I think one of the main reasons people seem to be homophobic, is just because we expect men to be men and women to be women. And if we ourselves are "straight" which largely means squarely or "purely" male or female and not a mix of the two, we project that onto everyone.
I think we become conditioned to think that there are only 100% males and 100% females. Then we project that onto people and expect them to comform to that.
When someone is more of a mix of gender traits, partly male, partly female, in whatever ways, it starts to fall outside of the standard "heteronormative" society model.
This is where a person starts to become offended, because whenever something seems to go outside of our beliefs, it registers to us as false. Whatever we believe or think is the acceptable standard is always regarded as true. When something seems opposite or doesn't fit with our truth, we judge it as false, and that also gets lumped in with negativity, evil, darkness, sin, guilt, perversion, rejection, etc. It's quite a basic mechanism.
So then if some man is partly female, but the model in the viewers mind is that they are supposed to be purely male, the person will seem to be violating the model. That will register as that they're not conforming to the norm, and are doing something they're not supposed to be doing. That registers as sin and violation and offence.
It's interesting that if a man is feminine and doing some things that a straight man would judge as wrong, but if you then ramped up the femininity of that man to the point where he turns into a complete woman, then the straight man suddenly would find no problem with them, because now they are conforming again to the model of strictly separate genders. So it's only the middle-ground where someone isn't entirely fitting into the strict model, that registers as an offence against the model.
This then leads to the viewer becoming offended, feeling violated, attacked, threatened, upset by the hideous creature they they see, which seems to be doing things and acting in ways that are not "normal" to them, or rather, not conforming to their model of what a man or woman is.
The problem really is that there is an expectation and a projection of the idea of what a man or women must be, and the ego especially likes to keep these extremely separated out. That you can be either one or the other, not both. "Not both" is the ego's standard function of "not God", because God's whole system of truth is based on both/and. The opposite of both/and is either/or, which the ego loves to uphold.
And indeed its sense of identity requires a strong contrast between exclusive opposites, in which the males try to keep the females outside of themselves so that they "know who they are" and have a firmer and clearer sense of identification with their gender. Or rather, so that their ego can stand out as being more separate and different, in order to have an identity, because the ego depends on opposition. And if you are not being "man enough" then you somehow are becoming too feminine and are stepping over the line.
If someone seems to fall outside of the projected model, it registers as false, evil, wrong, offensive, upsetting, an attack, violent against their very sense of identity. This does two things - it threatens the clarity of distinguishing who they are, in which they need to keep male and female separate in order to "exist", and secondly it seems to threaten the model of what a man or woman is.
This perceived violation is then interpreted as that the stranger is actually breaking rules, attacking their truth, going outside the bounds of what is acceptable into territory of "perversion", is seen as unnatural, vile and disgusting, can't be tolerated, and is seen as actually a direct attack upon the viewer and everything they stand for and are. Indeed if the person IS really purely a man AND then proceeds to act like a women, that would be register as an actual perversion.
Having perceived that the not-quite-straight person is threatening them and offending their ways, this then produces the perception of justified anger, because they feel actually literally under attack by the non-conforming person, as if that person will infect them, change them, influence them, invade their integrity, remind them of the fragility of their masculine identity, invade their boundaries, and do things to them which persons of a given gender are not supposed to be doing.
This can take on ridiculous forms such as fearing that the queer person will turn the kids gay just by living nearby, or radiate gay rainbow vibes into their minds, or have ultra evil sexual powers of lust after their treasured ones such that they'll be taken into a cult and subjected to satanic abuses, or that the queer person is simply am abomination against their God and breaking all the laws of heaven in a state of sin and madness.
So then they project hate and rejection onto the queer person, which they see as completely justified, because they've perceived that the queer person has attacked them first just by existing, and now this evil spectre must be destroyed in order to protect oneself. Which means the homophobia is seen as a justified and needed act of self-preservation based on fear. This is where the "phobia" part comes in, because the anger and abuse literally stems from a perceived fear, that something outside of what is acceptable is threatening to undermine their truth. Not just their truth, but their whole sense of identity and reality.
Because if a man can be partly not a man, and a woman can be partly not a woman, then that brings into question what is a man or woman, how are they defined, and how to distinguish a sense of self in the midsts of the seemingly "vague and muddy" mixture of gender and identity.
The ego would like things to be clear-cut, but the queer person is presenting a picture of something not so clear-cut, something which appears to be crossing over boundaries, "gender bending", breaking the ego rules of either-this-or-that, and corrupting the whole model of "man and woman produce male or female kids only." And now queerness is a boundary-violating attack upon families and marriage and religious institutions. And all this is is a concern for what happens when something transcends the rigid boxes that everyone wants to live in.
Really all of these reactions, which are just ego projections of a rigid model of identity, are only happening because the viewer lacks discernment and sees things in a very black-and-white exclusive and special way. They are not recognizing something, which is always the failing of the ego mindset. By not recognizing that the person is not JUST male or JUST female, and that people actually can be "not entirely one thing", there is no account made for people who seem to blend across the boundaries. And then "non-binary" is seen as the ultimate sin and rejection of all that is good and proper in the human race.
If they would open their minds from the closed-off either/or mindset of male/female strictness, which is closed-mindedness and a lack of spirituality, they would consider that some people (in body terms) are not purely male or purely famale, and that such people are completely acceptable and part of "nature".
If the viewer would then stop trying to force the person to be eieither man or woman, they wouldn't actually produce all the distorted reactions - which they do to themselves - that arise from trying to fit something into a box that it doesn't belong in. It's only because of the projecting of the "I know what a man is!" that a person requires someone else to conform to that.
There has to be an opening up to a greater repertoir of how many different types of human bodies there are, just as we have to open up to accept people from other countries and enthicities without judgement. And to then drop the expectation and conditioning that says you have to be one of only two things, and you must never be a mixture in any way. It's only those strict rules that give rise to a sense of the rules being violated, which then leads to the fear of invasion and the discomfort of being "pursued by a gay rapist", which then leads to the angry projections of guilt, which becomes homophobic abuse - all an attempt to maintain the ego.
If we could better recognize what people ARE, rather than what we think they SHOULD BE, we'll be better able to accomodate everyone and stop trying to force people to conform to a rigid tight little structure. The problem is really that egos are JUDEGMENTAL, and this judgement is always flawed and narrow and wrong.
Homophobia is actually just an expression of the regular ego doing its regular ego thing, just in the same way as any other conditioned belief which results in a sense of being offended by anyone or anything that outside of that belief - be it someone of another religion, another race, another gender, another color, size, hairstyle, whatever.
The fact is that the world is not black and white, it is not purely either/or, it quite often happens - though to less of a percentage usually - that there are exceptions to rules. Flowers that sometimes grow double heads, creatures which sometimes are half female and half male, humans that sometimes have a mix of sex-oriented organs, people with darker skin who become albino, people that are sometimes born as siamese conjined twins instead of separate bodies, etc.... nature isn't completely strict in its forms.
People only have prejudice against various aspects of the physical world when they think it's supposed to be a very very basic black-and-white model, where you have to be 100% this or 100% that. And as the mind believes strongly in separation the egotism emphasizes this contrast and exepcts everything to conform to it. And anything that deosn't is labeled as a sin. That's standard ego functioning, nothing special. It's unforgiveness. It's based on the belief that the world is absolutely real, and therefore separation is truth.
To be more forgiving we have to be willing to really look at what things are, not what we wish they would be, or what category they're supposed to fall into, or to judge them based on appearances while trying to fit them into neat little boxes. Some people are such a mix of things that you'd have a hard time even describing them accurately. In the past society was much more recognizing of the fact that everyone is to some degree bisexual, which is still true, even if people try to deny it.
Long story short, society needs to become more forgiving and learn that the human race isn't composed of pure men and pure women, but rather than absolutely everyone is at least to some degree partly both. All human embrios start out as female and even the males still have some trace of that in them. This is a world of relativity, in which nothing is absolute and nothing is extremely pure and nothing is completely separate. There is no real man or real woman. We are ALL hybrids, and everyone is queer. That's not wishful thinking etiher, that's the nature of spacetime.
Here's a ... strange and unexpected post that kind of just channeled out of me..... hmmmm...
Causing without receptivity to love has been associated with "male".
Receptivity without the power to cause has been associated with "female".
The male "egocentric" causality and forcefulness and so on, has played out as attempts to suppress, control, belittle and abuse women, making them an "effect" or victim.
In the bigger mind, this is really the dynamic between minds which have become tyrannical and arrogant and have an authority problem, vs mind which is open to receive love and to be an effect of God.
This is because this world represents a split mind, in which the two aspects of mind have seemingly been separated into "genders".
Mind is supposed to contain BOTH aspects - the ability to cause, and the ability to receive as an effect of God. When both of these aspects are fully balanced/equalized, where giving and receiving are one, causality becomes a loving act and not an act of aggression or domination.
This also means that in truth, no-one is male or female, gender is an illusion of separation, and we are all IDENTICAL.
Male domination, or a bias toward "output without input", also produces the sacrificial belief in "working hard" or being the "breadwinner" or having to be the one who goes out and hunts and gathers.
Female submission, or a bias toward "input without output", has produced "women being housewives" or "women should stay at home" or "women shouldn't get equal pay" or "women are more nurturing" etc.
This is all because our minds have become skewed in our belief in separation from God, producing an authority problem which has played out on the world stage as a huge dream of dominance vs submission in various ways.
The balance of this is swinging back the other way at the moment with women's rights and so on, which has been an extremely long time coming due to the general "dominance" of the male expression, but I think it highly likely that this will at some point mean that the women of the world will "take over" the role that men were taking and it will become skewed in the other direction, with men becoming more identified with submission.
This has been going on back and forth and back and forth for millenia. It's nothing new. The ego is not very original. But over time, perhaps, the difference between the two will smooth out, and gradually men and women will become truly equal, and in so doing, become either androgenous on a physical level, or will simply disappear from this universe of duality and return to perfect oneness in God. In God's eyes, we are all exactly the same.
The end of the human race then ends in laugher and equal holiness and WHOLENESS of all individuals, not imbalance or dominance or submission. This represents minds who have elected to place themselves under perfect authority of Christ, while also extending that authority, so that all acts of causality are equally as receptive to Authority of Spirit.
"You are NOT limited by the body, and thought CANNOT be made flesh. But mind can be manifested through the body if it goes beyond it and DOES NOT INTERPRET IT AS LIMITATION. Whenever you see another as limited TO or BY the body, you are imposing this limit ON YOURSELF. Are you willing to ACCEPT this, when your whole purpose for learning should be to escape FROM limitations?" UrT8G16
Bodies don't really matter in a relationship. The soul is androgynous and perfect. It isn't male or female. It has no limits and loves unconditionally.
It uses a body temporarily and then moves on. It might've had lifetimes as men and women, children and the elderly, as parents or alone. It could've had a gay body or a straight body, an overweight body or a skinny body. Whatever. Across its experience of so many different types of bodies, it cannot help but generalise the learning and detach from the specifics of each of them. It learns again to love regardless of form.
There could be a lifetime where two souls meet and they have certain types of bodies. They may or may not even be attracted to each other's bodies, or be compatible physically. Perhaps they are man and woman but one of them is gay. Perhaps they are from different cultures or races. It doesn't matter.
The body really is just a kind of tool that the soul uses. The body has its severe limitations and its limited scope of expression, which means that as the soul uses it, it has to work with what it's got. If it wants to talk, the words are likely to come out sounding the way that the body instrument allows to happen. If it wants to have intercourse, it has to work with whatever appendages or holes are available. If it wants to hug it has to deal with its length of arms and its roundness of belly.
If the soul is not heavily body identified, its view of the body is very detached and transcendental. The body doesn't really matter to it, nor does the bodies of others. When the soul is more identified with and lost in its current body, taking it to define itself and to be itself, this narrow perspective will inhibit relationship and make it more conditional. The bodies of others then matter more, relationships have more criteria, and everything has to be acceptable within limits. There is also more hell to pay when the rules are broken.
Ultimately we're meant to learn to love ourselves and everyone equally and fully, regardless of their bodies. We are to use the body as best we can to relate though and beyond, without placing so much emphasis on the body itself of what appear to be very limited categorisations of types.
Jesus suggests in the course for example that everyone should love everyone regardless of specific bodily appendages. A soul-to-soul communication is more important than cutting off a brother because their body is a certain type or style. This even applies to people having disabilities and sicknesses, learning to love them regardless of what their bodies are doing, and looking past the body to the immortal spirit within.
In my marriage for example, I was a male-gendered body person married to a female-gendered body person. She was 18 years older than me, which didn't matter. I had some attractions towards men as well, which didn't matter to her. She was from a different country thousands of miles away, which didn't matter. She grew up in a different culture, which didn't matter either.
Regardless of the sense of specialness and exclusivity in the relationship, there was also a more transcendental and unconditional element. I had some attractions to men for example, which she knew about, and she found it interesting and a curiosity instead of judging against it. She was willing even to encourage me toward it even if it meant her and I possibly not being together. Just as she at times wanted to be with other men.
We still had intimate relations which entailed a biological compatibility, even if in some way we might not have been entirely on the same page. We used what we had and made it work, because it was really more important that we were together and loving each other. A love that transcended the physical. A love between souls that spanned many lifetimes and many bodies. We could've been even more extremely different on the physical level and I think we would still have had a deep soul connection.
Ultimately what this has taught me is that the physicality of the body is not really that important. It is much more important to love a person and be open and honest and trusting. To share deeply and intimately, emotionally and psychologically. This can happen even if the bodies appear to be what the world would consider thoroughly incompatible. We turned heads with our weirdness and our age gap, for example. This can happen for gay or straight people, for people with any kind of body and any kind of persuasion. Every relationship has the potential to be holy.
What I realise now is that for any future relationship, it doesn't really matter if the person is male or female, or looks a certain way. It doesn't have to be a 'mr right' or a 'mrs right', or some kind of ideal model of perfection. The person is more important, the mind-to-mind is more important. If it comes with a certain type of body, and even if that body has certain limitations, it doesn't really matter.
Having a full whole relationship is more important than just some physical sexual hookup that's empty and cold and full of ego. If the person has certain genetalia, or types thereof, what does it matter, really, if the love transcends it? The two souls potentially relating on a higher and more whole level is what's important. This can even take place without any physical interaction or proximity or anything that the world might think of as a relationship. It can happen with strangers. It can happen anywhere, and beyond any type of body.
Looking past the body to the soul/mind is what's really important. The holy spirit's home is in our relationship to the christ in ourselves and others, which overlooks bodies and regards them as nothing but tools. If you still use them to interact then so be it, within the limits and specifics that the body allows. Sex is a limitation just as gender is but you can still use it while the mind is in a higher state. We're supposed to learn to love people as beings, as children of God, regardless of what their bodies are doing. Because ultimately no-one is really a body anyway.
It is not possible to see bodies as equal. I know there is a strong movement in society towards trying to see all body types, shapes, sizes, persuasions, as equal. However, this is insane.
If you take the attempt to see all bodies as equal to its logical conclusion, it MUST mean that ALL bodies, all body types, all shapes and sizes, BECOME COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to who or what a person is. And that means recognizing that people ARE NOT BODIES AT ALL.
The body is ITSELF an attack, and a misrepresentation of a person. A person is a spirit, not a body. The body and its differences automatically conflict with the differences of other bodies. If my body is one shape or color and yours is another, this IS an attack. It is an attempt to assert that we are not the same.
You cannot keep the bodies and pretend there is equality. You cannot keep the differences and pretend there is no difference. It is denial to say that several different body types are all equally lovable. There would not BE different types in love. Love does not SEE differences. It looks past the differences entirely, and ignores them.
We are not meant to find yet another way to KEEP the body and make it "spiritual". This is our ego's attempt to spiritualize the body and pretend that it is holy and worthy and special. All that does is stroke the ego. While anyone is represented as NOT IDENTICAL, there is no equality. Physical bodies are automatically devices for separation. If you SEE ONE, you are separate.
You must learn to look past bodies entirely, because the body actually BLINDS YOU and hides from your sight what the person actually IS. Behind the body, which SEEMS like a picture of a "person" with a face, there is a hidden being, a spirit being, whose body BLOCKS you from seeing them. If you see the body SURFACE and do not see past it to the spiritual being inside, you are NOT seeing the person.
To be enamored with someone's body is NOT spirituality. To put the body on a pedestal, to defend it, or to worship it, is NOT spirituality. Bodies are not supposed to be there. People, children of God, are all absolutely perfectly equal in their mind and heart, as God created them ALL in his own likeness, and they are all identical. Identical children. Anything which looks like it is DIFFERENT, is NOT the person.
So we can't really say, a black person and a white person, or a male or a female, or a gay or a straight, or anything else that relates to THE BODY, and equate that with THE PERSON. If you do that, if you associate the person with their body, you are attacking them. To be identified with a body is to be confused about who you are, and about who other people are. People are not bodies. You are not a body. It is not your self. You are deceived by what your own body's eyes tell you about other people's bodies. Bodies do not SEE the spirit. They were made NOT to see the spirit. It's a trap.
When we categorise the world, or split it up, or label it as different, or use its form to dictate what it means, we're failing to recognise that ALL ILLUSIONS ARE THE SAME.
"Nothing I see means anything."
"Make this year different by making it all the same."
If we for example see a sick body and give it a meaning of being real and worse and bad and more frightening, we've driven a wedge between things to keep them apart.
If we see a dead body and we believe it is a picture of awfulness and tragedy and horror, compared to the other bodies, we're trying to push it and separate it off and designate that it means something different to the healthy ones.
All these psychological differences, all the ways we put things in categories and groups, all the extra meanings we pile on top of stuff to distinguish them and say they're not the same, causes us to get lost in the illusion.
One thing seems to be not the same as another thing. One form seems more important or more serious or more threatening than another. The shape of something seems to mean something different to the shape of something else. These all add up to a huge complicated hierarchy of categories.
If we for example think that people are bodies and not souls/minds, and we start valuing bodies, and start wanting bodies to continue indefinitely, that bodies are people. ... and then start to become afraid that the bodies are in danger, and are falling sick, and dying, we've now fallen for the illusion. We start trying to protect the body and keep it instead of recognising the big picture.
A dead body is no more real than a living one. A sick body is no more meaning something true than a healthy one. A large body, a small body, a young body, an old body, a male or female body, a body of a certain nationality or ethnicity, none of it really means anything.
"The death of an illusion means nothing."
The shift that has to take place is a change in perspective and premise. The whole system of spacetime, physicality, matter and bodies, has to be regarded as not real. The whole thing has to be put into ONE category, not divided up or pitched against each other. One single category that says that the properties of one thing is the same as another. That none of it is real.
There then can be no PREFERENCE for one thing over another, no favoritisms, no specialness, no special favour towards certain people, no marginalising or closing off or favouring one group over another. It all has to be ironed out and equalised. No special expectations, no special need to have certain things be a certain way, no resistance to things being in a given form, etc.
The perspective of miracles is that there is no order of difficulty, because there is no perceived structure in the world. The mind becomes unconditional, with one response of love to everything. One singular category, one mind, one will, one perspective, one vantage point, one self, one recognition of everything here as false.
All of the sense of one thing being more important or valid than another has to go. And while it's true that it does not matter whatsoever whether a body is alive or dead, it is also true that in terms of usefulness a healthy body can be a symbol of eternal life. A healthy body can testify an example or image that depicts a higher truth. But even the healthy body is still part of the same equality of unreality with a dead body.
In fear, we make life a one-way street, where we want to avoid anything and everything that might destroy us as a body. But in love, love allows bodies to come and go, suffer and die, shift back and forth between states, and has no actual real preference for any of them. It recognises that the soul/mind beyond the body is untouched, unchanged, perfect in all ways, eternal and can never die. And in that view bodies don't mean anything at all.
While recognising that bodies mean nothing, and it does not matter whatsoever whether they are sick and dead or healthy and seeming to represent immortality, we can still use them as teaching devices in which they do need to be in symbolically healthier states in order to demonstrate healing and forgiveness. But we must still remember that in the larger context, in the big picture, they are all equally nothing. Then we are not attached to whether they come and go or change their form, and no longer fear death.
"The only VALID use of sex is procreation. It is NOT truly pleasurable in itself. "Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."
"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."
Look at this from the perspective of spirit. You as spirit have a mind and you can communicate, ie commune with, any other person in full. You can completely immerse yourself in someone and be one with them. This joining is so full and unconditional and meaningful that there is nothing else more satisfying or enjoyable. It is "truly pleasurable". "All true pleasure comes from doing God's will."
Then consider what the body is. "The body is a limit on love." "It was made to limit you." So now the body is regarded as this very crude device which filters out relationship, blinds you to false perceptions, and makes illusions real. "Only the body makes the world seem real."
"The body's eyes are not the means by which the real world can be seen."
So take it from the vantage point of a highly spiritual person. This person is able to FULLY relate to another person in total love and union. They share everything that can be truly shared. If one of them was to say, okay, let's not relate like this, let's instead narrow down our relating, stick ourselves inside limiting little bodies, narrow down our perception to where we can't even see each other, rub our bodies up against each other, and see if that's an improvement. ... do you think they will be able to find the same degree of oneness? Of course not.
The body does not ADD anything to the relationship capabilities of spirit. "Think not the world can add anything to the power and glory of God and his holy sons." It does not IMPROVE how you relate to others, it just gets in the way. It's almost like taking an universal unlimited infinite being and trying to shove it inside a dark closed box and expecting it to be enjoy being disabled, impaired, shut down, limited and restricted.
This is why Jesus is saying that the only proper use of the body is for procreation. The body is a biological device and it has reproductive organs, ie a method for self-replication (separation), as all organisms do. Whether it be cell division or male/female relationships, the process here is physical. The only VALID BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION of the reproductive system is to reproduce. It is to function to inseminate and impregnate and produce a baby body. That is its only valid physical purpose.
When you look from the vantage point of enlightened spirit, therefore, a mind which does not NEED a body to communicate fully with another person, and who recognizes that the body will just NARROW their relationship, such a person will have no interest in using the body for "casual sex." Who would choose to restrain themselves and limit their ability to perceive and be with another, in the name of "intimacy"? You can be MORE intimate without the the body than with it. The body just gets in the way.
Furthermore Jesus recognizes and tells us that if you focus on the body in any way, you make the separation real. If you focus on, or EVEN SEE, the body of your brother, you are moving into the ego and into separation and sin.
"Your mind and his ARE joined in brotherhood. His body and his dreams but SEEM to make a little gap, where yours have joined with his. And yet, between your MINDS there IS no gap. To join his dreams is thus to meet him NOT, because his dreams would SEPARATE from you."
"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT."
Focusing on bodies joining in any way, makes the separation real. It makes you body identified and produces and ego. It is a state of mental illness. To fixate on your brother's BODY causes you NOT TO SEE HIM.
"Who sees a brother's body has laid a JUDGMENT on him, and sees him not. He does not REALLY see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is INVISIBLE."
So Jesus is basically saying, in order for your mind to be sane, and in order for you to be in holy relationship, and in order for you to not make the separation real, and not mis-identify yourself and your brother as a body, and not SEPARATE, you cannot relate to your brother AS a body or on the level of the body. If you have any desire about it, lust for it, adoration of it, affection for its sensations, a valuing of its pleasures and pains etc, then you are in fact mis-using the body for ego purposes.
The only valid use of the body then is for the purposes of the holy spirit, which lifts AWAY from it any purposes it served before. That includes purposes of making bodies real, trying to become one with a physical object, trying to join physically and attempting to gain artificial pleasure. When the mind is sane it has no real use for the body. It does not use the body to get anything, nor does it believe anything the body's eyes see, nor anything its senses report. It steps back and regards the body as having NO FUNCTION.
"It is still true that the body has no function of itself. "
"Healing is the result of using the body SOLELY for communication."
"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."
"It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication. "
In this state where the body is healed by the mind, the mind extends PAST the body and does not STOP at the body. This means the mind is supposed to OVERLOOK the body, which is the function of forgiveness.
"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."
"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."
So Jesus is quite literally saying that if you focus on and see and interact with bodies at all you are coming from unforgiveness and ego, making separation real, and using the body for attack which induces sickness.
If a healed mind in a healed body remains, then it is possible at that level to use the body ONLY for communication, which actually bypasses the body itself and ignores it. This means a mind extending PAST its body, PAST the body of another, and joning with their mind. As such, minds bypass the body and do not attempt to join at the physical level. They have NOTHING TO GAIN by trying to join physically. The only benefit then to a physical "act", using the puppet for its inherent functioning, is to use it to make a baby.
This is why Jesus is trying to say that sex is only for procreation. Sane people do not need bodies. Insane people only use bodies for self gratification and reinforcing separation and specialness. Healed minds are limited by using bodies to try to join, and have no need of them. If you can imagine being highly spiritual and enlightened, maybe you can catch a glimpse of the total disinterest that you will have in the body and all its activities.
"The body is nothing." "The body is hardly worth the least defense."
The level of the body is a physical level. The body is a biological machine at this level. It has no mind or thought or decision or desire for another. Using it to make bodies real requires a belief in sin. The only proper use of it is to render itself unnecessary, bypass it, ignore it, overlook it, and therefore allow it to NOT GET IN THE WAY. As such you join with another in holiness and true meaning and validity. Trying to make bodies have a function of joining is level confusion between mind and body. Sex is entirely based on the idea of trying to "make bodies have oneness." Physical joining IS SEPARATION.
"When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in."
"To be without a body is to be in your natural state."
1. DUALITY - is the idea of "real opposites". That there really is good and evil, black and white, up and down, male and female etc. The differences of objects are believed to be "real" and a first-hand reality. That when you see these things you are looking at reality. They I really am my body, that you really are your body. That there is no unity at all, no connection, no joining, everything really is separate. In the Course, this is equated with "false perception." And in fact Jesus says "the world is false perception", meaning that the physical objects/forms themselves ARE the idea of separation, without which they would not exist at all.
2. NON-DUALITY - the original form of the non-duality idea is that all of the objects present in duality "are there" still, but there is an underlying oneness/unity which joins them all together. It's as if to say, God is a limitless being who is "expressing as" various objects. As if a clock and a chair are "really" one thing, as if joined by a hidden energy field of field of mind. That "all things are one".
In this view, the world, bodies, Earth etc are actually "kept" and still show up and move around seemingly independently etc, but are thought to be all part of one overall single Mind's thinking, or its self expression. As if God is animating the world. As if God Himself is the world or is "in it", like in the background, pulling the strings. In this view, the world is retained but is reinterpreted as "one thing", wherein its various parts and shapes seem only to be separate things when the mind is unaware of the unity it springs from.
That you might in some way "experience it all at once" if an experience of oneness, a kind of transcendent unity in which "you are the airplane" "you are the car" "you are the house". Here, God seems to be in everything you see. This idea is actually not really in ACIM at all. Some people believe it is. But ACIM actually teaches that reality is BEYOND the forms, not AS them, regarding the forms themselves to be illusions regardless of how they are experienced - that even experience as "all one thing" is an illusion. This is often confused with "true perception" which is similar but not the same - in true perception see reality beyond forms, not as "their true nature".
3. PURE NON-DUALITY - as touted by several others, is a progressive form of non-duality, takes the aspect of non-duality that seems to still be "a world" with things happening, and says that all of these worldly things are literally 100% not there. Not even that they are reinterpreted or experienced as "one thing". Not even that you are "experiencing them all at once" - it separates the "oneness" from the "things" entirely and labels the things as absolutely nothing - non-experiencable. In pure non-duality, the idea is that there is "only God", and nothing else. Only the oneness. Seemingly the oneness alluded to by non-duality but dispensing entirely with the world of forms and all objects and bodies and happenings. This does tie in with the Course teaching that "there is no world". Not simply that "the world is one thing" but that it is NOTHING.
A pure state of "only God". Just an expansive eternity is sameness, no change, no movement, no creating, no increase, no individuals, no objects, no forms whatsoever, no differences, no appearances of any kind, just rock solid God on his own. In this view, logically, it should also mean that there is no Son of God and no Holy Spirit. Some people sometimes actually "go there". That we are God. That only mind exists. That even the Son doesn't really exist as anything other than God's radiance, still solely God.
Some have used this to justify that the Holy Spirit does not exist, that Jesus does not exist, etc. It's often associated with the idea of "Oneness". That there is only "one thing". Literally a count of "one". One box, one entity, one being, just God all by Himself. This view ignores creation, sonship, free will, souls etc. This view is really not in ACIM **AT ALL**, but many think it is. It's actually the result of the ego's reasoning, believing that if you remove all separations and get down "one" thing, it must be the final answer about what exists. This essentially boils down to the idea that God is alone and is dead because he is not extending, creating, sharing or loving. He just "is" ("God is"), WITHOUT anything having been created (no sonship, no souls, no creations). It logically becomes the idea that God is dead, because love has to be shared and has to create in order to exist.
4. TRANS-DUALITY - I don't know if there is really a word for this. It takes the idea of pure non-duality, in which there is NO WORLD (only Heaven exists and Earth is not it) but then acknowledges that "God did not will to be alone". That God is a creator. That God loves to ADD to His "solo" reality. That God has in fact created, not just one thing, but a great many things. That the Holy Trinity is real, there really are three parts, and the Sonship (as one of them) actually contains many souls that God created to freely create WITH him. This is much more closely aligned with Christianity.
All of these creations, together "the one son" in ACIM, aka "sonship", are extensions of His mind and being and have been fully created as essentially autonomous entities, with their own minds. However, this is not the same as in duality. In duality these individuals would be cut off from each other, ie separate. In "trans-duality", these entities share everything with each other. AND YET, do not lose their individuality. They share such extensive oneness with each other, you would think there is nothing defining their "self", and yet there is. God has fully created souls. It defies ego thinking. It is miraculous.
In this model, which is really the model of God being a creator who has created a Sonship (and the Holy Spirit) as eternal beings, "The Kingdom of God contains all his children and their creations", these beings are co-creators with God, and have their own creations, which are shared and celebrated by the whole. This is an extraordinary state where everyone shares absolutely everything with everyone else, including God. Total access. Total openness. No selfishness, no exclusion, no ego, no separation ideas, no thoughts of imprisonment or unwillingness or denial.
A family of God, sharing in love endlessly, celebrating and being thankful for having been created, joining with all brothers in a union which seems to transcend their self yet allows them to still have one. "The ego is the idea of selfishness, the soul is the idea of self fullness." It is the miraculousness of the soul that allows it to share everything without ceasing to exist. God created many children who are permanent brothers to each other.
God is a holographic thinker and creator - every part is a whole in its own right. He has created beings, "in number infinite". THIS IS THE TRUE MODEL OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES. It acknowledges God as Father and you as A SON, one of many. This is not non-duality, it is not pure non-duality, it is not duality. It is a state of "many and one" at the same time. It is God's family.
God's system is a system of inclusiveness, which is why all beings He created share everything. It's a system of AND/BOTH rather than the ego's system of EITHER/OR. All children of God are equal, per the Golden Rule, and are brothers. "One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds." This does not in any way mean there is only one mind or only one brother. Nor does it mean they are not joined as if one. It is a fusion of oneness and many-ness, without contradiction, and with no ego involved whatsoever. It is not a separation idea, is not duality, or non-duality. It is the Creation of an omni-present being who is fully present in all things He creates without limit, making each creation a whole in itself. It is a system of "many wholes", which defies all ego thinking.
This is what A Course in Miracles is teaching. This is reality.
Ego's world is run by the egoic thought system, based on an EITHER-OR mindset of separation.
God's world is run by God's thought system, based on a BOTH-AND mindset of sharing.
EITHER-OR is based on the idea of separation - there is a separation between who has and who has not, who does and who does not, what is and what is not, etc. An object is this, but not that. It's either red or blue. It's either here or there.
BOTH-AND is based on sharing, something is equally true of both me and you, we both have everything, me and you are loved the same by God, etc. There is no separation in that. What exists is in all locations simultaneously, space and time do not place limits on anything.
Because the world of physical matter is entirely an expression of the egoic thought system, space and time and everything within them (bodies, planets, etc) are governed by this idea of EITHER OR. Living in such a world, the seemingly "natural" way to think about anything is to align our thought processes to the "natural world" and think in accord with it.
So now we "learn" to think in an EITHER-OR way. Either I will turn left or right. Either I will eat at 5 or at 6. Either I'm male or female. Either I am asleep or awake. Either I choose option A or option B.
We adopt this as an entire way of thinking about the world, of reasoning about anything, of what to do, where to go, what to choose, always a selective judgement based on either this or that. It seems to "fit" well with the way the physical world is structured and how it behaves. But it is completely unnatural and completely opposite to God's world.
In God's world, seemingly miraculous things are possible. Everywhere. All the time. Everything in God's world breaks all the ego's laws of separation, and therefore the entire basis of EITHER-OR thinking. God does not think, hey, either one son or another will get my attention. He thinks, BOTH of them get my FULL attention. Nor does he think, I will give 50% attention to one and 50% to another. He thinks, I will give 100% love to both at the same time. And this is done WITHOUT loss, without sacrifice or lack, and without compromise.
The true meaning of divine sharing is that everything applies to BOTH me and you equally, simultaneously, and always. If there were such a thing as a divine pizza, I could eat the whole pizza and you could eat the whole pizza. We both get everything. This is not possible in the physical world, but it is possible in spirit.
One of the tricky things about understanding ACIM is that we come at it with the ego thought system. We come at it with EITHER-OR thinking. And that's a serious problem. Because whenever ACIM speaks of ANYTHING to do with God, Heaven, Creation, Sonship, Holy Spirit, Laws of God, beyond spacetime, etc.... any of those topics, the laws of GOD are applying, not the laws of ego.
So then a statement like "I and my father are One", is completely misunderstood. It's a truth WITHIN the scope of God's BOTH AND system of thought. There, I can be one with God while still being an individual. I am both, myself and part of God. The course also states that God has only one son, BUT that the one son is also many sons. It literally states that BOTH statements are true, that there is one, and many. The Sonship comprises many children, who are ALSO one.
But to the ego this seems nonsense, it cannot fathom how there can be ONE AND MANY at the same time. It insists that it is EITHER one, OR many. And then it decides that many sounds like an ego thing, and one sounds "more spiritual", so it hacks out the many from the one and ends up with its version of what Heaven must be like. And it's totally bullshit.
To grasp anything of the divine nature of the Kingdom, on ANY topic "that side" of the separation boundary, anything real and true, anything to do with Sonship or Creation or God, you have to totally put aside the EITHER OR exclusive separatist way of reasoning logically, think WAY out side the box, and adopt a BOTH AND way of reasoning. THEN the things that Jesus says that sound totally contradictory finally make perfect sense, WITHOUT having to change anything or turn stuff into ridiculous metaphors.
"One brother is all brothers." "One mind is all minds."
Does not mean there is EITHER one brother OR many brothers. Nor does it mean there is either ONE mind OR many minds. Literally, the entire statement is true. There are many brothers, and they are all one. There many minds, and they are all one. And as soon as your thought process tries to "axe" the "many" part of those statements in favor of keeping only the seemingly unifying "one" part of the statement, you're off on an ego tangent of error.
We are one, but we are still brothers. We are the one son of God, but we are also PART of a sonship of many sons. I am a child of God, and so are you. I have individuality, and so do you, and yet simultaneously we share everything. I have everything that God is, which should to the ego mean there is nothing left for you, but you also have everything that God is, simultaneously, because we share it all. Sharing does not mean a collapse of individuality either.
The BOTH AND system of thought, which "runs heaven", is a completely miraculous thought system. It defies all ego laws. It breaks space and time. It ignores silly limitations and false conclusions. It allows to be possible that which the world of EITHER OR would find absolutely impossible. It ignores spatial limitations of all kinds. This is why God is omnipresent, meaning existing in all locations simultaneously. It ignores the idea that we must be kept apart in order to be individuals. And it defies every attempt to split it up and compartmentalize it into nice little prison cells.
The entire Kingdom of God and everything in it is miraculous because of this fundamental logical premise of the whole system. "Nothing real can be increased (God cannot create) except by sharing". As God SHARES, this is an AND scenario. God AND his creation. God AND his son. BOTH God and His son exist. His son is in his likeness because they BOTH are of the same Kingdom and nature.
When I give to you, BOTH of us have it, and I do not lose it. This is why sharing INCREASES the supply in heaven, while sharing causes scarcity in the ego world. When God creates you, God gives ALL of himself to you and yet loses nothing and HAS everything still - BOTH you and God now share everything and there has been an INCREASE. This is miraculous, it dissolves the idea of separation and exclusivity, transcending all ego concepts. The entirety of reality depends on it.
The system of God's mind, his thought system, how the Kingdom is run, is entirely based on this idea of simultaneous sharing, union at the same time as creation, multiplicity at the same time as oneness, having everything while also sharing it with others without anyone being excluded in any way. Heaven is not like this world. It's laws are totally different to the separated-out world the ego made to depict isolation and selfishness. There is no selfishness in the Kingdom, only self-fullness.
"The ego is the idea of selfishness. The soul is the idea of self-fullness."
You have everything, and we all share it as God's family.
"Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies which lead separate lives and go their separate ways."
"And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real."
On the one hand, it seems that people are not the same. That is, if you look at their bodies, their seemingly different personalities, they're all quite different. That's what we think makes everyone unique. But there is really no equality on this level. This is the level of differences, of disagreement, of conflict. Just the mere fact that two bodies are not alike is war.
We then look to higher morals and try to treat everyone the same, with some kind of unconditional love or equality of rights. That someone who is a certain race or sexual persuasion or gender etc might be treated in the same way as any other person. But the fact is that in order to lift up out of the realm of differences into the realm of equality, you HAVE to transcend the body.
We can't be saying that, on the one hand, we are bodies that are for sure all different, while on the other hand trying to find some kind of moral equality, or equal rights, democracy, or whatever. These higher ideals MUST transcend the very fact of the body's variation. It must in fact overlook and defy the very things that make the bodies stand out as unlike each other.
This is why for example if we are to be kind to people who have bodies that seem overweight, then we have to really be looking past the overweightness. And we can't honestly do that if we're looking at the body still, trying to make the body special or sacred or holy or more important or equally important or anything else is really a kind of denial.
You cannot find equality at the physical level. Physical things are NOT equal and never will be. So when we start talking about treating a person of a certain "type" in a fair and equal way to other bodies of other types, we're really trying to have our cake and eat it.
To keep the bodies and identify people as separate objects, while simultaneously deciding that they all deserve the same rights. But this is impossible. The separate and the same cannot be reconciled, nor can the different and the equal. But isn't variety and difference and uniqueness a wonderful celebration of individuality? No it's not.
So then we set about this confused mixture of trying to make all the special separate bodies special in their own ways, exalting them, having marches to support them, rallying to get certain kinds of bodies the same rights as other kinds, but all still entirely focused on bodies and identifying people with physically different objects. And there is simply a total inherent tug of war in that, you cannot be maintaining belief in separate things while claiming to be a proponent of equalism.
The ONLY way that makes any sense and which can produce TRUE unconditionality, is to entirely transcend ALL conditions, all differences, all forms, all shapes and sizes and colors, and every definition of a person as a physical object. You can't keep being a man or a woman and claim to be interested in equal rights. The ONLY way there is equality between the two genders is for them to NOT be two genders. For gender to not matter at all, you can't KEEP gender on the table. You have to look past it.
This means the only way to find any sense of unconditoinality towards anyone, you MUST not regard them as a physical body in any way, to any degree. You cannot make their body extra special, or put the bodies alongside each other and say they are all the same - which is a lie, and you cannot make out that certain bodies are deserving of what other bodies have. That's total insanity.
Only if we are NOT bodies is there equality. Only if we are all identical in every way, created by the same one creator, in the same design, with the same will, sharing the same mind, sharing the same everything together, united singularly under one purpose and one function, can there be equality. This is why there is only true equality in heaven, where the differences of separation and form and conflict and war do not exist.
You CAN "embody" that reality here, to an extent, which is what forgiveness is about. It's about living like you are in heaven while you're on earth, seeing with loving eyes instead of the physical eyes, and using the mind as primal cause instead of the body. And to do that you cannot put any emphasis on the body whatsoever.
You cannot be confused that people are their bodies because this fundamentally denies their soul. You cannot say that somoene is a certain shape or form because now you're separating them out which is in fact an attack. To say that anyone is a body is an attempt to bring them down, to isolate, to condemn, and to accuse of sin. You can't be doing that if you are interested in equality and unconditionality.
Bodies are utterly incompatible with love. They are utterly incompatible with treating everyone the same. The only way to treat everyone the same is to NOT treat them like they are a body, or have a body, or that their body means anything whatsoever. The body is NOTHING. It has no real value or meaning and isn't even real.
To regard a person as a body is to believe a fantasy about them and to NOT see them. Bodies are disguises, a form of camouflage, which people who want to hide from God wear to pretend they are physical objects. You won't find any true sense of trust or meaning or purpose or function or value or reality by regarding people as human bodies, or by trying to reconcile their utter incompatibilities by pretending they're all the same.
Bodies will never be the same, every single one of them is unlike the rest. And if you believe people are their bodies, you are literally denying them equality. Gay bodies, straight bodies, male bodies, female bodies, trans bodies, autistic bodies, tall bodies, skinny bodies, large bodies, short bodies, they are NOT the same, and they are NOT TRUE OF ANYONE.
"While you believe that BODIES can unite, you will find guilt attractive, and believe that sin is precious."
"He will, in fact, be unable to recognize his brother at all, for his Father did not create bodies, and so he is seeing in a brother only the unreal."
"Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN."
"Communication MUST have been restored to those that join, for this they COULD not do through bodies."
"On this side of the bridge, you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and to become one BY LOSING. When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in."
We are addicted to the body. We talk about the body as if it is the same thing as the person. We talk about what they are wearing as if they are the body wearing it. We ask what they are looking at, as if because the body is looking so are they. We talk about what the body did, what the body ate, and how the body slept, as if it was the person doing these things, which we then celebrate the body doing. We cover the body in clothes and remark at how wonderful WE look. We think we are it, and this is a major confusion of identity.
There is a PROFOUND degree of body identification in this world. Take a look at the news. You can be pretty much guarantee that almost every single news report will feature people who are heavily in victim fear roles, heavily bodily identified, not overlooking the situation whatsoever, and quite unconscious, discussing what happened to bodies. And then you have the whole "he did this to me" "she did that to me" "they were doing this and that". Always pointing to bodies, because only bodies can sin. "Only if there were a body is sin possible." "Only the body makes the world seem real." Always mistaking bodies for people.
And then we look to a spouse or a child or a parent or a neighbor or coworker or some other stranger and we say, look, behold, there is a person. But all we point at is the body, using our own body to sense its presence, and seeing little else.
Bodies are not souls, they are not real, and God did not create them. Parts of our mind are using the body temporarily but any confusion about the mind BEING the body is level confusion, magic, sickness, authority problem, body identification, attack thinking, blindness, and evidence of blocks to awareness. But this is how the whole world is operating almost all the time.
It is SO habitual, so ingrained, and so accepted as normal, that you see it very subtly infused into every advertising, every conversation, every interaction of body folk. It's become totally habitual. Always with the "you", in reference to the body self. "They" in reference to groups of bodies. The whole word of the law is written based on what bodies do to bodies and whose body did what to whom. Copyright law doesn't even acknowledge discarnate entities as valid authors, such as in the case of Jesus and ACIM.
It is so heavily assumed that people are bodies in this world, due to massive widespread body identification, that it is literally everywhere. In all walks of life, in all forms of communication, people think they are human beings with arms and legs. This is a problem, because it is not true. And we have to actually deprogram ourselves of this belief. And as we do this, we're going to start becoming VERY aware of the fact that the whole world is going against the truth in this way. That 99%+ of the population relates at a body-to-body level and does not see beyond it.
You can see how the development of christ vision, the opening of the spiritual eye, the clarification of spirit identification, recognizing YOU ARE NOT A BODY, you are spirit, is an entirely different kind of way of relating to people. It totally steps back from the entire association between "you" and "your body". It denies the assumption that your brother is his physical form. "You're looking great today Paul". Well, no, Paul isn't flesh and bones and you are blinded by perception of form. If Paul's like, oh hell yes, I'm looking great today, then now we're into Paul being body identified and having level confusion. And if Paul decides to confuse himself with his body in order to confuse his brother with a body in order to have a body relationship, well now he has a cell mate and they're both in hell.
This is how profound the course is. We have to learn to dis-identify ourselves from the FLESH AND BONES body prison. We have to learn it is NOT OUR SELF. We are not made of bits of flesh and strange organs. It does not look like us. It is not a representation of our true nature. At best it symbolized health and wholeness but your soul absolutely does not have a penis or vagina, nor does it make shits, nor does it sip the cool-aid. "I am not a body I am free" should mean that totally literally. 100% NOT even REMOTELY the body. Not even a tiny bit the body. Such that the body is utterly UNLIKE you in every way. Just a random picture of a form. Because "The body cannot contain you who are life." and "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."
When we show the body to our brother, identified with it, we are offering him hell and damnation, having damned ourselves to it. We give him what we have given ourselves. We can only offer him a body if we think we are a body. And this means we are offering him something valueless and meaningless. Which is a way to attack him and strip him of his divinity. Neither you nor your brother are physical. Your mind is non physical. Your soul is formless. UTTERLY FORMLESS. Abstract. Shapeless. Boundaryless. Unlimited by space or time.
When we make the body sick we use the body to accuse our brother of sin. This is an entire teaching to do with how the body symbolizes attack and communicates a message of proof of sin in order to find your brother unworthy. But it goes even further, not just including typical sickness, and even beyond sex. It goes as far as to say that EVERY way that you use the body determines the message it symbolized and if you have ANY KIND OF BODY IDENTIFICATION, this is an attack on your brother AND yourself.
If you show the body to your brother mistaken for yourself, you are communicating that he is not himself, and this is an attack. Just as body identification produces sickness, believing you are a body is denial of yourself and your brother. If you depict it to him with an attitude of "this is my self, look at me", you are trying to cause him to be confined to his body also. You cannot possibly see his true self if you cannot see yours. You cannot possibly appreciate his divine christ nature if you think you're not christ but a body. We need to rediscover our soul, our innate inner truth, God-given, if we are to RELATE in any kind of real, loving way to anyone.
If there is not a movement towards recognizing yourself as spirit, NOT a body, there is no awakening at all. That is the whole direction of the curriculum. Moving away from body identification, confused about who and what you are, towards clarity about the fact that you are not a body at all and never were. When "you" (body) look in a mirror you should not be believing that you're looking at yourself. Vanity is ego. When "you" (body) puts on the latest clothes that you fancy yourself in, you shouldn't be believing that this changes who or what you are at all, nor do these clothes define you. You could wear a sack of shit and be spirit identified knowing your true nature is absolutely golden and that the body has nothing to do with who you are.
Sex is only a small part of the body identification issue. It's a cornerstone and a reason to keep perpetuating the focus on bodies and the belief that people are physical forms. Confusing mind and body and believing the body can create, can cause, has power, can live, and is important. As Jesus says, "the body is hardly worth the least defense." "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." "God did not create the body."
So isn't it clear, that in order to exist, and to be created by God, you have to become very very clear that you are NOT a body in any way whatsoever, you don't need one, you don't want one, and you don't have one. Because "to be without abody is to be in your natural state.", which is a state of being solely spirit.
It is by identifying ONLY AS spirit (and not a gender or a sexual preference) that you free yourself FROM the body and become able to return home to God. You cannot be believing that ANYTHING "true" of the body is true of you. You are not male or female. You are not gay or straight or bi or anything else. You are spirit. You are immortal. You are made of light. You are divine. The body cannot possibly be anything but a fake artificial picture of a fake artificial self in a fake artificial dream pretending to be a someone. And the body cannot go to heaven with you. "Leave it behind, it cannot enter heaven."
But you, as spirit, can enter the spirit world. Your spirit is the only way through the gates of heaven, to reunite with God, the creator of your spirit, where "the only function of spirit is to extend God's being." There, your spirit has always dwelt with its maker, and has never really left. It is your spirit that is permanently recognized by God as holy and complete. "The soul never leaves the sight of God." "God's children are as equal as learners as they are as souls." Only your spirit self is the reality of you. Everything else is an illusion that you have become tangled up with, confused with, lost in, and believing is you. The body is not you. You are eternal.
"Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or cover it, or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract his body's eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your own interpretation of its value by his acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to you, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value he places on himself.
Gifts are not made through bodies, if they be truly given and received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out or take. Only the mind can value, and only the mind decides on what it would receive and give. And every gift it offers depends on what it WANTS. It will adorn its chosen home most carefully, making it ready to receive the gifts it wants, by offering them to those who come unto its home, or those it would attract to it. And there they will exchange their gifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be worthy of them.
Each gift is an evaluation of the receiver and the GIVER. No-one but sees his chosen home an altar to himself. No-one but seeks to draw to it the worshippers of what he placed upon it, making it worthy of their devotion. And each has set a light upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon it, and take it for their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother, and on yourself. Here is your gift to BOTH; your judgment upon the Son of God for what he is. Forget not that it is your Savior to whom the gift is offered. Offer him thorns, and YOU are crucified. Offer him lilies, and it is YOURSELF you free."