ACIM Chapter 8. VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P 11-13

ACIM Chapter 8. VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P 11-13

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P 11

11 The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind that is working through the body, but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal it will distort its perception of the body, and by blocking its own extension beyond it, will induce illness by fostering separation. Perceiving the body as a separate entity cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication loses its usefulness if it is used for anything else. To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose.

I am reminded of times when I have had pain or sickness and chose healing. For instance, I had a migraine one day and remembered that pain and sickness are a defense against God. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see this differently. I was guided to see the value I place in migraines and was shown how they serve me. They get me out of doing things I don’t want to do. They get people to feel sorry for me and give me attention. The belief behind all the other beliefs is that the migraines prove I cannot be the Son of God because a Divine Being would not have headaches.

Examining these blocks was an important step to being free of them.

These were some of the blocks that prevented me from living through the body rather than living as if I were a body. As I saw these blocks, I realized they were not worth keeping. In fact, they were silly, something I used to believe I needed, and just an old habit. I let them go, and the headache went with them. More importantly, the desire to hide out in a body was loosened, and I was open to knowing how Spirit would have me live through this body.

With the migraine, I was teaching, and so learning, that I am a body governed by a body and all its weaknesses. I was teaching that I had to suffer to be loved. I was teaching that I am vulnerable and weak. This is not communication, and it is not what I am. I was teaching a lie, a false story of pain and suffering.

Accepting the headache as inevitable and pretending to be helpless against it left the blocks to love in place, and so was an attack on myself and on the Sonship. Having let go of the beliefs that sourced the headache, I was teaching that I am love, and so I was learning that I am love. I am more than the body you see. I am not subject to the body; the body is used by me.

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P12

12 To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously with the same thing and not suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by one purpose. This releases the mind from the temptation to see the body in many lights, and gives it over entirely to the One Light in which it can be really understood. To confuse a learning device with a curriculum goal is a fundamental confusion that blocks the understanding of both. Learning must lead beyond the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind in it. This can be accomplished only if the mind extends to other minds, and does not arrest itself in its extension. This arrest is the cause of all illness, because only extension is the mind’s function.

Jesus tells us that to communicate is to join, and to attack is to separate. I was talking to a friend about something that was happening in her life. She was having problems with her family, and this was not a new thing for her. She often saw herself stuck in the same place, confused about what to do about it. And she eventually comes to me to talk about it.

Here is what happened in my mind.

I wondered why she asked me for help when she had no intention of listening to me. It seemed obvious that she should let this problem go finally. Why would she hold onto it? It was so painful to her, and the solution was so simple. I wondered what I was supposed to say this time that would make a difference. I wondered if I would have time to eat lunch before my next appointment.

That is the ego chatter that I heard going on in my mind. That is attack, and attack is separation. When I would think like this and when I believed my thoughts, the mind was arresting itself at the body. It was like saying that we are these bodies, and this body has interests apart from that other body. It judges and resents and is impatient. In doing these things, the body is made sick, because the mind misuses it.

At one time, this seemed perfectly normal to me.

In fact, I couldn’t imagine seeing it differently. I looked at someone else and really saw someone else. Now, I cannot imagine looking at someone else and not knowing, at least on some level, that there is no one else. There is only the Son of God, and we are all part of the Son.

With a more healed mind, when my friend called me to rehash the same tired old problem, I heard the thoughts in my mind. But I completely disregarded them. It was like someone had left the TV on in the other room. I could hear it, but I had no interest in it. As I listened to my friend, I reminded her of the truth. But mostly, I just loved her. I knew that it didn’t matter how many times she needed to look at that problem. She will look at it until she is ready to let it go, and how long it takes is a non-issue.

I will play my part as listener, and I will let the Holy Spirit speak through me as the reminder she came to receive. In my patience, my love, and my willingness to play my part, and in my willingness to see my friend as part of my self, I am allowing the mind to extend past the body. I am joining, and so I am communicating. It may be that I am communicating with words, but that is not the important part. I am communicating through my willingness to allow love to flow between us unimpeded by a need for anything to be different than it is.

VII. The Body as a Means of Communication, P13

13 The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes depression instead of joy, you cannot be listening to God’s joyous Teacher and learning His lessons. To see a body as anything except a means of communication is to limit your mind and to hurt yourself. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, it becomes whole because the mind’s purpose is one. Attack can only be an assumed purpose of the body, because apart from the mind the body has no purpose at all.

I know the signs that I am using the body for separation instead of for communication. I see that this is so when I feel depressed or when I feel angry. Other signs or when I feel confused and when I feel guilty or think someone else is guilty. And I know it is happening when I judge, even if I don’t express the judgment aloud.

So, what do I do when I notice I feel depressed? What do I do when I see that I am limiting what the Holy Spirit can heal because I hold onto my grievances and my wrong-minded thinking? Here is something I wrote earlier in this study of the Text.

“Here is what happens each time I bring a grievance to the Holy Spirit.

I sit with Him and tell Him all about it. I show Him why I believe the problem is real and has serious consequences, and I let Him see my rage. Or I let Him see how frightened I am or how hurt. Then I ask Him to heal my mind and He says, “It’s OK, Honey. It’s just a bad dream. You are sleeping, and in your sleep, you dreamed this happened. It’s time to wake up now.”

So, this is what I do. I become transparent to the Holy Spirit. To do so, I express fully what I am feeling and thinking. I show him my rage, my fear, and my guilt. Then I ask Him to help me to remove from my mind the beliefs that are causing me to hang onto the dream. I ask Him to help me wake up. And I ask Him to decide for me, even asking him to decide what I should think about a certain thing. I ask Him to decide for me how I should feel about it. I am choosing to surrender the ego completely and allow my Self to rise up and take its place in my mind.

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