resurrection. Resurrection is the final state prior to going to Heaven. When Jesus accomplished this, his body had allegedly been attacked and "killed" by crucifiers, through the crucifixion. All of these people believed that they HAD attacked him. Or if they were bystanders, they believed the attack was REAL, was really affecting Jesus and attacking the Son of God, due to a confusion between Him and his body.
After this, and after Jesus made his body disappear, he accomplished the resurrection. He then MATERIALIZED A BODY, as a miracle, in order to PROVE AND DEMONSTRATE the absolute total truth and conviction, that what He is could not be attacked, and that this body he showed was a SYMBOL of that perfection. It was a body in perfect health, showing no signs of suffering, no attack, no sickness.
Onlookers, and crucifiers (and the onlookers were also crucifiers by their judgement of real sin), had to then bring into SERIOUS QUESTION, what it is that they THOUGHT had happened and the sinfulness that they thought occurred. By Jesus demonstrating resurrection, symbolized as a LIVING BODY, using the body to PROVE that the body had not been killed and thus Jesus had not been killed, FORCED them to have to DISBELIEVE, their own condemnations, sin, guilt and fear about "what happened to him".
Because obviously, here standing in front of them was a NON-CRUCIFIED body, appearing to be alive, symbolizing immortality, with Jesus smiling through it, happy and at peace and clearly NOT DEAD. And so the contrast was a POWERFUL TEACHING, to all who encountered that body, which showed that that IMMORTALITY is true, that the body is NOTHING, that attacks on a body do not change anything REAL, and thus nothing real can be threatened.
By this demonstration, which was totally miraculous in the true sense, death itself had been snuffed out and all "effects" and consequences of sin removed by the Holy Spirit. Due to the lack of effects, the lack of suffering, and the lack of death, ALL those who seemed to attack Jesus or believe in him being attacked, WERE PROVEN MISTAKEN, because miracles are teaching devices. And this demonstration of a miracle of total healing and resurrection (miracles raise the dead and produce resurrection), they were EXONERATED.
They were PROVEN, that they COULD NOT have sinned, they could not have attacked, and their BELIEF IN REAL DEATH was brought into question. They could no longer believe the body is real. They could no longer believe sin had real effects. They could no longer believe sin is irreversible. And they could therefore no longer believe in THEIR OWN SINFULNESS. And thus in this exonerated state all onlookers and those who met him WERE TAUGHT, THROUGH DEMONSTRATION, BY EXAMPLE, WITH CONVICTION, COMPELLING them to believe, that THEY MUST BE INNOCENT ALSO, because HIS BODY WAS NOT HARMED.
This is the teaching of "brother at your hand I live". This is the teaching of resurrection. This is the demonstration of miracles. And this is the message that EVERY ACIM STUDENT has to at some point demonstrate through the HEALING OF THE PHYSICAL BODY, to undo the picture of crucifixion and to replace it with the Holy Spirit's PICTURE OF IMMORTALITY, as a body which has no signs of sickness or suffering or death or harm of any kind. Because only by reaching a state where YOUR BODY IS HEALED and TEACHES AND COMMUNICATES ONLY LOVE AND HEALING AND HEALTH, only then can your MIND be ready to return to Heaven to access eternal life. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."
A Course in Miracles is about RESURRECTION! You are being raised from a state of death. A dream of death. Raised from sickness. Raised from suffering. Moved AWAY FROM DEATH, TOWARDS LIFE. If you are moving towards sickness, punishment, suffering, death, physical ailments, illness, disease, broken body parts, or any other PHYSICAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE BELIEF IN ATTACK, which are ALL attempts to TEACH YOUR BROTHER OF HIS SINFULNESS, you are moving AWAY FROM LIFE and away from the atonement and away from the resurrection. And that is NOT what A Course in Miracles is asking of you.
This is a course in LIFE! You are supposed to only move TOWARDS LIFE, NOT TOWARDS DEATH. If you head towards death you've got the course backwards!!!!
LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE LIFE <3
This is the teaching of A Course in Miracles. This is a course in LIFE. Life is CAUSE.
"Swear not to die, you holy son of God." IN THIS LIFETIME. CHOOSE THAT YOU WILL NOT DIE OR PRODUCE BODY SICKNESS OR BODY DEATH!! Swear to demonstrate resurrection!!!
"WHAT IS THE RESURRECTION?
Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death....
The resurrection is the denial of death, being THE ASSERTION OF LIFE...
Here the curriculum ends."
"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."
You are one with your brother. What applies to you applies to him, per the Golden Rule. What is true of him is true of you. What you do to him you do to yourself.
Therefore, when you go into separation, you create a separation BETWEEN you and your brothers. You accuse yourself AND YOUR BROTHER of sin, simultaneously.
The result of doing so is that you arrest the extension of the mind, which INDUCES ILLNESS. The body thus becomes sick, as part of your effort to accuse yourself and your brother of being sinful.
This means that YOUR BODY, and its condition, are part of a COMMUNICATION that you are having with your brother. Whatever your body seems to say about you, it ALSO says about him. Sickness is not in isolation, it is a double-edged sword. It may seem only to state that YOU are sick, bit it ALSO states that HE is sick.
You cannot believe in your own sickness WITHOUT believing in your brother being sick. This is why your body becomes a two-sided weapon through which you are attacking yourself AND your brother. This is why sickness takes on forms of contagion, which represent the desire to kill your brother and yourself simultaneously.
Since your body is a "physical message" to him and yourself, which you believe, it is also your attempt to FORCE him to believe the same. Due to the golden rule, whatever you make true of the body, you are claiming is also true of him. Thus your body in is sickened state, actively condemns your brother and attempts to teach him he is not innocent. Thus it imprisons him.
More to the point, when your mind is reunited with your brother in joint union, and the gap of separation if healed away, the body in fact becomes a messenger of healing. It now symbolically communicates to BOTH of you that you AND your brother are innocent. In fact it now becomes a way to TEACH him that HE IS HEALED, and therefore prevent him from believing that he has sinned.
Through a demonstration of a physically HEALED body, there is no longer proof of sin, no longer tangible evidence of accusation, and now your brother is exonerated. This has a HEALING EFFECT on his mind and HE IS HEALED ALONG WITH YOU.
The body sends a MESSAGE to your brother, with a power greater than a thousand tongues, TEACHING HIM of his innocence OR his guilt, depending on what you are teaching yourself. When your mind is healed it WILL NOT teach sin, and will NOT make the body sick, and WILL heal your mind, and your body, and his mind, and his body.
"Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For ***here is his forgiveness PROVED to him***. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."
The body is used to PROVE that you have forgiven your brother! Which is why "a broken body shows (proves) the mind HAS NOT been healed."
"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will ***it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth*** and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."
Your body must demonstrate "because you did not sin against me, my body is not attacked, and we must both therefore be innocent." And in order to accomplish this, MIRACLES ARE REQUIRED THAT HEAL THE BODY, so that the body CAN be FIXED AND HEALED, in order to allow it to teach ONLY innocence.
That means even if your brother attacks and damages your body, YOU RESURRECT IT, in order to PROVE TO HIM that you have forgiven him. When there is no sin, there are no effects of sin, and all sickness and death disappear.
Jesus is telling us in ACIM to do the same thing he did in his resurrection. That is, if someone comes along and kills your body, YOU RESURRECT IT.
This means, no matter what anyone does, no matter how hurt or sick, no matter the effect of sin, you MUST resurrect the body to prove that you CANNOT BE HURT. And you should be doing this ALL THE TIME, to guarantee the body's health and restore its condition regardless of what anyone tries to do, to PROVE that you do not believe in sin.
This in fact is the true meaning of "turning the other cheek". You will literally be willing to allow anyone to do anything to you including "hitting you again", in the recognition that you will NOT be hurt by it, will HEAL the body, and will PROVE to him that you have power OVER the body. Your demonstration that you ARE NOT HURT PHYSICALLY, teaches him his innocence.
THIS is what real forgiveness means. Forgiveness is not real if it does not heal the body. It is not real if the body is still testifying to your brother's sins. It is not real if you have not forgiven AND UNDONE THROUGH ATONEMENT the effects of sin in the body.
Jesus literally meant that if someone hurts you, you should turn your cheek and invite him to DO IT AGAIN. Because you will be able to prove THROUGH MIRACLES that it has no effect on you or your body. This only makes sense given that you CAN perform miracles to undo physical damage. And because HE COULD, this is why he is teaching us to do the same.
Jesus had the power to NOT BE AFFECTED. Such profound confidence and fearlessness. That he would "allow" crucifixion because HE KNEW that what he really was could not be hurt, and that HE COULD DEMONSTRATE this by resurrecting and healing the body.
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"You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. ***Show him that he cannot hurt you*** and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of "turning the other cheek."
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"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. ****IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt****, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.
Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."
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THIS also directly ties into the secret of salvation. Jesus tells us that we'd be willing to allow people to be AS VICIOUS AS THEY MAY, that it can HAVE NO EFFECT ON YOU. This will set you free from suffering in ANY FORM. Thus will enable you to UNDO ALL FORMS OF ATTACK and demonstrate that you can repair the body just as easily as it can be hurt by someone.
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."
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Thank about Jesus, totally aware that he cannot be hurt by anything, totally aware he is not a body, able to resurrect bodies, able to heal the sick and raise the dead, able to cancel all effect of sin and attack on him. Even DEATH was not able to be sustained and he re-manifested a complete human body just to prove that he had power OVER all suffering. No-one could do anything to him. They could seem to attack his body but he could simply override it. He had supreme confidence and fearlessness. Imagine how safe you would feel if you were in touch with this power of God, this supernatural protection, ABLE to work miracles to undo anything that happens. You would laugh in the face of any threat or danger.
What Jesus DID in "the resurrection" he was ALREADY practically doing prior to the crucifixion. He had already got himself to the point of being able to reverse death and sickness. He could barely be harmed. He could've undone any illness. And when the crucifixion happened which was him ALLOWING an "outrageous extreme assault" to occur, he knew that he would resurrect from it and prove that it had no power over him. He must've been laughing inside at the preposterous idea that he would have to suffer forever more or be caused to "stay dead" at the hands of some foolish attackers.
And so similarly we are asked to demonstrate resurrection principles HERE AND NOW, in the world, as teachers of God, proving that we are under no laws but God's!
Ok so, this is possibly a touchy subject, and I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty. If you have some kind of a sickness, pain, upset, disability, whatever, this is going to be talking about that and I don't mean to make anyone feel attacked. But I want to look at something the course discusses.
"***The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill.*** Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."
I've been looking at this lately because I've been having to heal a sense of guilt and blame for someone else being sick. Once I started to look at what the course says about my own situation, I saw that we basically are immortal beings who keep attacking ourselves, making ourselves suffer, inducing our own sickness, and trying to die. And then I started to think about whether other people were doing this, and this is where some lightbulbs went off.
If a person is having a physical sickness, it does mean that they are attacking themselves. It means that they, as an immortal being, are trying to destroy themselves. They believe they are guilty and sinful for attacking God. This is then projected onto and through the body. The body in turn takes on forms of sickness as a shadow of the guilt in the mind, a shadow of deformity.
"Illness can be but guilt's shadow, grotesque and ugly since it mimics deformity. If a deformity is seen as real, what could its shadow be except deformed?"
But the sickness in the body isn't just there as a sickness, it's there for a purpose. The purpose is accusation. The sickness is actually part of the attempt to project sin onto others. The body is made to appear sick and weak and suffering, so that the person appears to be innocent, and so that someone else is accused of sin. The sight of a sick body therefore means someone is holding a "picture of crucifixion" up to accuse you of sin, and "sick bodies remain accusers."
"The sick remain accusers."
"You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell."
Jesus has gone even further than this, to say that in this self-destructive, projective situation, we actually are trying to kill others. As we scapegoat, ie project sin, we make the body sick, in order to prove another's guilt. And one of the ways this takes shape is in terms of contagion of physical illness, such as with a cold or flu, where someone is trying to "infect" others with their sin and guilt, so that if others become sick and suffer for it, this exonerates the sick person.
Jesus even says that when we are sick, we are being merciless, like we have this intense almost evil attitude of destruction, first towards ourselves and then towards others. We're actually even willing to die, if it means someone else is accused of causing it. And so the dead body testifies to the sinfulness of another. That we're literally willing to destroy the body in order to try to exonerate ourselves of the original sin, and pin it on something external.
"Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die."
So this then made me realize that, a major reason that I often have a sense of guilt or self-blame around other people's sicknesses, is because they are in fact attempting to accuse me of their sin. Their sick body is attempting to project guilt onto me, its a way they are using their body for attack, and having tried to destroy themselves they now are projecting destruction onto me. So then I end up feeling guilty because, essentially, if I "make their body real" to myself, I'll buy the temptation that the sickness is literally accusing me of sin.
I think part of realizing this, for me, entailed having to be willing to look at someone else and ask myself if they are doing the very same thing the course says I am doing to myself. ie are they trying to destroy themselves, do they have guilt from the separation, are they punising themselves, are they projecting and are they using their body for attack? And the answer is yes.
But this answer also gives rise to the realization that, the truth about myself, also applies to them. Just as I might realize that I am not sinful or guilty, that God has not been attacked, and I don't deserve to suffer, and I need to stop blaming myself or making myself guilty..... so too does this apply to others.
So now my approach to the "sick person" changes to one of compassion for them doing the exact same self-attack that I've been doing, a recognition that they are similarly not sinful, realizing that they are mistaken to believe they should be guilty, and therefore shifting to a more supportive position of reminding them of what is really true of them. And this in turn alleviates my guilt because it means I am not responsible for their condition, and its "truth" doesn't apply to either of us.
What's really true of them is that they have not sinned, their innocence is intact, they have no reason to be guilty, they have no need for sickness, they have no basis for punishing themselves, and they don't need to destroy themselves, because they haven't done anything wrong.
I am finding in fact that this kind of attitude toward them is in fact "miracle working". Because the more I express toward someone "the atonement" principle of their sinlessness, the more I am being loving, and also am treating my neighbor as myself. If my "work" is to express toward someone that they deserve love and health and happiness because they have not sinned, I am in fact joining my mind to theirs by accessing the part of them that's innocent. The "innocent self" BEHIND the self-accusation. And the accused guilty self is not who they really are.
And so it's important to overlook their self-accusation and not see it as applying to them. As I do this, I feel a POWER, and a sense of ENERGY, funneling through me. And I am quite certain this is opening the door to working miracles. If I can accept my own atonement ie my sinlessness, then I can also recognize other people have been similarly attacking themselves needlessly and can help to support them in finding their way back to their innate perfection.
"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them."
"He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."
What this reveals to me is also that, when I have ever done forgiveness, it's almost always been with a somewhat selfish intent. Even if I am forgiving "others", it mostly revolves around taking stuff off them and putting it back on me, so that I can address the deeper problem in "my separate self". But what I see now is, that in fact, the very same practice which I might use to apply to myself, to undo my own belief in my own sinfulness, I can use that very same approach FOR SOMEONE ELSE on their behalf, and forgive them FOR THEM.
In effect, it's like "doing a forgiveness" for someone else on their behalf, applying it TO them, reminding them of what THEIR truth is, and helping them to see their own innocence. Just as I would do for myself, but applying to them instead.
I am certain this has a lot to do with working a miracle. Because a miracle worker begins by seeing the light in another, which you an only do if you see light in yourself, and then you reinforce their light by shining your light into their mind, as you "pick them up" and "lift them up" through the expression of the truth about them.
It's kind of like telling someone that they've been hard on themselves, mean to themselves, unfair to themselves, and have not loved themselves.... and that the reason they've done this is unfounded, and they don't deserve this self-abuse, nor do they deserve to suffer in sickness or pain or misery. To set them back on the right path and get them back in touch with their own innate soul perfection. To be like, hey, brother, what you think about yourself is not true, you are .... and then list all the things which are true of them in reality.
(Forgiveness) "It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."
This IS forgiveness because it's what it means to overlook the layers of ego sin, guilt, fear, self-attack, symptoms, body-stuff, in another, and look to the fact they are a christ entity, perfect and holy, temporarily mistaken, believing stuff about themselves that isn't true, and knowing and remembering FOR them that their lies are not true of them.
This also taps into a new "mode" of forgiveness, in which we attempt to reap the benefits not by forgiving "for ourselves" or by withdrawing from others into our separate minds, but by reaching OUT to others and telling THEM what we want to be true of US.
Expressing towards someone a higher truth, simultaneously makes it true of YOU, but without the selfish component. In this sense yes your brother is your savior. You can only give the miracles you have received but you can also bolster what you receive by giving. This is why "miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver."
To pour love into someone, to recognize when they themselves do not love themselves, and to supply the lack of love, by reminding them of what is really true about them, joins your mind to theirs and enlightens it, shines truth into their mind, empowers them, awakens them, and resurrects them.
The proper use of the body is as a communication device to transmit LIFE.
Communication means extension and creation. The body is to be used by the Holy Spirit as a way to extend past the body, past the body of others, and join with the mind of others. In His mindset, He sees Himself in all Brothers already.
We are to use the body to overlook the "obstacles to peace" which we and our brothers both place in the way of vision. We are to forgive, ie overlook, ie not make real, all of these illusory obstacles, so that our mind can join with the minds of our brothers. Our mind should literally reach out past our body, past their body, and "hook up" with their mind. This allows our MINDS to communicate and SHARE directly.
When we fail to do this, we introduce a form of separation inbetween ourselves and our brothers. This form can be a mere thought of sin or of bodies being real or being deceived by what the eyes see. Anything that prevents us from fully extending to and being one with our brother, implements a separation or attack thought between the two, separating us from each other.
This affirmation of being separate from others, is an attack on BOTH of you, and INDUCES sickness. Since any belief in separation is mental illness and is a block or denial of Unity and Wholeness, it renders the mind believing that it is not whole, and this unwholeness/unholiness attacks the body.
Or rather, it’s an attempt to use the communication device of the body to "communicate attack" to the other mind, which means your body now has to SHOW attack to your brother, which FORCES your body to BE attacked or in a state of "showing you are attacked". To communicate the idea of separation or attack to your brother, the message becomes attack, the communication device has to transmit "an attack", and thus the communication device itself is AFFECTED by the toxic message it is trying to transmit.
This is like pouring acid through a plastic pipe and hoping it will transmit the acid without affecting the pipe. We think the attack will affect your brothers, but it ends up affecting your transmission device. You can’t pour molten lava through a plastic straw, either. The fire and brimstone you try to give or project onto your brother, simply ends up HURTING YOU. This inevitably must contaminate your communication device by sending "harmful messages" through it. This is of course the cause of body sickness, and can lead to death.
Instead of mind moving past the body, as though communicating a perfectly pure transparent stream of life outward and to others, affirming the life in both, the mind is now holding up a picture of attack and separation. This picture now becomes the "message" that is transmitted through the communication device of the body, as a message of attack. The body, as a communication device, must now SHOW that picture. It causes the body to BECOME the message of death.
So essentially, it is totally natural and a holy use of the body, to overlook all bodies to the point where we recognize our oneness with others and join with their true self in the mind. When this breaks down, communication and extension break down, love breaks down, the flow of life is restricted, and sickness appears.
This is the ONLY cause of sickness, of all sickness, in all its forms, whether it’s a suble pain or total death. It’s merely a continuous spectrum of severity of belief, where a mere headache is even a sign of a belief in death and an attempt to die. Even the slightest annoyance, tiniest grievance, slight hint of separation belief, or the subtlest of ways of making forms real, it is still an attack and an attempted murder. "What is not love is murder."
When the mind is ceasing to place obstacles in the way, is overlooking/forgiving the body, is overlooking and forgiving the forms of others, and connecting to their mind to truly COMMUNICATE - because ONLY MINDS CAN COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY - then the mind sees itself as WHOLE, thus holy, and this holiness is unlimited in its healing power.
Believing in and experiencing wholeness, the mind transmits a message of wholeness through the body, causing the body to show up AS WHOLE or holiness in order to exhibit the message, thus inducing TOTAL HEALING of the body. In this mode, when perfected, it is absolutely impossible for the body to become sick or die because the mind is ONLY COMMUNICATING LIFE. It is supernaturally protected and sustained indefinitely as a perfect communication device for transmitting LIFE. This makes it impossible for it to die because there is no death in WHAT is being communicated through it.
A sane mind heals the body. A sane mind communicates fully and directly. "Miracles unite you directly with your brother". "Use it to bring the Word of God (love/life) to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Being holy it CANNOT be sick, nor can it DIE."
"I am not a body I am free, for I am still as God created me."
All bodies are different. Even the bodies of identical twins. No two are alike. No two share the same molecules. They can be similar, but more often than not they'll be different in a multitude of ways.
The whole world seems to thrive on the differences between bodies. And then we all tend to compare our body to the bodies of others. As if we are our bodies, and as if having certain body attributes defines whether we're good enough or lovable or correct or fit in.
But all bodies were fundamentally born from the idea of inequality, difference and conflict. They might appear to be of the same species, as if sharing common characteristics, but within that framework there is great variety. Even the wings of butterflies are not all identical. Not every fish has quite the same scales. And no two voices are quite the same.
Sometimes, those who are body-identitied then try to adjust to this fact by making out that the body is special for being different. It's unique and unalike, standing out from the crowd. And then we exalt them for certain noticeable abilities and features.
But the fact is that in order to have something in this world, you have to lack something else. In order to define yourself as one thing, you have to exlude other things. You can't have or be everything on a physical level. You must be deprived in order to gain. You must lose in order to win. And you must sacrifice in order to measure up.
There are great movements towards trying to get bodies to be considered equal. Equal rights for each gender. Equal rights or sexual persuasions. Equal rights for ethnicity or skin color. As if to say, everyone who is a body is the same. But bodies are never the same. No two are exactly the same, and never will be. They can't be. To be what they are they have to lack what the others have.
This means that no-one can ever be in a position to have everything as a body. No body can be perfect. No body has it all. Some might seem to turn out more lucky or favorable than others. Some are uglier, some more aesthetic. Some are larger, smaller, taller, thinner. Some may be fundamentally more artistic, more athletic, quicker to move, clumsier, better shaped, more manly or womanly, better able to think or analyze, more emotional etc.
So then it comes down to the fact that all bodies are really just pieces of equipment. Because people are not bodies and minds are not bodies. So each of us has this chunk of equipment strapped onto us which we express through and use. But the particular configuration or "features" of the equipment will determine what the body can seem to do.
I will not ever have the low bassy voice of Barry White. I will not ever have female parts. I will not ever have the genetically blessed muscle definitions of Arnold. I will not ever have Betty Davis's eyes. My legs won't look like that of an olympic runner. My fingers aren't ever going to be nimble enough to play Spanish guitar music. My face isn't ever going to look like a rugged lumberjack. And there is just no way my bum is ever going to look big in this.
These are just simply the facts of what kind of equipment I am using. And for some people there are significant defects. People with disabilities, limbs missing, motor control problems, defects of skin, wonky eyes, a propensity for deadly farts, and hopelessly crooked teeth. That's just what the body has, and shows us what the body also does not have.
Both of which go to defining what it seems to be capable of. If you identify with your body you are doomed to enter into a realm of comparison and low self esteem and dissatisfaction and dysmorphia and food disorders and judgement and all manner of concern. Jealousy and envy and hatred and anger and sadness and all sorts of stuff can arise from this. Because if the body's limitations are considered the truth of you, then the fact is that EVERYONE is limited in one way or another, and no-one in the whole world will ever have physical perfection.
"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found."
"It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS, something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of GOD without a body, or some form you think you recognize. The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you."
"The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is an eternal property of mind."
ALL bodies are lacking and all bodies are defective and all bodies are limited and all bodies are special. They're supposed to be. They were made in an effort to limit you and act as a decoy and disguise for your inner perfection. They were meant to separate you off and confine you and act like a prison wall. And they were designed to be a representation of what you are NOT like.
"God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist."
Some bodies thus seem to have talents or abilities that others do not, or aptitudes or intelligences or particular quirks that others lack. Some seem to be born blessed and others cursed. Some have wonderful voices and others sound like a freight train. Some are beautifully symmetrical and others are like a lopsided lump of lard. These are just the way bodies are. They are greatly varied and unalike and unfamiliar and unequal and unnatural.
Some will take advantage of the particular traits of their particular body to try to maximize its capabilities. And this usually means certain aptitudes in certain areas. Some become brain surgeons while totally sucking at singing. Others become pop stars but completely suck at relationships. Some become athletes but can't dance to save their lives. And others just get dealt a bad hand of shit and crap and deformity and bullshit. Then we have to sort of make the best of it, or just hate ourselves.
We can't look to the body for perfection because perfection means wholeness. Bodies are limited and varied and none of them have everything, so none of them are whole. They are fundamentally lacking. Not one of them can fully or accurately represent who and what you are. None of them look like you. And none of them can picture what you really look like.
"For what you are cannot be seen nor pictured."
If you identify with or AS your body, or your body's attributes or abilities, or the roles you assign it or the labels you give it, you are mis-identifying yourself and do not know who and what you are. This narrows you and confines you and shuts you in a prison and places major limitations on you. It distorts and shuts down your awareness, diminishes your mind, and deranges your mind.
In fact, Jesus tells us that if we conceive of ourselves as a body in any way, even slightly, we are in fact attacking what we are. Given that we are perfect whole spirit lacking nothing and sharing everything, when we identify with or as a body we are literally putting limits on ourselves. And this is an attack on ourselves, which produces symptoms of sickness, which then manifest in the body. So now the body becomes sick if you believe you are your body, because you're shutting down your unlimited life.
"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."
"Any relationship in which the body enters is based, NOT on love, but on idolatry."
"The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. It is the will that sees the Will of God as enemy, and takes a form in which It is denied. The ego is the "proof" that strength is weak and love is fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true."
"God created love, NOT idolatry. ALL forms of idolatry are caricatures of creation, taught by sick minds, who are too divided to know that Creation SHARES power, and NEVER usurps it."
"The power to heal is now his Father's gift, for through His Voice He still can reach His Son, reminding him the body may become his chosen home, but it will never be his home in truth."
"You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return."
Jesus in fact is saying here that the body, designed to be a device for separation, becomes a way to NOT RELATE TO ANYONE, by being cut off and limited physically behind a wall of flesh. If you identify with it, make it your self, see it as defining you, accept its limitations as true of you, associate or align with it, dwell on it, focus on it, make it an obstacle, or in any way allow it to come between you and others to any degree, then you are entering into the separation and into death.
"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant SEEMS to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death's idols, and then pass on."
"The removal of blocks, then, is the ONLY way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else." There is a way to work through the body and to use it for a higher purpose, but this doesn't change what the body IS. It doesn't make it become whole or holy. It doesn't lift away its nature or stop it from being a confining limited mechanism. In truth, the Holy Spirit's repurposing of the body in fact renders the body FUNCTIONLESS and MEANINGLESS.
"Yet freedom of the body HAS no meaning."
"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, ***it has no function***. For minds NEED not the body to communicate. The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have NOT been brought in line."
"It is still true that the body has no function of itself. This is because it is NOT an end."
"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to ***render itself unnecessary.*** Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation."
The body is supposed to become UNNECESSARY to you. Un-needed, and cast off. Adding nothing to you. Giving you no abilities. Not defining you or limiting you or getting in your way. Nor does it remain and succeed in doing this, because the body has to go in order for you to experience unlimitedness. "To be without a body is to be in your natural state."
"For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU."
"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. ****Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him.**** The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."
The body must be transcended, then let go completely. You must surmount it and go beyond it.
"To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."
"The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more."