How do you know that you have a body?

Do you see it with your body's eyes?

Do you hear it with your body's ears?

Do you taste it with the body's tongue, touch it with the body's flesh, and smell it with the body's nose?

Is this not a completely circular logic within a closed system?

You are using the very device that you are trying to detect, to detect that same device.

It cannot see outside of its own self. It cannot objectively report whether its own form exists or not.

Its own eyes show you a picture of a body, but the picture is seen with the body that the body is looking at. And so using the thing itself to detect itself, is completely invalid.

You would need proof outside of your own body, that your body exists. And you have none. A scientist could come along and tell you that, per their study, your body does in fact exist. But this would also be a lie. Because they used bodies to look at bodies. They uses eyes to look at eyes. It's entirely invalid within a closed loop.

The body therefore cannot be relied upon to tell you of its own existence. And therefore, there is no proof whatsoever that the body really exists.

You think you see your body in a mirror. But your body is using itself to look at itself. It is completely biased. It cannot tell you if it exists or not, it is designed ONLY to report a false positive that it "has been sensed". It's not capable of telling you of its own non-existence, and is totally one-sided.

The body does not really exist. All it can do is sense what it was designed to sense and NOT see reality.

"To sense is not to know." - ACIM

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen." - ACIM

"The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself." - ACIM

"At no time does the body really exist." - ACIM

"Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not." - ACIM

"Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world the body's eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears; the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects." - ACIM

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." - ACIM

"The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation." - ACIM

"Minds need not bodies to communicate." - ACIM

"To be without a body is to be in your natural state." - ACIM

Our mind in its natural state is joined with our Soul and with God. In this state, it receives the causal expression and extends it. In a sense, the mind does not have its own content, it just extends what it receives.

After separating from God and ourselves, the mind is cut off from its "owner". This is due to a separation introduced between cause and effect. That which at the effect, the mind, starts to see itself as causeless, and so begins to make up its own ideas about what it is and what is true.

This turns the mind from being an extender of truth, to being a solo broadcaster of imagination.

The problem then is that anyone with an ego tends to broadcast a lot, and tends to receive very little. Being alone or isolated or trying to live without God makes us weak, vulnerable, afraid and helpless. Yet it also makes us spew out "noise", the noisy broadcasts of the ego, which basically is an attempt to be recognized as the cause of oneself, rather than being caused by God or Soul.

In a world where so many people are broadcasting themselves, there isn’t much listening. Consequently, even though people are broadcasting loudly, 24/7, everyone is talking over everyone else. People then are not really being present, available, un-distracted with themselves, or able to pay full attention. That means that those who are broadcasting, paradoxically end up not being heard.

This is because the rest of the broadcasters are not willing to receive. So no matter how loud you shout, if everyone else is also shouting your expressions will be stunted and stifled and you won’t feel like anyone really listens to you. In fact, the more that you shout louder in an attempt to be heard more, you will be heard less.

Many people in this world are expressing the ego. Few are expressing silence or stillness or presence or quietness or a willingness to receive. If you yourself become willing to receive from Spirit, your own mind will become quiet and you will subsequently become willing to receive ie listen to and pay attention to, what other people are expressing. Without distraction from your own thoughts or memories or judgements or attempts to process or reflect on what someone said.

Learning to listen is part of waking up, because it entails your own willingness to listen to Spirit. That means instead of running your own show, you turn your mind and your life over to the care of God. You become willing to receive input from Spirit. You become willing to trust Spirit. You become willing to let Spirit guide your every action, to even speak for you and through you.

The willingness to receive is what has become blocked by the ego. Separations and blocks to awareness are attempts to not listen to God, to hide from God, to replace God’s Word with your own, and to make up your own truth. Becoming willing to accept Atonement entails becoming willing to receive from God, to be guided by God, to allow yourself to accept love, and to let miracles be performed through you.

Therefore as you tune into Spirit, handing over your stolen life to its rightful owner, and giving back control of the mind to Love, you automatically become a better receiver and listener. You become better at being present. You become more available. And you start to allow others to fully express, willing that you receive everything they are offering. This simultaneously creates space for them to fully express themselves, to be heard, and to know that their expressions are not being met by deaf ears or a wall of selfishness. This holding space alone can be very healing.

You simply need to put all of your ego distractions aside, pay full undivided attention to the person, let them express absolutely anything they want to without interrupting or interfering or offering advice or any kind of transmission, without your secret mental judgements or attempts to chew on what they expressed, free of your reactions and defenses, just totally being fully present for them.

Do this for someone and you’ll be offering a tremendous healing service just by listening attentively without judgement. Afterwards, even if their ego erupts in a free-flow of expression, they will feel so peaceful and relieved that finally they could express themselves fully without someone being self-absorbed with their own ego reactions.

Give the gift of unconditional receiving and listening to someone this year. Let them have the microphone 100%, not 50%. Let them tell you whatever they want to tell you and just receive it.

Giving and receiving are one.

Let's make it clear now, that the Holy Spirit has SUPERNATURAL POWERS.

Through the Holy Spirit, any act of healing or correction is possible on any level, including what we call the physical body level.

There are many things in ACIM which many people don't believe can be literal because it seems to be so radical and unbelievable to the ego, way outside your comfort zone, and just too 'unreal' to seem real.

But the Holy Spirit is not a metaphor. He is not just some Course lingo for some fiction aspect of an imaginary trinity that doesn't really exist in Oneness.

Also, by the way, Jesus had supernatural powers because of the Holy Spirit.

Turning water into wine, is not a metaphor. Healing the blind and sick and deaf is not a metaphor. Raising the dead is not a metaphor. Turning a stick into a snake and back is not a metaphor. The resurrection from the cross is not a metaphor. Multiplying some fish and bread to feed 5000 people is not a metaphor.

These are not just conveniently dismissed and put into a nice tidy box just to fit into our nice protected little ego frameworks of how much truth is acceptable.

ACIM says "I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him. I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

Now. Get this. When you surrender, a lot, with a genuine willingness to admit to the truth and to let go, this opens the door for the Holy Spirit to come in. He can then join with you, and He then also has access to your mind, your feelings, your energy, and your body, and also to various aspects of events and situations in your life.

If you think the Holy Spirit is inactive, passive, just an observer, or just a lifeless metaphor - some fictional concept that makes it easier to grasp metaphysics, think again.

The Holy Spirit is God's ANSWER to the separation. The answer to the ENTIRE separation. Not just an answer like some piece of information. He is an experiential answer, the actual correction OF the problem. He has the power to undo the entire universe. He has the power to correct all problems. He has the power to reverse all sickness and suffering and signs of disease on any level. He has the capability to perform MIRACLES.

Now, when you surrender a lot and relax and INVITE HIM IN, and are genuinely open to allowing Him to work in you, He can and WILL come into you. "Holy Spirit, come", is a very simple invitation. And if you are genuinely open to this, He will enter your mind/emotions/body and start to do healing on you. He can remove stuff for you. He can cancel out negative feelings. He can heal physical sickness. He can correct the body in any way needed. And this has nothing to do with the pros, cons, rights or wrongs or whether it is okay or not to heal the body. Fuck that. He just does it, ok? Get over yourself.

Now. Willingness plays into this, therefore, because if you are not willing to surrender your ego activities, you are not allowing Him to decide for God for you. And another way to put that is, if you are in control and won't let go, He can't help you. But if you DO let go, then He has access and can help you. And you will find as you develop a relationship with Him, that he can quite literally heal you, correct you, and restore you, not just on a level of thoughts or mind, but on all levels - mental, emotional, physical. It is ultimately irrelevant whether these levels a actually REAL or not, and we know that these things are still illusions, but nevertheless He can, does, and WILL bring about healing on any level if you are willing.

Again, this is only possible because He is NOT a metaphor. He is not just some concept to make it easy to explain the Course. He is not a principle. He is an intelligence, a power, a spiritual presence. He is an aspect of God, for Heaven's sake, having been created by God as the answer to ALL illusions. And there is nothing He cannot do to correct or change them for any reason. If there were anything He could not do to alter illusions, the Son of God would be trapped in hell forever with no way to go Home. And fortunately for us that's not the case.

Holy Spirit is here not just as a friend and comforter but as your healer, guide, mentor, and liberator. You don't have to just struggle through this on your own trying to have the proper thoughts or the right perceptions. You need to surrender and get into some serious teamwork. Let Him help you. Let Him do the work of directly correcting you... supernaturally... not just like, oh well, you know that's not the right answer, 3 points off.... try again. It's more like.... you will experience a supernatural electrical power flowing through you that literally purges you of all of the "consequences of your wrong decision". Mental, emotional, physical, it doesn't matter.

Miracles, my friends. Miracles.

The sight used by the physical body, based on seeing photons, is not a forgiving sight. The body is completely 100% biased because it only ever says that things like itself exist. If the body can see itself, this registers as "bodies exist."

So now you have a sensory device which you might think is able to be objective, trying to use it to tell you whether something exists or not, but the dial on it is switched entirely to one side so that it only EVER reports that physical things exist.

In turn, it is 100% completely blind to anything real, anything of God, and any part of actual reality. It can only EVER say that the physical things it senses must be there to sense, and so they exist and are real and true. ie if you can see it, it's real.

The body is completely biased because it uses its own senses to sense whether it itself exists. And it only ever reports "yes", that it exists, because it senses itself. This is obviously completely tainted information, 100% closed off, biased, and blind.

So basically anything that the body can sense, does not exist. But the body is only capable of saying that it does. It is 100% on the side of the physical, and validates the physical, and is squarely focused only on the physical. It is incapable of finding that the physical world is unreal, and it is not able to sense reality AT ALL.

"Only the body makes the world seem real." UrU5A5

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do." UrU5A2

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it." UrT22D5

Literally, the physical body was made to NEVER see reality, to ONLY look upon error, and to COMPLETELY "believe" that everything it senses really exists. It is the perfect device for deception, for making sure you are completely stuck in unconsciousness, for making forgiveness impossible, and for proving that everything impossible is possible.

In effect, we made the body in an attempt to deceive ourselves COMPLETELY. And this makes the body 100% unforgiving. It cannot be objective, it cannot question whether the physical world is real, and it has absolutely no way to see actual reality. It is a "device for separation", NOT a device for oneness.

It is unforgiving in that, anything it sees is an illusion, and that illusion registers as 100% real. It sees illusions as reality and reality as an illusion. That is false perception. That is total insanity. That is total confusion. Sin is insanity, which is why the world of bodies is made of the idea of sin.

Anything that occurs in the physical world, which is "the world of sin", is regarded as a REAL SIN. Something happens, it registers as having happened, the body witnesses the physical proof that it happened, and regards this as irreversible truth. I can see it, I can touch it, I can smell it, taste it, hear it, it is RIGHT THERE, screams the body.

Physical sight, if it were believed without question, would result in the mind being completely convinced by death and destruction and sickness and suffering. Anything that occurs would be regarded as real and true. All physical causes and effects would prove separation is real. Every physical attack would be seen as real and undeniable, justifying revenge. There is no forgiveness there. It is the "battlefield."

Now, a lot of how you experience this illusory world depends entirely on the mind and its USE of the body, the mind's belief system or thought system, and whether it BUYS INTO the deception of the physical world. What MEANING it gives to the signals coming in from the body, whether it believes they are true or not.

If the mind thoroughly deceives itself by aligning its identity with the body, narrowing itself to the body, imprisoning itself in it, seeing itself as "separated off" by it, believing the body IS itself, and as such shutting out the mind, then the mind is going to become UNFORGIVING. In the extreme, this "nihilism" of believing that "the physical world is all there is" would produce a state of total insanity.

This is because physicality IS deception and believing in it means you are deceiving yourself, and deception is evil. Which essentially means that the physical world and the body are evil. Or at least were made in an attempt to be evil, to oppose the "good" of God. But whether it is experienced as hell-like or heaven-like depends on the mind's USE of it.

So basically the body itself presents a POTENTIAL which, in and of itself, is 100% wired for unforgiveness. But the mind can OVERRIDE this, by changing what it makes of the signals it receives from the body. The mind is responsible for whether it BELIEVES in what the body is showing it. And the mind HAS to be willing to categorize EVERYTHING the body senses as FALSE, if it is to be sane and forgiving.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

As the mind moves towards God, therefore, it moves away from physical sight. It recognizes that everything the body senses is NOT TRUE. This means forgiveness is an assertion that the physical world IS NOT TRUE, which dismisses all deceptions and blame.

But mind can "use" the physical for a higher purpose, e,g, to help others who are in the physical world. But in the mind, it is not buying into, believing, or being deceived by, anything in the world.

What this ultimately means for FORGIVENESS, is that to be truly forgiving you have to NOT believe anything the body tells you, NOTHING that the physical world presents, and recognize it for the illusion it is. As we "practice" forgivenesses we are trying to get our minds to move into that higher "true perception", where we properly recognize the physical as FALSE. In its entirety.

It's then like the body is a sensor dipped into a completely false illusory unreal world, picking up signals about what's going on there, and reporting back, but the mind that looks AT these signals is not deceived by them, does not believe they are ultimately true, and recognizes their falsety. It can still USE the body's signals temporarily, e.g. such as when Jesus walks the Earth and can use the body to SEE the sick bodies, to offer help, but the healed mind does not BELIEVE anything it's witnessing here.

And that's because everything physical is unreal. And forgiving the physical causes it to cease to seem to exist, overriding the body's insistence that it does.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams, once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see." UrM13A6

"Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects." UrT28F4

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know." UrW250W41

If you're seeing bodies, your vision is blinded by sight of form.

Christ's vision LOOKS PAST bodies to the truth and does not see physical forms.

"The BODY'S EYES are therefore ***NOT THE MEANS BY WHICH THE REAL WORLD CAN BE SEEN***, for the ILLUSIONS THEY LOOK UPON must lead to more ILLUSIONS of reality. And so they do. For EVERYTHING THEY SEE not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"Christ's vision has one law. 2 It DOES NOT LOOK UPON THE BODY, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. 3 It BEHOLDS A LIGHT BEYOND THE BODY; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. 4 It sees no separation. 5 And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."

"THE OPPOSITE OF SEEING THROUGH THE BODY'S EYES IS THE VISION OF CHRIST, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear. The OPPOSITE OF HEARING THROUGH THE BODY'S EARS is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us. His Voice seems distant and difficult to hear because the ego, which speaks for the little, separated self, seems to be much louder. This is actually reversed. The Holy Spirit speaks with unmistakable clarity and overwhelming appeal. No one who does not choose to identify with the body could possibly be deaf to His messages of release and hope, nor could he fail to accept joyously the vision of Christ in glad exchange for his MISERABLE PICTURE OF HIMSELF."

"Christ's vision is the HOLY SPIRIT'S GIFT, GOD'S ALTERNATIVE to the ILLUSION of separation and to the belief in the reality of sin, guilt and death (seeing the physical world which is made of sin and death). It is the one correction for all errors of perception; the reconciliation of the seeming opposites on which THIS WORLD IS BASED. Its kindly light shows all things from another point of view, reflecting the thought system that arises from knowledge and making return to God not only possible but inevitable."

"Learning MUST LEAD BEYOND THE BODY to the re-establishment of the power of the mind in it."

"The body cannot be looked upon EXCEPT THROUGH JUDGEMENT. 2 To SEE THE BODY is the sign that you LACK VISION, and have DENIED the means the Holy Spirit offers you to serve His purpose."

"Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest BEYOND THE WORLD OF DARKNESS. Here is light YOUR EYES CANNOT BEHOLD. And yet your MIND CAN SEE it plainly, and can understand."

"A WORLD FORGIVEN CANNOT LAST. IT WAS THE HOME OF BODIES. ***BUT FORGIVENESS LOOKS PAST BODIES*** This is its holiness; this is how it heals. ***THE WORLD OF BODIES IS A WORLD OF SIN***, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains TO KEEP A SEPARATED WORLD IN PLACE? For PLACE HAS GONE as well, ALONG WITH TIME. ONLY THE BODY MAKES THE WORLD SEEM REAL, for BEING SEPARATE IT COULD NOT REMAIN WHERE SEPARATION IS IMPOSSIBLE. Forgiveness proves it is impossible BECAUSE IT SEES IT NOT. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"BEYOND THE BODY, beyond the sun and stars, PAST EVERYTHING YOU SEE and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light"

"The Holy Spirit's messengers are sent FAR BEYOND THE BODY, calling the mind to join in holy communion and be at peace"

"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out BEYOND THE BODY, to let you and your brother be joined."

"Yet what is that to those who have been given one true relationship BEYOND THE BODY? 10 Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ?"

"THE BODY'S EYES SEE ONLY FORM. 4 THEY CANNOT SEE BEYOND what they were made to see. 5 And they were MADE TO LOOK ON ERROR AND NOT SEE PAST IT."

"You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. 4 You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. 5 Your faith lies in the DARKNESS, not the light."

"Here is a WORLD established THAT IS SICK, and this THE WORLD THE BODY'S EYES PERCEIVE."

"It is impossible to see your brother as sinless and yet to look upon him AS A BODY. 2 Is this not perfectly consistent with the goal of HOLINESS? 3 For holiness is merely the result of letting THE EFFECTS OF SIN BE LIFTED (body veil disappears), so what was always true is recognized. 4 ****TO SEE A SINLESS BODY IS IMPOSSIBLE****, for HOLINESS IS POSITIVE AND THE BODY IS MERELY NEUTRAL. 5 It is not sinful, but NEITHER IS IT SINLESS. 6 AS NOTHING, WHICH IT IS, THE BODY CANNOT MEANINGFULLY BE INVESTED WITH ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST OR OF THE EGO. 7 Either must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot be. 8 And both must be undone for purposes of truth."

"WHO SEES A BROTHER'S BODY HAS LAID A JUDGEMENT ON HIM, AND SEES HIM NOT. 2 He does not really see him as sinful; HE DOES NOT SEE HIM AT ALL. 3 In the darkness of sin he is INVISIBLE. 4 He can but be imagined in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are not held up to his reality. 5 Here are illusions and reality kept separated. 6 Here are illusions never brought to truth, and always hidden from it. 7 And here, in darkness, is your brother's reality IMAGINED AS A BODY, in unholy relationships with other bodies, SERVING THE CAUSE OF SIN an instant before he dies."

"Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" 2 Ask only, "Do I really wish to see him sinless?" 3 And as you ask, forget not that his sinlessness is your escape from fear. 4 Salvation is the Holy Spirit's goal. 5 THE MEANS IS VISION. 6 For what the SEEING (with christ vision) look upon (overlooking bodies to something beyond) is sinless. 7 No one who loves can judge, and what he sees is free of condemnation. 8 And WHAT HE SEES HE DID NOT MAKE (heaven), for it was GIVEN HIM TO SEE (by God), as was the vision that made his seeing possible."

"You believe that what your PHYSICAL EYES CANNOT SEE does not exist."

"Let love draw near them and OVERLOOK THE BODY, as it will surely do"

"For FAITHLESSNESS is the perception of a brother AS A BODY"

"IT DOES NOT LOOK UPON A BODY, and mistake it for the Son whom God created."

"Perception is a FUNCTION OF THE BODY, and therefore represents A LIMIT ON AWARENESS. Perception sees *THROUGH* THE BODY'S EYES and hears through the body's ears. It evokes the limited responses which the BODY makes."

"If you are SIN, YOU ARE A BODY, for the mind acts not."

"Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the BODY'S EYES can see. Let your awareness of your brother NOT BE BLOCKED BY YOUR PERCEPTION OF HIS SINS, ***AND OF HIS BODY***."

"(sin) The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet REASON SEES THROUGH IT easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes. "

"EVERYTHING that the BODY'S EYES can see is a MISTAKE, an ERROR in perception"

"THE BODY'S EYES SEE ONLY FORM. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on ERROR, and NOT SEE PAST IT."

"See how the body's eyes REST ON EXTERNALS, and CANNOT GO BEYOND. Watch how they STOP AT NOTHINGNESS, UNABLE TO GO BEYOND THE FORM TO MEANING. "

I recently had to struggle through a period of intense emotional release, coupled with a lot of crying. It was triggered seemingly by father's day, inducing a grieving period and sense of loss, but it seemed to also move into some release relating to childhood abuse.

With such heavy feelings I became quite caught up in it, lost and immersed in ego. Also during this period I lost sight of the course teachings and of forgiveness. I felt too overwhelmed and upset to want to add more ego-challenging stress in the form of extra course stuff.

It also then became very annoying and frustrating that there was so much emotion, and that it wasn't stopping. I was forced to rest a lot. But it started to make me question, why do I keep having to have so much emotion coming out? Is there really a benefit to crying and releasing it? Is crying a part of my real self's healing or is it just some aspect of the ego and the body?

When I considered that I've had hundreds if not thousands of cries in recent years, and that I tend to throw myself into it, I also couldn't fathom how there could be so much to feel through. Why did things from 40 years ago keep coming up? Why did it require so many releases in order to make such slow progress? Was this really necessary and important in my spiritual path? Yes the crying does seem to move me past hurts and on to deeper stuff but is it really necessary?

I also recently started to consider the idea in ACIM of there being two levels of mind, higher and lower. Real thoughts shared with God produce the creation of spirit, and unreal thoughts shared with the ego produce intellect and physicality. So that made me start to realize, there are higher and lower parts to my mind.

I think this is a kind of turning point of "there must be a better way" because I'm also now starting to step back from the lower mind more often. I'm asking myself, is this feeling or perspective really a part of me as a higher-self, or is it coming up from the depths of a lower ego self? Even to the extent, are these hurt emotions, emotional pain and loss and grief and so on, really coming from or about "me" or is it part of the ego? Is it perhaps the ego that cries and is constantly upset?

Today perhaps for the first time, with a continued oozing out of further emotions, I started to assert the idea at the end of my rope, that "these feelings are not mine." Who and what I am seems to somehow be stepping back from or dis-associating from them. This seems pretty radical to suggest that any upset feeling is not really a part of me, is not mine, and is not part of my identity. It makes me realize I have been identifying with these things for a very long time.

The ego is pretty relentless in its morbid suffering. The body, if it holds certain emotional pain or energies in itself, certainly is also a repository of suffering and pain. It seems to me that every single little upset about anything ever is somehow stored somewhere and has to seemingly be released. But I'm also realizing that who and what I am does not have to be consumed by it, lost in it, playing along with it.

I don't know if this is some kind of attempted denial or repression, but it seems that there is some part of my sense of who and what I am which is detaching from these "lower" experiences and is identifying with something higher and lighter. All pain and misery, all upset, all grief and loss, all sense of shame or guilt, all fears, all hurt and suffering, surely cannot be a part of who or what I am as God created me. There can't be unhappy feelings in God's son. They cannot be real.

As I sit here and I still am having waves of emotion wanting to erupt and release, there's also some part of me now that feels stronger, and does not want to lose myself in it, or have it at all. When emotions become strong and overtake the mind, it can really become immersive and it starts to feel like "I" am the one who is feeling it and is hurt by it. I become centered in it. The emotions seem to describe me. I believe this is identifying with them, and thus with the ego.

As I remember that my identity or self is not these feelings, I immediately feel a deflating effect. The ego is always attempting to inflate things into a huge drama of intensity, especially at the emotional level. I think that identifying with the emotions and feeling like I'm the one who they are a part of, or am "the one" who is hurt, is all part of being lost in the ego.

I recall also some things which Eckhart Tolle has said about "the pain body", which is the ego's emotional body of pain and suffering. He said that this emotional pain body remains dormant a lot but sometimes it erupts into awareness and attempts to flood the mind with negative thoughts and memories of the past, trying to get the mind to identify with it and lose consciousness. I'm asking myself now if all and every single upsetting feeling "from the past" is really this pain body erupting and the ego trying to use my dependency on, and identification with feelings, as a way to keep me bound to it.

It seems weird to say, because what I'm really saying is that suddenly it seems that all my "lower" emotions are not really true of me. All hurt feelings are not really about me as God created me. All emotions that erupt from the bottomless pit of despair are not a part of my self. How can they be if God created me perfect and permanently happy? How can any kind of unhappiness or loss or shame or guilt or anything else be a part of my identity or my experience?

I feel like I've been battling with this emotion-monster for decades now. Years upon years of crying about the past. With the recent intolerability and obnoxiousness of it, it just became too much to a kind of breaking point, and now I feel like I'm snapping out of it. Like I"m done with it. I don't want to feel this crap anymore as though it's something I have to go through, or can't stop, or have no power over, or am destined to feel. It's not God's will for me. And it seems like all of it is a part of illusion.

As I look at it now, and as feelings threaten to "come up" again and flood my experience, I watch as they just emerge out of nowhere, from below, and seem to want to tempt me to believe that I am the one who is upset. But if I recall that I not these feelings, then somehow it seems fairly easy to "stay out of it". And that stepping back also deflates them and seems to cause them to simmer down again.

I think this is another thing that I have just been doing to myself over time. There is some drive in my psyche/personality to just hurl myself into full exposure to any and all emotions. But by identifying with them and believing they relate to me, or are part of me, having no boundaries with them, I have only been burying myself in them and feeling sorry for myself like a victim. Not to mention how much it consumes me and pulls me far away from higher thoughts.

I see Jesus in the course telling me to have more vigilance to protect the higher mind and to have more vigilance against the lower mind. The lower mind is run by the ego and wants to just turn everything into a life-or-death separation drama. I don't want to be a part of that anymore.

While at first I thought my whole self was the lower mind, and the higher mind was much higher, I now see that I'm moving up into the higher mind and the lower self is indeed below me. The ego wants us to identify with it and believe that all its perceptions of suffering are our own. That we are the body and its pains. That we are the suffering self. That's now who or what we are. The pool of misery doesn't seem to have an end. It seems the only thing to do with the desert is to leave.

The truth must be, then, that any unhappy feeling cannot be a part of my real self, cannot be true, cannot be real, and cannot be happening. My real self cannot be upset, cannot suffer loss, and cannot be hurt. It is extraordinary to think that I have lived as "a person" who seems to have suffered and felt hurt and upset so many times, and that not once has this suffering been true. But this is what ACIM is telling me. Only the thoughts and feelings that I share with God are real, and all the rest is ego noise, one of its many forms of the opposite to love.

"You hate it (the body), yet you think it IS your self, and that, WITHOUT it, would your self be lost."

"The ego is also in your mind, because you have ACCEPTED it there. ITS evaluation of you, however, is the exact opposite of the Holy Spirit's, because the ego does NOT love you. It is unaware of what you are, and wholly mistrustful of EVERYTHING it perceives, because its own perceptions are so shifting. The ego is therefore capable of suspiciousness at best, and viciousness at worst."

"the ego is not wholly split off, or it could not be believed at all. For it is your mind that BELIEVES in it, and gives existence TO it. Yet it is ALSO your mind that has the power to DENY its existence, and you will surely do so when you realize exactly what the journey it sets you IS."

"The ego is quite literally a fearful thought."

"Belief that there IS another way is the loftiest idea of which ego-thinking is capable. This is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is NOT the self."

"The ego is expert ONLY in confusion. It does not understand ANYTHING ELSE. As a teacher, then, it is totally confused and TOTALLY CONFUSING."

"Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war DOES deprive you of peace."

"The ego IS therefore a confusion in identification, which never had a consistent model, and never developed consistently."

"Jung was right indeed in insisting that the ego is NOT the self, and that the self should be regarded as an achievement."

"To identify with the ego is to attack yourself, and MAKE YOURSELF POOR. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego FEELS DEPRIVED. What he EXPERIENCES is then depression or anger, but what he DID is to exchange his self-love for self-hate, MAKING HIM AFRAID OF HIMSELF. He does NOT realize this. Even if he is fully aware of ANXIETY, he does NOT perceive its source AS HIS OWN EGO IDENTIFICATION, and he ALWAYS tries to handle it by making some sort of insane "arrangement" with the world."

"This is WHY the ego is insane; it teaches that you are NOT what you ARE."

"That is all the world of the ego is. NOTHING. It has no meaning. It does not exist."

"All that the ego is, is an idea that it is possible that things should HAPPEN to the Son of God, WITHOUT his will."

"The ego is the choice for guilt, the Holy Spirit the decision for blamelessness."

"For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS."

"Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you."

"It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions"

"Our self-made roles are shifting, and they seem to change from mourner to ecstatic bliss of love and loving. We can laugh or weep, and greet the day with welcome or with tears. "

"who is sinless cannot suffer pain"

"The Self Which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

"I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer."

"The gentle have no pain. They cannot suffer. Why would they not be joyous? They are sure they are beloved and must be safe."

"You have enslaved the world with all your fears, with doubts and miseries, your pain and tears, and all your sorrows press upon it, and keep it a prisoner to your beliefs."

"And God Himself shall wipe away all tears."

"Be not afraid of Love. For It alone can heal all sorrow, wipe away all tears, and gently waken from his dreams of pain the Son whom God acknowledges as His."

"Repeat God's Name and all the world responds by laying down illusions. Every dream the world holds dear has suddenly gone by, and where it seemed to stand you find a star; a miracle of grace. The sick arise, healed of their sickly thoughts. The blind can see; the deaf can hear. The sorrowful cast off their mourning, and the tears of pain are dried as happy laughter comes to bless the world."

"And He would have all tears be wiped away, with none remaining yet unshed, and none but waiting their appointed time to fall. For God has willed that laughter should replace each one, and that His Son be free again."

"Perhaps you come in tears, but hear Him say, "My brother, Holy Son of God, behold your idle dream, in which this could occur," and you will leave the holy instant with your laughter and your brother's JOINED with His."

THE BODY'S EYES ***CANNOT SEE REALITY*** EVER!

THIS IS A VITAL A COURSE IN MIRACLES TEACHING!!!

THE BODY CANNOT AND NEVER WILL BE ABLE TO LOOK AT REALITY. YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY OF SEEING - VISION - WHICH DOES NOT LOOK AT BODIES OR THE WORLD **AT ALL**.

THIS ALSO WHY THERE ARE NO BODIES IN HEAVEN! THEY ARE ***USELESS***. "To sense is NOT to know."

Many people are trying to "see" Heaven in the world and to look at this world WITH the body, keeping the body, and supposedly SEE reality. YOU CANNOT. The body's eyes are permanently fixated on hell. You have to use an entirely different kind of vision to SEE reality BEYOND the world.

Too many are getting lost in believing this world - Earth - is to be "looked at" in a loving way. It is supposed to be LOOKED PAST. If you look AT IT and SEE IT you are blinded by sight of form. The world WILL NEVER be Heaven. The body will never show you God's Kingdom. Spiritual vision requires mind-to-mind awareness which completely bypasses ALL forms, bodies and planets.

Check out these vital statements from Jesus about how the body is completely limited and CANNOT SEE. You cannot USE IT to see Heaven or reality. You cannot see your brother if you see a body. "To see a sinless body is impossible."

You must choose your method of sight, and what you will look upon. If you choose the body, you will see ONLY hell (Earth). If you choose the spiritual eyes/Christ Vision, you will see ONLY Heaven. You cannot see two worlds. Sight of one denies the other.

The entire PURPOSE of the Workbook is to train you to develop A NEW WAY OF SEEING that doesn't rely on the body!!!! IT says so in the workbook introduction! "The workbook is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of true perception" "The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits. 6 It is the opposite of the way you see now." True perception is not just an alternative perception, it's based on the holy spirit's thought system which is spirit-based and it transcends the laws of the world!

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist."

"You look still with the body's eyes. And they CAN see but thorns. But you have asked for AND RECEIVED another sight. Those who accept the Holy Spirit's purpose as their own, share also His vision."

"Your chosen home is on the other side, beyond the veil. It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you now. You will not see it with the body's eyes."

"Here is a world established that is sick, and this the world the body's eyes perceive. Here are the sounds it hears; the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear. It does not know what seeing IS; what listening is FOR. It is as little able to perceive as it can judge, or understand, or know. Its eyes are blind, its ears are deaf. It can NOT think, and so it cannot HAVE effects. "

"Let not the body's ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that YOU imagined, and let THEM persuade their maker his imaginings were real."

"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you."

"The body cannot see this, for the body AROSE from this for its protection, which must ALWAYS depend on keeping it NOT seen. The body's eyes will NEVER look on it."

"What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of joy be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song, and sight of him REPLACE the body's eyes. "

"What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything. Look through its eyes, and everything will stand condemned before you. All that could save you, you will never see. "

"It is your world salvation will undo, and LET you see another world your eyes could never find."

"Is it not evident that what the body's eyes perceive FILLS YOU WITH FEAR? Perhaps you think you find a hope of satisfaction there. Perhaps you fancy to attain some peace and satisfaction in the world as YOU perceive it. Yet it MUST be evident the outcome DOES NOT CHANGE. Despite your hopes and fancies, ALWAYS does despair result. And there is NO exception, nor will there ever be."

"And what is this decision, but the choice whether to see him through the body's eyes, or let him be revealed to you through vision?"

"And you can want to see a sinless world, and let an "enemy" tempt you to use the body's eyes, and change what you desire. "

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"Faith sees him only NOW, because it looks not to the past to judge him, but would see in him ONLY what it would see in YOU. It sees NOT through the body's eyes, nor looks to bodies for its justification. It is the messenger of the NEW perception, sent forth to gather witnesses unto its coming, and to return their messages to YOU. "

"The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances. "

"But what is there to see by searching for your Savior, seeing Him through sightless eyes? "

"And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see."

"Let not the dream take hold to close your eyes. It is not strange that dreams can make a world that is unreal. The WISH to make it IS incredible."

"That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body, and its eyes and brain."

"These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see. You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. "

"It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless."

"The strength in you will offer you the light and guide your seeing, so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception."

"Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body's eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one."

"You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes."

"How can you judge? Your judgement rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice of God Himself."

"He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son."

"Properly speaking, this is the release from hell. Perceived through the ego's eyes, it is loss of identity and a descent into hell."

"Let me not look to my own eyes to see today. Let me be willing to exchange my pitiful illusion of seeing for the vision that is given by God. Christ's vision is His gift, and He has given it to me. Let me call upon this gift today, so that this day may help me to understand eternity."

"Beyond His Will lie only illusions. It is these I choose when I think I can see apart from Him. It is these I choose when I try to see through the body's eyes. Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I choose to see."

"You closed your eyes to shut him out."

"How can you become increasingly aware of the Holy Spirit in you, EXCEPT by His EFFECTS? You cannot see Him with your eyes, nor hear Him with your ears."

"You dream of isolation, BECAUSE your eyes are closed. You do not SEE your brothers, and, in the darkness, you cannot look upon the light you GAVE to them. "

"Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word.The body's eyes now "see"; its ears alone can "hear." Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless."

"And you look up and on toward Heaven, with the body's eyes but serving for an instant longer now. "

"You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light."

"Miracles are seen in light. The bodys eyes do not perceive the light. But I am not a body. What am I?"

"The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. "

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself."

"It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your "seeing"was made. This is the function you have given your body's eyes. It is not seeing. It is image-making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions."

"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all. The mind is its only source."

"What you see of His Son through the eyes of the ego is a demonstration that His Son does not exist, yet where the Son is, the Father MUST be. "

"There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all. The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything. "

"But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely."

"Here are the sounds it hears; the voices which its ears were made to hear. Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see nor hear."

"This is because you actually cannot see anything, and it is easier to recognize that no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not seeing anything."

"It is indeed a senseless point of view to hold responsible for sight a thing that cannot see, and blame it for the sounds you do not like, although it cannot hear."

"His vision cannot SEE the body, because it cannot look on sin."

"You cannot see the invisible. But if you see its effects, you KNOW it must be there."

"YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER. "

"We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who looks on it without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason sees through it easily, because it is an error. 6 The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."

"Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would give."

"The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? 9 It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived."

"These eyes, made not to see, will never see. 2 For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. 3 What was its maker's goal but not to see? 4 For this the body's eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. 5 See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. 6 Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. 7 Nothing so blinding as perception of form. 8 For sight of form means understanding has been obscured."

"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. 3 Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins and of his body. 4 What is there in him that you would attack except what you associate with his body, which you believe can sin? 5 Beyond his errors is his holiness and your salvation."