Misusing the Mind to Heal the Body
The ego uses physical illness and pain to make the body real to you. That is its primary goal for illness and pain. This shows up as using them for many reasons: To get attention, to punish you, to avoid situations, to make others guilty, etc. But of course no matter how physical symptoms show up their origin is in your mind. Ultimately all healing is the result of you accepting healing in your mind, either directly in your mind, or through “agents” like medicines, doctors, and treatments that seem outside of you and that remove the symptoms in a way that your mind can accept. Using external agents is what A Course in Miracles calls “magical thinking”, but it is necessary until you can accept healing directly.
“The miracle is useless if you learn but that the body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick; projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no effects.” (T-28.II.11)
Often students contact me because they are having a physical issue that they want to resolve. They want to know how they can use their mind to heal their body. But using the mind for the sake of the body is no different than using external means to heal the body. The mind’s purpose is never to serve the body because the body is never real. It is an effect of your mind, a symbol of the separation. A sick body is an effect and symbol of the guilt that you feel for separation from God. To use the mind to heal the body, then, is to continue to make the mistake of identifying with a body, which will perpetuate the guilt that brought about the physical symptoms in the first place. Illness or pain may go in one form, but they will simply come again in another form. The body is in the mind, and the body can serve the mind, but it cannot work the other way around. The body is never you, and to focus your mind for healing what is never real is to misuse your mind.
When I explain this to students they give examples of people who have spontaneously healed, or who have worked at their thoughts to heal their mind. Of course this happens. All physical healing is the result of a choice of the mind, no matter how it seems to come about. But as long as you perceive a body as your reality your mind is unhealed, and this will show up in the body in some form. And the ego will be glad to use your mind to heal the body to make your perceived separation from God more comfortable (when this is a convenient goal for the ego). You can shift physical symptoms around, and you can change them, but you will not wholly undo sickness until you no longer identify with ego. So rather than focusing on a body that is never you, your time is better spent with What is you: Communing with God, practicing the Holy Instant, extending Love, and building trust in the Holy Spirit through accepting Its Guidance. This is how your perception of separation from God is undone; this is how your mind is healed of its misidentification. And this will result in a body that no longer manifests a mind that is sick with separation from itself.
“The miracle is useless if you learn but that the body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick; projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no effects.” (T-28.II.11)
Often students contact me because they are having a physical issue that they want to resolve. They want to know how they can use their mind to heal their body. But using the mind for the sake of the body is no different than using external means to heal the body. The mind’s purpose is never to serve the body because the body is never real. It is an effect of your mind, a symbol of the separation. A sick body is an effect and symbol of the guilt that you feel for separation from God. To use the mind to heal the body, then, is to continue to make the mistake of identifying with a body, which will perpetuate the guilt that brought about the physical symptoms in the first place. Illness or pain may go in one form, but they will simply come again in another form. The body is in the mind, and the body can serve the mind, but it cannot work the other way around. The body is never you, and to focus your mind for healing what is never real is to misuse your mind.
When I explain this to students they give examples of people who have spontaneously healed, or who have worked at their thoughts to heal their mind. Of course this happens. All physical healing is the result of a choice of the mind, no matter how it seems to come about. But as long as you perceive a body as your reality your mind is unhealed, and this will show up in the body in some form. And the ego will be glad to use your mind to heal the body to make your perceived separation from God more comfortable (when this is a convenient goal for the ego). You can shift physical symptoms around, and you can change them, but you will not wholly undo sickness until you no longer identify with ego. So rather than focusing on a body that is never you, your time is better spent with What is you: Communing with God, practicing the Holy Instant, extending Love, and building trust in the Holy Spirit through accepting Its Guidance. This is how your perception of separation from God is undone; this is how your mind is healed of its misidentification. And this will result in a body that no longer manifests a mind that is sick with separation from itself.
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