August 19, 2014

I ran across this phrase in my reading this week. “Healing is of the Mind.” I don’t remember where I read it, but it resounded in my being as it certainly could have come from the Course. This section of Chapter 8 of the Course certainly says it in a variety of ways. But we don’t fully understand it. Our attitude toward the body, or our beliefs about the body tend to take precedence over our awareness of who we really are. We have learned that we are not a body; that the body is not who we really are. We are spirit, we are One with our Creator and all of Creation, whole, perfect, and joyous. The healing the Course is referring to is the healing of the mind. Healing of the mind is the correction of how we perceive or how we think about ourselves, each other and our Source. The Course refers to sickness as insanity. This is sickness of the mind. The Course also tells us we are and always have been whole. The only limits placed on our wholeness are placed there by our split mind, the mind that has convinced us we are separate from who we really are. Healing is the correction of the perception of who we think we are!

Spirit asks us to allow Spirit to teach us the correct perception of the body. Asking Spirit to heal the body keeps our minds mired in incorrect perception. But asking Spirit to heal our perception gets our minds to the root of healing at its most basic level. I‘m not saying to ignore the health of the body while we are journeying in this world, but to keep it in perspective and also go to the root of our misperception. This is where Spirit can work most effectively. This is the level where miracles occur. A miracle is a change in perception to a more correct perception. A miracle is a healing of a thought or perception. Nothing is more joyous than allowing Spirit to raise our level of perception and thus our level of awareness.

The Course tells us in paragraph 3 that, “Wholeness heals because it is of the mind.” Our awareness of our wholeness must be in our mind to be truly transforming. Where else can we believe we are whole but in our mind? Any thought of lack of wholeness is basically a fear of awakening to the realization of who we really are. Our egoic thought system has convinced us we are afraid of who we really are and that we therefore should not awaken to that reality. Again, we have Spirit to guide us in this awakening. We need not accomplish it ourselves. Spirit meets us right where we are and uses our perceptions to raise our level of perception to a higher level, bringing us to a more correct level of perception.

Healing is our joining into One Mind. In paragraph 8, the Course tells us “When we limit ourselves we are not of one mind, and that is sickness. Yet sickness is not of the body but of the mind. All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split, and does not accept a unified purpose.” Spirit guides us in this healing, the unification of purpose. We are created to be and extend Love. We are created whole. We are created perfect. We are created lacking nothing and having all we need and all there is. We are created limitless. What power there is in the realization of this truth about all we are. It is not a power over anyone or anything, but a power of rest, comfort and knowing. Spirit is gently calling to us, calling us to awaken from our slumber and awaken to the reality of who we really are. Open your eyes. Remove the blocks to the awareness of who you really are and rejoin the unified purpose of the One Mind. Be the fullness of Love and let Love radiate from within your being to all you encounter. Thus are our minds healed as we realize again we are whole.

August 12, 2014

A lot can be revealed to us by taking a look at our attitude toward the body. What do we really believe about the body? And where is our allegiance in relation to the body? The Course has taught us that the body is simply a learning device and nothing more. It is a device whose sole purpose is to be used to communicate the reality of who we really are to another. When we realize and accept the truth that we are not a body, but spirit, we open the window Spirit uses to reach other spirits who believe they are bodies through our body. Our realization that we are not limited by our body opens our mind to the endless possibilities of our Oneness with all of creation. We begin to see beyond the appearances of the world we see and look to the wholeness and limitlessness beyond. Even the world of form reflects wholeness and limtlessness if we look with Spirit’s eyes beyond its appearances.

Do we believe that the body is a means or an end? If we identify ourselves as a body and therefore separate, we are seeing the body as an end. Identifying ourselves as bodies means we believe that is what we are and that we are vulnerable, for that is what we believe about the body. Rather, the body is a means to an end. What is the end? It is the realization that we are as we are created, whole, perfect, loving, and One with Source and all creation. Spirit’s function for the body is a means to communicate the truth about who we really are to each other. Spirit must use the body to communicate this truth because we are so caught up in our identity as a body that we refuse to listen to anything else but the body. So Spirit communicates through the body until we begin to realize that we are so much more than the body, and that our identification with the limited body only limits our awareness of who we really are.

Our attitude about our body is the reflection of who we believe we really are. We can project separation through our identification as a body, or we can extend love through the acceptance and belief that we are who we are created to be. To recognize our true being is to have connected with the Mind of Spirit and realize we are One Mind, that we are whole, perfect, and unlimited. Joy bubbles up in this realization. Love flows freely, extending from and to every corner of our being and the universe. This is the river of life that flows unceasingly through all of us all of the time. The function of our body in this world of form is to communicate that river of life which brings love and peace to our minds as we let Spirit reveal it. Are we using our bodies to divide and conquer? Or, are we allowing Spirit to use our bodies to communicate love to all our brothers and sisters thirsting for that unconditional love and the realization of their wholeness. Allow Spirit’s river to flow through you today so each one you encounter will experience the true function of the body. May our bodies be a means to the reawakening of the awareness of who we really are.

August 5, 2014

We have been discussing the one appropriate function of the body as a means of communication. Guided by the egoic thought system, the body is ruled by chaos. But guided by the Holy Spirit, the body is not ruled by chaos. The body becomes a means by which the part of the mind we tried to separate from spirit can reach beyond its distortions and chaos and return to spirit from hence it came. Our mind, guided by Spirit, looks beyond the appearance of separation the body represents to the reality that we are One Mind, forever joined in the Oneness of Spirit. Guided by Spirit we look beyond the appearance of a separate body to the reality of who we really are, One Mind, while we are communicating that reality through our temporary bodies. What a blessing we experience when we begin to perceive this reality.

Healing comes to our minds as a result of using the body solely for the purpose of communicating the reality of who we are with each other. This appropriate communication happens for the most part at the level of mind and perception rather than in words. The reality of who we really are simply cannot be adequately put into words, for words are totally inadequate. What words we use merely point us in the right direction. Communicating a healing thought, the thought that recognizes the truth of who and what we really are, happens at the thought level, the level where true communication occurs. The thought recognizing a brother or sister is whole, perfect, and complete just as they are is truly recognized at the mind, allowing the minds of another and ourselves to reawaken to their joined Oneness. To recognize that another and I are completely One restores the awareness of our wholeness to both of our minds. What blessing and joy comes in that recognition. All mistakes and misperceptions fade away as we join in this mutual recognition.

As our minds are guided by Spirit we reach out, extending our minds beyond our bodies, to rejoin our awareness that we are all One Mind. We all carry the Mind of our Creator in our own being. Our own being is complete as our Creator’s is, for we are an extension of our Creator, never having really separated from our Creator at all. This reawakening to the awareness of our natural joined state of being is the return of our true nature to our awareness. Happiness, joy, and love fill our being with an incredible sense of peace. We find ourselves at rest in our true nature. All effort ceases, for our true nature is right for us. We relax into the communion with all creation that we so long for as we seek it in separation outside of ourselves. It has always been within us, simply blocked from our awareness by our egoic thought system. Awaken to the fact that the bocks we think are in our way are nothing. They become transparent and insubstantial and fade into nothingness as we allow our minds to be guided by Spirit.

Take a moment. Step back, observe your mind and allow Spirit to guide your mind to its natural state of Oneness. See, then, the reality of the Oneness of all creation in its wholeness and perfection and unity. We truly are the One Child of God. There are many facets and many appearances in this chaotic world, but in reality we are truly One blessed One. Allow yourself to awaken to this reality and see it in all creation in One holy instant. Let it be so.