Writing this book has been such a wonderful opportunity to document my own process while I learn to embody these Divine teachings. As I mentioned before, the body is the last special relationship that we willingly surrender to Spirit entirely. On the contrary, through the ego we are far more accustomed to and comfortable in handing the body over to disease and death.

Unlearning the body’s purpose is a must. This is what I am learning. While I still retain idols apart from God’s Love, I will suffer guilt. Then I inevitably invite the ego’s self-attack. An idol is anything that we believe either sustains us or endangers us. For instance, the idols of food, money and relationships might seem to sustain us. And the idols of disease, pain and financial scarcity may appear to attack us. In a nutshell, both the idols we desire and the ones we try to avoid belong to the same hierarchy of illusions. An idol is simply an illusion that we believe is real. While we believe it is real, we ‘value’ it above God’s Love.

Whatever we desire and whatever we attempt to protect ourselves from are both idols that we unknowingly give greater reality to, than God’s Love. In our desire for them and our defense against them, we make them real. And while we make these illusions real, we reject God’s Reality. We cannot serve two masters. We undo these illusions as we willingly exhume them and give them wholly to Spirit to reinterpret for us. This is the journey of the development of trust. We withdraw our trust in the ego’s idols and transfer it to Spirit’s changeless Love.

While we independently attempt to run our lives relying on what the ego believes sustains and attacks us, then we will continue to believe that we are indeed a body and that the ego world is real. And when we still believe we are a body, we deny our Holy Self and unconsciously attract and teach suffering and death.  

Unlearning the body’s purpose involves learning to look past appearances. Remember that when we seem to see anything that is not God’s Love, we are literally seeing un-reality. An ugly hallucination. This is what all suffering is regardless of the form it takes. Again, there is no hierarchy of form. Remember the ego uses the body’s senses to witness what it wants them to find. That is why it’s so important to look beyond the appearance with Spirit and to ask for the truth beneath the ego appearance.

‘The body does not change. It represents the larger dream that change is possible. To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found yourself before. There is no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things. And they reflect the teacher who is teaching them. The body can appear to change with time, with sickness or with health, and with events that seem to alter it. Yet this but means the mind remains unchanged in its belief of what the purpose of the body is.’ T-29.II.7.

Jesus says clearly here that the body cannot change independently of the mind. Like all ‘form’ in the ego’s dream, none of it has the ability to change without our say so. But while we remain hypnotized by form, we will continue to believe that ‘matter’ has it’s very own authority, one that is apart from our own mind.

“Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its nothingness is guarantee that it can [not] be sick. In your demand that it be more than this lies the idea of sickness. For it asks that God be less than all He really is.” T-29.II.8:1-4

Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Jesus says the body, as nothing, is guarantee that it cannot get sick. The only reason it appears to age or sicken is because we make the body a ‘god’ in itself. We choose to use it for an alien purpose; for self-attack. While I believe my life depends exclusively upon my body and resources in the world, I value idols over God’s Love. And while I believe I must independently defend myself from attack then I make what I defend against real, thereby rejecting awareness of my Divine invulnerability.

In the ego belief system, the body is ‘expected’ to age, to decay and to die. To the ego, this is natural and legitimate. Yet Jesus tells us that this is insane. How can the body, something that is completely ‘neutral’ with no inherent ability to change of itself,  become diseased and die?   

As we age, we’re encouraged to fight against it; to take precautions such as regular medical checks, take supplements and exercise. All this is to ward off the inevitable onslaught of the decaying process.

How about an example here? Let’s use an idol that I have previously believed sustains this body. Regular physical exercise. To me, physical exercise was an un-relinquished idol. A defense against remembering my certain invulnerability in God’s Love. This is what all my defenses were made to hide. “If I defend myself I am attacked. But in defenselessness I will be strong, and I will learn what my defenses hide.” W-135.22:4-5

Now this realization didn’t mean that I  should give up exercise. Not at all. But it did urge me to look at this with Spirit and to surrender my independent beliefs and need to control it. The funny thing is that when I loosened my own grip on the need to be disciplined with exercise, I experienced an ego back-lash. The result was a period of physical ailments that seemed to manifest as a direct result of lack of exercise.

Yet that’s exactly what I had ‘expected!’ When I examined my thought process with Spirit, I saw that I had manifested these ailments because I expected them. What we expect, we must manifest. I am being taught to see that nearly everything we do here is done from fear and not from Love and joy. Dieting and exercise, taking supplements or medicine. These are defenses against expected attack. And while they remain unconscious they attract the very suffering we attempt to defend ourselves against.

As I have said before, it’s not about giving-up our magical remedies. It’s about owning up to them with Spirit. And asking Spirit in to help us look at them while reinterpreting these so as they are no longer used for unconscious self-sabotage.

In the reinterpretation process I am learning that once I bring Spirit’s presence into my daily decision-making and actions, a truly remarkable change occurs. Instead of determining my exercise routine with the ego, I am doing it with Spirit. Through the ego, I would plan my discipline and routine. All based on fear. I looked to the exercise routine as my savior; as my source of safety. Instead of looking within to God’s Love. And when I missed a session I would suffer self-criticism and guilt. That’s the ego right there!

What followed next was the ego’s plan for my punishment in the form of unconscious self-attack. Hence the ‘appearance’ of physical ailments that manifested once I began to question the ego’s authority. Now,  if I had truly ‘believed’ these physical ailments were caused by my sudden lack of exercise, I would have fallen into the ego’s trap. It always diverts us from discovering the real cause in our mind. Instead I went to Spirit and asked to see and release (forgive) the underlying cause of my suffering. It is always guilt regardless of the particular form of manifestation.

Now I’m learning to intuit just when to exercise. It must arise from an honest inspiration of joy and not from fear or guilt. This is a huge turn-around and I am noticing that when I apply these principles to one area of my life, they gradually transfer to every area.

Jesus points out that we always defend ourselves against illusions. Yet once we recognize this and decide to look past appearances with Spirit, a whole new reality rushes in to meet us. But will we take the risk?

“You always fight illusions. For the truth behind them is so lovely and so still in loving gentleness, were you aware of it you would forget defensiveness entirely, and rush to its embrace. The truth could never be attacked. And this you knew when you made idols. They were made that this might be forgotten. You attack but false ideas, and never truthful ones. All idols are the false ideas you made to fill the gap you think arose between yourself and what is true. And you attack them for the things you think they represent. What lies beyond them cannot be attacked.” T-30.IV.1:2-10

In this same section (T-30.IV.), he explains that through the ego, the things and laws we made up are like children’s toys. We forgot that we made up all these laws and gave the world power over us instead of the other way around. And while we still assign value to the body and the world we continue to be persecuted by them. But we made them up, so how can they be a real threat?

“You can laugh at popping heads and squeaking toys, as does the child who learns they are no threat to him. Yet while he likes to play with them, he still perceives them as obeying rules he made for his enjoyment. So there still are rules that they can seem to break and frighten him. Yet [is] he at the mercy of his toys? And [can] they represent a threat to him?” T-30.IV.3:6-10

I’m learning that the world we made and the laws that govern it are certainly not God’s Laws. I am under no laws but God’s!

“Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is His laws that guarantee your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey no laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules you set for them. But then they fall and cannot rise again…They must be neither cherished nor attacked, but merely looked upon as children’s toys without a single meaning of their own. See one in them and you will see them all. See none in them and they will touch you not.” T-30.IV.4:1-5,9-11

“Appearances deceive [because] they are appearances and not reality. Dwell not on them in any form. They but obscure reality, and they bring fear [because] they hide the truth. Do not attack what you have made to let you be deceived, for thus you prove that you have been deceived. Attack has power to make illusions real. Yet what it makes is nothing. Who could be made fearful by a power that can have no real effects at all? What could it be but an illusion, making things appear like to itself?  Look calmly at its toys, and understand that they are idols which but dance to vain desires.  Give them not your worship, for they are not there. Yet this is equally forgotten in attack. God’s Son needs no defense against his dreams. His idols do not threaten him at all. His one mistake is that he thinks them real. What can the power of illusions do?” T-30.IV.5.

As I write this book I am acutely aware that I am in the ‘process’ of learning these deeper teachings. And each time I get lost I ask Spirit to teach me. “Please reveal to me what my defenses would hide. Teach me, show me, guide me.” I want to know what really dwells beneath my independent desire to sustain and defend myself, apart from God’s all-encompassing Love. Amen.

” God’s Son needs no defense against his dreams. His idols do not threaten him at all. His one mistake is that he thinks them real.” T-30.iv.5:12-14

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