Real communication stems from changeless Love and unopposed innocence as a natural extension of itself. The pure miracle impulse, as Love, starts with God and is always present in each Holy Instant that we show up authentically. When we contract in fear or judgment we block the miracle’s extension, and we also obstruct our receiving its benefits by rejecting the Love – as forgiveness – that heals our split mind. Forgiveness erases all our blocks to Love.

If we are not supremely peaceful, happy and healthy then we must have unresolved and unforgiven inner conflict. All illness, including physical death as Jesus teaches, is a defense against the truth; against our true Identity. But let’s go deeper and discern what this truth as our divine Identity is. This is God’s truth reflected here in the dream. God and His beloved Children know nothing of separation. As all-encompassing Love with no opposite, God and our Holy Self do not know of any separation nor the ego’s illusory idols of illness, pain, conflict, scarcity and death. These represent the ego’s convincing but imaginary defenses against the memory of our blissful, innocent, undivided union, as nothing less than the Will of God and His Kingdom.

Let’s take a peek at just why the ego insists on projecting illusions of sickness, pain, conflict and death. The ego’s greatest terror is of healing our split mind and awakening to our invincible Holy Self as perfect Love. In our awakening lies its annihilation. Illness, pain, conflict and death are the ego’s strongest defenses to keep us from awakening completely from the staggering misperception that we are the body and not immortal Spirit. These compelling illusions are among the ego’s grandest defenses against our awakening to our constant and unassailable immunity to all phenomena the ego projects in its attempt to prove the separation has in fact occurred.

“All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce sleeping out of fear of waking.” T-8.IX.3:2-3

The ego’s uses pain, sickness and death for separation, through isolation. By magically imbuing the completely neutral body with the seeming authority to attack through disease etc., the ego instructs the body to retreat from any threat of truth as Love and union by employing its defenses. While consciously we say we want to be healthy, pain free and avoid aging and death, the unconscious and uninvestigated ego mind has other plans.

“Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real, and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh, which it can not surmount.” W-137.2.

The fundamental qualities of truth that can be expressed here in the dream include radical Self-honesty and Self-loyalty, which are inherent in our true Identity as the Holy Self. In contrast, the ego thrives on specialness, self-dishonesty and self-disloyalty as the means it requires to keep the illusion “alive” through guilt. Awakening from the false self and its unrelenting defenses of illness, pain and conflict, necessitates the complete undoing of our fear of union – as the fear of God – which is the ego’s attraction to specialness, separation and death. Because the ego has designated the body as its means of attack, we must consciously repurpose the body with Holy Spirit. We then use the body to demonstrate union and health, thereby teaching all-inclusive guiltlessness by demonstration. These defenses of sickness, pain and conflict are initiated and fed by unforgiven guilt. Truth then can be summarized as a deep acceptance and understanding of true union as the Holy Self that we are. Awakening is the return to true union, and in the light of this blazing realization comes the acceptance of our complete invulnerability and innocence. This is What we are!

Pain, sickness, conflict and death all arise from some form of mental conflict caused by unforgiven guilt. Not many of us realize yet that all conflict (as guilt) begins with self-dishonesty, and the certain outcome from this is usually played out through some form of attack on the body and in our relationships.

“That forgiveness is healing needs to be understood, if the teacher of God is to make progress. The idea that a body can be sick is a central concept in the ego’s thought system. This thought gives the body autonomy, separates it from the mind, and keeps the idea of attack inviolate. If the body could be sick Atonement would be impossible. A body that can order a mind to do as it sees fit could merely take the place of God and prove salvation is impossible.”M-22.3:1-5

It must be seen that all pain, illness, conflict and adversity arise from the split mind (ego) but we won’t really want to discover and heal its fundamental source until we have genuinely reached our own pain threshold via the ego. Disillusionment with the ego and its projections always precedes our greatest breakthroughs. Consequently, believing in any self-blame or guilt for experiencing pain or illness is a total waste of time and an ego delaying tactic. Only the ego condemns. Holy Spirit never does. If we ask Him to help us divinely reinterpret the seeming issue, He replaces the ego’s judgments with right-mindedness which opens us up to miracles.

Since our Christ Mind is forever one with God and our brothers, it is in eternal and uninterrupted communication with God. It’s just that through our wish for separation we have temporarily blocked this communication of Love from our awareness. All-encompassing Love is all there is to communicate. The ego is fully aware that to hear the Father’s Voice would be the complete undoing of the fantasy of separation. Our unforgiven beliefs in sin, guilt and fear, including all their consequences such as illness, pain, conflict and death, are our blocks or defenses to true communication, as only Love can be communicated.

Our Christ Mind holds only what we think with God and is shared with God as nothing other than all-encompassing Love. The illusory split mind on the other hand, is the convincing dream of sin, guilt, fear, time, space, bodies and the 3-D world. Here we appear to have thoughts, feelings and experiences apart from God’s Love and truth. By our choice to first desire and then to believe in the dream of separation, we effectively chose to experience amnesia of our true Identity and purpose.

Because we have chosen to believe what our conditioning has taught us, we mistakenly think we actually know what will make us happy and what is in our own best interests. We carelessly conclude that we know what the body is to be used for. We erroneously assume that the body is an end goal, rather than understanding it to purely be a communication device which can lead us to go beyond it to the complete healing of our split mind. We think we know how to Love and communicate – but – what we don’t realize is that any communication originating from unforgiven guilt (blame, judgment, guilt trips, concern, worry, pain or illness) actually blocks true Love and communication. As soon as we mistake the body as our self, we invite fear into our mind and experience. As a consequence of this confusion, we then invite the illusions of attack and defense. Only an unreal “body self” could dream a fearful dream and then decide that it’s in need of any defense.

“The body is in need of no defense. This cannot be too often emphasized. It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill, to purposes beyond its scope, and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish. Such attempts, ridiculous yet deeply cherished, are the sources for the many mad attacks you make upon it. For it seems to fail your hopes, your needs, your values and your dreams.” W-135.7.

How Do We Block Healing?

Jesus recently revealed to me that the most persistent threat to the ego is the threat of union which is the fear of true communication. The ego’s primary defenses to true communication and union, aside from sickness, are the attraction to special relationships and special relating. It uses these defenses to maintain its illusory separate body and private mind concept, as separation.

Healing is always the restoration of true communication. It is the return to true union in our mind. All conflict, sickness and pain are the result of blocking healing as true communication. The primary incubator for blocking our healing comes in the form of having abandoned our self to Self-disloyalty and Self-dishonesty in our special relationships. If sinlessness and blamelessness are an absolute hallmark of true communication as Love, then through the ego we mistakenly learned how not to communicate, and therefore, how not to Love. Unfortunately, through special relating we learned how to further abandon and betray ourselves.

How many of us actually believe and even react to the insane critic in our mind? How many of us feel imprisoned by the tyranny of the ego’s constant self-judgment; by its relentless barrage of threats and self condemnation? All condemnation is self attack, whether it is toward others or self imposed. It’s all the same, as an ego attempt to sever communication and reject true union with our Holy Self and others.

“The beginning phases of this reversal are often quite painful, for as blame is withdrawn from without, there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult at first to realize that this is exactly the same thing, for there is no distinction between within and without.” … “Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as much an ego defense as blaming others. You cannot enter God’s Presence if you attack His Son.“ T-11.VI.4:5-6,5:5-6

Love and unopposed innocence are one and the same; where Love is … innocence is. It’s impossible to Love without valuing and upholding this innocence. Love is automatically denied in judgment. When we blame or judge anyone, including our self, we reject Love. Perhaps we can acknowledge how gladly and swiftly we choose to “judge” our self or others. This, the ego’s trigger reaction, is its first defense against the threat of true communication and union as Love. And sincere forgiveness is the divine antidote that gently restores true communication and union. At some point we will recognize the enormous cost of all judgment, and when triggered it will be our great joy to choose forgiveness as unopposed innocence instead.

True communication and union begins within first. Remember this – every thought that we “believe” either positive or negative, is our wish to have it manifest. Belief in it translates to our valuing it. Every believed thought is a prayer. And this is why it’s crucial to bring our own self talk and judgments up to the light of Holy Spirit so as they’re not denied and projected onto the body as disease and death, or onto our relationships as conflict or betrayal. All of these are hidden self-attack until they are wholly forgiven. Recall that all forgiveness is always self forgiveness.

All self talk must be screened in mindful presence, and effectively “sorted out” as either truth or illusion with Holy Spirit. If we sincerely desire to heal then we need to learn to be mindfully present and accountable (without guilt) for all our self talk, as well as our interactions and reactions with others.

The predominant reason for attracting conflict, pain and illness is because of our unrecognized Self-betrayal and Self-dishonesty. This unforgiven Self-betrayal and dishonesty must be projected outward and this is why the body seems to betray us with cancer or other forms of disease. The body, as a now moment projected image, is entirely neutral and cannot sicken or heal of itself; it is merely a screen onto which we project our own denied self attack, or our Self Love. The body always responds exclusively to what we use it for.

Special Relating Condemns the Body

Special relationships are body-centered and body-bound. They come about as a result of having abandoned true communication and union with our Holy Self and others. In special relating we compartmentalize our thoughts and feelings, intensifying the inner and outer split which will eventually show up as dis-ease in the body. The body is unfortunately misused in special relationships. The guilt that binds special relationships is always taken out on the body. The ego projects its unforgiven guilt as attack onto the body in its effort to try to prove that sin, guilt, attack and separation are real. And while we believe in these lies then we will perpetuate them because we are secretly, bitterly afraid of true communication and union – as Love.

“The body will remain guilt’s messenger, and will act as it directs as long as you believe that guilt is real.” T-18.X.5:1

True communication and union necessitate the consistent and mindful practice of authentic relating with our self and others. We cannot possibly be truly authentic and yet still engage in special relating. It is impossible. Special relating is the absence of Love because it is fearful communication and ultimately judgmental. As such it is attack, which requires us to vacate our authentic Self. Thus, it breaks communication and blocks true union. Therefore, and by reversal, true healing calls for authentic relating or Holy relating. By necessity, healing involves the thorough and divine repurposing of what we use the body for. While we continue to use the body for self-seeking pleasure (pain) and special relating, we unknowingly use the body for attack. Remember that special relating severs communication as Love.

Special relating revolves around its central idol, the body, and by its very nature demands Self-dishonesty, disloyalty and guilt to sustain it. What we don’t seem to realize is through this, we reject healing by blocking miracle impulses. The pure miracle impulse – as Love, communication and healing – flows constantly. However, while we value judgment and blame and while we continue to value being body-centered in our relationships, either positively or negatively, we unknowingly block the miracle. Unexpressed miracle impulses are the cause of all illness. We heal by transcending self interests; by extending beyond the body. In our desire to see innocence in another, rather than a body, we heal.

“Communication ends separation. Attack promotes it.” …“Healing is the result of using the body solely for communication. Since this is natural it heals by making whole, which is also natural. All mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical, or not mind, is a fragmented or sick interpretation. Mind cannot be made physical, but it can be made manifest [through] the physical if it uses the body to go beyond itself. By reaching out, the mind extends itself. It does not stop at the body, for if it does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind that has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has turned against itself.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.” T-8.VII.4:1-2,10,11,12:6-8,13:3-6

A common motive for why we continue to value special relating is because we still hope to find the “Love,” reverence and acceptance from another that is missing in our false self. But this is the same sense of reverence and unconditional acceptance that we so readily deny in our Holy Self. It’s the forgiveness that we deny extending to others which must be first given before we can receive it. Instead, we look externally to the body, others and the world, for what we mistakenly believe will complete us. This is a hopeless situation indeed!

We can only ever recognize and find in another what we secretly believe about our self. And while we choose to believe our own destructive self talk, condemnation and resentments, then this must be projected outward onto others and the body. It’s the ego’s vicious cycle, and at some point, when we have truly had enough, we will muster the courage to break the cycle.

To escape the ego’s bondage, we must learn to replace the voice of condemnation with the Voice for Love. Jesus speaks of how our grievances actually attack Love. If we are Love, then we are attacking our Self with all our judgments and resentments.

“Grievances are completely alien to love. Grievances attack love and keep its light obscure. If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. I am determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember Who I am.” W-84.3 (68)

The first step in restoring true communication and union is to learn to stop blocking our true Identity which is uninterrupted, unopposed innocence as Love. Regardless of the ego’s ranting in our mind, it’s important that we learn true Self loyalty and show-up to mindfully rebuke any negative self talk or blame, reminding our self that this is always the ego’s defense against our Holy Self as Love. Applying this discipline is real Self trust and Self Love. In this practice we learn to be radically Self-honest and Self-loyal first. We can never expect anyone else to be loyal, Loving, honest and unconditional with us until we learn how to communicate with our Holy Self.

While we passively “accept” resentments and negative self-talk, they remain unforgiven, to be used by the ego for attack on the body and in relationships. Mindful undoing without judgment is necessary and this is what the Atonement and the Seven Key Principles of Authentic Relating are for. They are tools to help undo the ego’s blocks to true communication and miracles. Note: The Seven Keys can be found on page 568 and The Seven Essential Principles of Quantum Forgiveness (Atonement) are on page 587.

God as Love is the only real Cause, but while we still mistakenly believe we are the body and we engage in special relating, we will be tempted to give reality to the ego’s cause (sin, guilt) and its illusory effects as illness, pain, conflict and death. This is precisely why when tempted, we can accept the Atonement as the closing of the gap within. Once that gap is closed within and we wholeheartedly accept our incorruptible innocence … the apparent consequences of separation (as sickness, pain, conflict, etc.) are also healed.

“Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains and nothing more.”

“Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body’s health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.”

“Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick.” W-136.17,18,19

As we heal and cease compartmentalizing our lives and communication (while returning to innocence and authenticity using the Seven Keys and forgiveness) we completely repurpose the body. The body’s condition is a direct reflection of our degree of alignment with Holy Spirit. The body automatically falls into perfect alignment with our authentic and vertical purpose, to awaken to the pristine sinlessness and guiltlessness we share with everyone. Only here, in whole forgiveness and authentic alignment, can we be consistently free of unconscious motives to use the body as a witness to attack and guilt.

When we agree to abdicate every ego purpose for the body, the body naturally aligns with the harmonious governance and authority of the Holy Spirit. It becomes a symbol of sinlessness, free of all signs of attack. This is the natural outcome of using our body only for communication; to reach our brothers with Holy Spirit’s message of our all-inclusive sinlessness. In this, the body is liberated from separation and divinely dedicated to union, by transcending self-interests.

True health and consistent miracle working are the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. Remember that “pleasure and pain” are one and the same because they serve a solitary function – to make the body real, a convincing opponent to our Holy Self and God’s Will. And this is why the body seems to sicken, age and die. As long as we still prefer to extract our pseudo fulfillment from the body with its sensual pleasures and pain, we remain divided. The outcome of this confusion is a divided body used by the ego to seek suffering and death.

“The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so He can teach His message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you. Everything used in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit sees it cannot be sick. Everything used otherwise is. Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your decision to attack. Health is seen as the natural state of everything when interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, Who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life Itself.” T-8.VIII.9.

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