The body is nothing. It is neutral. Therefore it has no power or ability to decline or to heal independently of the mind. However there is literally no way we can truly know this in our experience until we recognize and learn to demonstrate that only the mind can make the body sick and only the mind decides to heal the body. There is nothing out there either in the body or in the world, that can make the body sick. And there is nothing out there that can heal the real cause of sickness regardless of its form. Forgiveness is the only means by which the single cause of all suffering is healed. Without forgiveness, the cause remains unhealed to return and to plague us in myriad and often disguised forms.

I will begin here with an incredibly bold paragraph from Jesus in A Course in Miracles:

“A broken body shows the mind has not been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is without effect. What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness comes from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony of his innocence. It is this testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness proved to him” T-27.II.5.

And now I will expound here because this section of the Course is a particularly challenging one to the ego. Yet it is a crucial piece in the undoing of the ego thought system. Both Tomas and I resisted embracing this section for twenty years because of the fear it raised. Namely that it challenged our entire world view. It totally rocked our ego world.

A sick, aging or broken body demonstrates that the cause of sickness in the mind has not been healed. A miracle of healing the body is brought about by true forgiveness. So the miracle, by its transfer from a healed mind to a healed body, proves that separation from God’s Love, is without effect; without consequences or symptoms. How? Because the miracle heals the cause and the effect must follow.

Remember that both cause (mind) and effect (body) remain together in our mind. Heal the true cause (unconscious guilt) and the effect, the body, must be healed. Otherwise we would separate cause from effect and ideas could leave their source. And this is yet another devious ego attempt to make the separation real. Remember the body is not separate from the mind. It is purely an idea in the mind.

Jesus goes on to say that, “what you would prove to him, you will believe.” Meaning that everything we say, do or think testifies to what we teach others (along with ourselves). He then says that our body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of another (meaning because of others or the past). And in our body’s healing it offers  powerful physical proof of another’s innocence (and our own). He says that it is this testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here, in this miracle of our body’s healing, is another’s forgiveness proved to him and the world.

This is why, during Jesus’ brief incarnation in the dream, he healed so many via miracles. And why for more than 2,000 years afterward, he has beckoned us to do the same.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” ~ King James Bible, John 14:12

In Chapter 27 of the Course, Jesus speaks strongly about sickness and how we must be courageous in looking at the real cause of all sickness. And it’s not pretty, at all. I’ve covered a little already on the ego’s secret wish, the wish to be unfairly treated. But now it’s time to be brave and to go deeper. When we consent to suffer, we don’t suffer alone. Our suffering is a red flag shouting to the world that they are the cause of our pain and are therefore guilty. And while they are seen as guilty, then our pain, sickness or state of scarcity is proof that we are innocent. This is the unconscious and sick ego at work.

“Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated or in need of anything, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God’s Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and not in Heaven, where you are beyond attack and prove his innocence. The picture of yourself you offer him you show yourself, and give it all your faith. The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is no pain and no reproach at all. And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the perfect witness to his innocence.”T-27.I.3.

This section of the Course is so rich and powerful. But due to its blatant and  intentional threat to the ego, it is often overlooked or misinterpreted. In this section, Jesus reveals the sacred purpose of the body. It is to prove that illusions are just not true! And if they are not true, then the separation is indeed without effects! But first we need to look squarely at the ego’s objective in using sickness for its gain.

“A sick and suffering you but represents your brother’s guilt; the witness that you send lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture [you] accept, if only it can serve to punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, “Behold me, brother, at your hand I die.” T-27.I.4:3-6

But when we are conscious of this, we can decide with the Holy Spirit to heal the unconscious self-attack that caused our need to project guilt onto the body and the world. Finally, it can be undone. Now your body can be used to witness physically, that it has never suffered. Now you can valiantly declare the truth; that you cannot be hurt and that by your healing are you and the world made guiltless.

“Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a different you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you really are cannot be seen nor pictured. Yet this one has not been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. It witnesses to the eternal truth that you cannot be hurt, and points beyond itself to both your innocence and his. Show this unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look beyond it to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has never sinned; that nothing which his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind.” T-27.I.5:1-7

“Attest his innocence and not his guilt. Your healing is his comfort and his health because it proves illusions are not true. It is not will for life but wish for death that is the motivation for this world. Its only purpose is to prove guilt real. No worldly thought or act or feeling has a motivation other than this one.” T-27.I.6:1-5

Our function is to show the world that sin has no cause. When we abdicate the ego’s purpose for the body, Spirit is free to use the body as a demonstration that attack is not real and therefore, that guilt is an illusion. It is no longer my personal body. I no longer assign it autonomy or any power over God’s Will within. I no longer define the body as my identity. And then a wondrous thing unfolds:

“Into this empty space, from which the goal of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its purpose. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, “Behold me, brother, at your hand I live.” T-27.I.10.

Unconsciously we fear healing. One key reason the ego resists it is that in our true healing of both cause and effect, we must relinquish our projection of guilt onto others. This is the necessary cost. To forgive everyone and everything. The ego cannot survive without projecting guilt so it rejects true healing outright. Note: For the forgiveness/Atonement process click this link.

“Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain. Who would choose suffering unless he thought it brought him something, and something of value to him? He must think it is a small price to pay for something of greater worth. For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength. When this occurs, real strength is seen as threat and health as danger. Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God’s Son on his Father’s throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be conquered by His Son.” M-5.1.

Fear of the miracle is a strange thing. Many unknowingly fear the miracle’s translation into form. If miracles were not blocked they would indeed heal the sick and raise the dead. But only when we prioritize healing of our mind while not blocking the miracle via fear. Remember the nature of God’s Will is always healing. If God’s Will was not so feared by us then all we would see inside and out would be perfect healing. God’s Will is healing. Period. Everything else is the ego’s hallucination.

True healing is a consistent effect of our unequivocal joining with God’s Will. But we can’t join unequivocally while we still believe there is another “power” that is just as real and therefore equally valuable, i.e. sickness, pain, scarcity, loss, depression or death. While we choose to maintain belief in ego laws then we will reject God’s Laws including the miracle. Ego laws and God’s Laws are mutually exclusive and only one is true. For true healing to transfer from cause to effect; from mind to matter, we must look upon our unconscious fear of healing. Obviously if miracles were seen to translate to form, the cost would be enormously destructive to our ego belief system. It’s entire paradigm would collapse; because its laws of cause and effect would be totally reversed.

If you have sincerely asked for your perception to be healed but this healing has not appeared to translate to a physical healing there is only one reason. And that is the ego perceives imminent annihilation to its thought system if you accept full transfer of healing from cause to effect. Another way to look at this might be to ask the following. You might accept mind healing but if this healing resulted in an immediate physical healing, which of your old beliefs and values would be annihilated? In accepting full transfer of the miracle all your beliefs would require reversal. The body, the past and the world would be seen then as not out there, but in your mind; the only cause of all you seem to see. You would accept that your entire world is always being made by you and that you can never be a victim of it again.

Say you had a physical ailment that you are sure you have already forgiven with Spirit. While the cause (guilt) may have already been forgiven, the effect (pain or sickness) still remains. And you are puzzled as to why the effect (symptoms) had not been healed when the cause was healed. Let’s look at what Jesus has to say about this:

“Let us suppose, then, that what you ask of the Holy Spirit is what you really want, but you are still afraid of it. Should this be the case, your attainment of it would no longer [be] what you want. This is why certain specific forms of healing are not achieved, even when the state of healing is. An individual may ask for physical healing because he is fearful of bodily harm. At the same time, if he were healed physically, the threat to his thought system might be considerably more fearful to him than its physical expression. In this case he is not really asking for release from fear, but for the removal of a symptom that he himself selected. This request is, therefore, not for healing at all.” T-9.II.2.

 Last year, when I was in deep communion with Spirit one day, I heard the answer to a question that my heart had asked a few hours before. I had asked for clarification on physical healing through the miracle. Here is the answer:

“What makes the body so sacred, so special as to be immune to the miracle? There is no hierarchy of illusions. The body is in the same order of illusion as a grievance. Both are illusion and therefore can be healed equally. This is the power of the miracle. Once you accept that there is no hierarchy of illusions, you will then trust and demonstrate, that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.”

And to top it off, later I happened to flip to a random quote in the Course. Here is that quote: “How foolish and insane it is to think a miracle is bound by laws that it came solely to undo!” T-27.VI.6:3

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The 7 Keys to Authentic Communication
The Seven Essential Principles of Quantum Forgiveness
Powerful Forgiveness Process – The Atonement