Honor the Physical in the New World

“You must not fear the changes that will occur within your physical form as it begins to be guided by the thought system of the truth rather than the thought system of illusion. You will fear these changes less if you realize that all that has come of love will be kept and that all that has come of fear will fall away. You have no need to fear that the end of the special relationship will separate you from your loved ones. You have no need to fear that the joys you have shared with others will be no more. You have no more need to fear the loss of physical joys than you have to fear the loss of mental and spiritual joys.” (ACOL, T3:19.1)

We will lose nothing of any value when we live in the House of Truth, a House that also means love and peace, and the Kingdom of God. I sometimes like the appellation, “Kingdom of God,” better than the “House of Truth,” because the Kingdom is familiar terminology. It expresses exactly what we need to hear without any need to learn a new term. And Jesus does say in A Course of Love that the Kingdom of God and the House of Truth are the same concept.

We do not need to become celibate in our new embodiment of the elevated Self of form. This is a common misconception, as many very advanced teachers of God choose to forego personal relationships, especially personal relationships of a physical nature.

But Jesus goes to great lengths in ACOL to let us know that this is just a choice, and a different choice can be made. Why would the physical Self be emphasized in ACOL if we were to try to avoid any use of our bodies?

This does not mean that the physical is real. The world, A Course in Miracles tells us, is a projection, and projections are not real. But we experience it as real, and this makes all the difference.

We will probably be freer of sickness when we embody the elevated Self. Our minds will no longer make illness a way of life. And we do create our own reality. Nobody, though, is to be seen as a victim of ill health, nor to be blamed for the state of their health. We need to observe compassion in such examples, always compassion. Our love for our brothers and sisters demands no less.

Prayer

My relationship to the physical is honored. What a great blessing this is! Physical displays of affection and love are to be respected and even to be revered. This means that the physical is never deemphasized, and indeed may even be emphasized in the new world we are creating.

Be with me today if minor aches and pains happen. I am blessed with ease in the physical, and so anything that happens is likely to be transitory. Be with me to focus on the good and the beautiful. Help me not to encourage thoughts about anything less, lest these thoughts create a reality that I don’t want.

Thank You for being with me today and every day. Be with me in the only way that You know how—in warmth and caring, a sense of love that banishes all worry and preoccupation with those things that I don’t desire to have in my life.

Amen.

Elevated Self of Form

“[W]e are talking now, in a certain sense, of an elevation of form.  While this is actually an elevation beyond form, it must begin in the reality of where you think you are.  In other words, it must begin with form.  You cannot await some changed state but must create the changed state you await.  (Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought, 9.3)”

Affirmation:  “I would choose an elevation of form today.”

Reflections:

1 – Do Not Give Up the Physical

Here Jesus is introducing the concept that will be elaborated upon later as the “elevated Self of form.”  We do not give up the physical, but we elevate it.  A Course in Miracles, in contrast, downplays the physical as illusory and perhaps therefore as less important to us.  Yet even though we live in a dream (until we experience the real world), the dream seems very, very real to us.  And Jesus is aware of that, very much so, in A Course of Love.

2 – Living Christ-Consciousness

The two works, ACIM and ACOL, have a continuity, though.  The elevation is actually an elevation “beyond form,” and that is the state that is described more frequently in ACIM.  We are told that we will experience the real world only briefly (but we are not told what “briefly” means) before God will reach down and lift us up in Awakening.  Awakening in ACOL is called Christ-consciousness, but the concept is the same.  And we are let in ACOL to see that we can live Christ-consciousness on this plane as the elevated Self of form.

3 – The Body

What a blessing this is!  We are all too happy with our physical bodies, and we are not so sure that we want heaven if we have to give them up.  (There are exceptions to this idea among human beings.)

4 – We Create the Change

We are told that we must create this changed state.  We do not wait for something to happen to us, but we are conscious co-creators with God in welcoming the elevated Self.  In ACIM, the word is that we wait, quietly, for God to act.  There appears to be a change, possibly because of our evolution, in what ACOL teaches.  We are needed to hold ourselves in readiness, but we are also to act when we see what we are to do.  And Jesus is spelling out what we are to do in the subsequent pages of the trilogy of A Course of Love (including the Treatises and the Dialogues).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would create the elevated Self of form sooner rather than later.  I realize that perhaps I can do something, that because of progress in time with A Course of Love, I am able to effect some change.  Help me to understand if I am, instead, to leave everything to You.

Be with me today as I walk through this world.  The elevated Self of form will heal me from anything that is currently wrong.  Thank You in advance for this blessing.

Amen.

Body = Learning Device Given by Loving Creator

“While you have been taught that you are not your body, it is impossible for you to deny the body here.  Yet you can change the function you have ascribed to it, and so its way of functioning.  If you do not see it as the result of a fall, as a curse, as a punishment from God, or as your home, a dwelling place that keeps you separate, then you can begin to see it as what it is, a learning device given you by a loving creator.  (A Course of Love, 18.6)”

Affirmation:   “I would choose a body today that functions perfectly.”

Reflections:

1 – Do Not Deny the Body

A Course in Miracles indicates that to deny the body, even though it is illusion, is a particularly unfortunate way to react.  Here we feel its physicality, and we know when we feel well or ill, when we feel euphoria or pain.  But we can change the function that we see that it has, to catch another fish as bait (also said by the poet John Donne), and see instead that it is a tool of communication when we are in relationship one to another.  Without seeing a body, individuals would perhaps not respond so well to the help that can be given by another who is also in physical form.

2 – Elevated Self of Form

There are many negative ways that we can view the body, and some are spelled out in the passage for today.  But the best way is to see it, now, as a learning device.  As A Course of Love continues, we will see that the time of learning is said by Jesus to have ceased, and we will see that the elevated Self of form is the definition of our body.

3 – The Body Is Real in the Illusion

We need to be conscious of what we recognize as needs exemplified by the body.  When we push too hard, the body becomes overtired.  And if we keep pushing, ignoring the warning sign of pain, we will usually suffer some illness.  So, while we are here, the body is very real, even in dreams, in illusions.

4 – Temporary Dwelling Place

And we would do well not to deny that which is our temporary dwelling place.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would take care of my physical body today, knowing that, even though illusion, it hurts when illness invades.  And if I strike my hand against an obstacle, the physical pain is real.  So I do not deny that the physical is important to me.  Help me to treat my dwelling place gently and with respect.

Be with me today as I go out into the world and meet my brothers and sisters.  They, at least some of them, will respond only to another physical body, and they will not be frightened by me, seen in a form that is familiar.  Perhaps a vision might provide insight that I cannot provide, but visions are sometimes frightening to their recipients.  I can do much, with Your help, by just being in physicality.

Help me to know that beyond this physical body is one that is truly real, but I will not go there today.  I will be contented with living in the physical, and I will hope for the sustainability of the elevated Self of form, when You are ready for me to have that blessing.

Amen.

The Body Is a Tool

“The body is a tool made for your use in maintaining the illusion of your separation.  That it has seeming power can only be because you think you put your power there.  If this were true, much power indeed would it wield.  But what you have made cannot be invested with the power of creation without your joining with it.  (A Course of Love, 10.1)”

Affirmation:  “Let me deemphasize the body today.”

Reflections:

1 – Joining?

We do not and cannot join physically with all whom we meet.  That physical joining is limited to very few, or just one.  So what type of “joining” does this passage imply?

2 – Joining = of the Spirit

The joining that we must do is not of the body.  It is of the spirit.  The body is meant to affirm our separation from each other.  The body, like all illusions, fails us in this purpose.  We learn from living in separate bodies that we are not very happy being separate.  So how might we join?

3 – Join in Holiness

We join in holiness, in holy relationships that have, in many cases, been transformed from special relationships.

4 – Join in Minds

We join in minds as well as in spirit, but we do not leave it to our minds to determine all that we need to know.  We listen to our hearts.  And in the listening, we learn that we are not meant to walk along and and to be lonely.  We are made for each other and for God.  There is no better way to live.

4 – Power of the Body

What type of power could the body wield?  Only matters of power and prestige.  The ego.  The things of this world that are tangible.  Success.  Vanity.

5 – Perishable

You get the picture.  Do we really, truly, in our wholeheartedness, want such perishable things?  Let us be glad that their value will not last for us, for in them we lose ourselves.  We instead want the peace, joy, harmony, and serenity that God grants to all who turn to Him.  And He grants this peace, I believe, even to those who have not yet learned that turning to Him is the complete answer.  He is the God of the secular and profane as well as the religious and spiritual, for we are all His children, and He does not forget His own.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would join in spirit and mind with all whom I meet today.  Help me to do so purely.  I know that You do not deemphasize the physical in A Course of Love, but today we are not considering physical joining.  I wish the joining that will bring me closer to being a co-creator with You.

I wish for those things which will last.  And the perishable, tangible things of this world, some of which are necessary for survival, will not last.  I know that You want my material needs met also, but today I focus on the things of the spirit.  May my egoic mind, still a burden in many ways, just diminish in intensity as I seek for the things of the spirit.

Be with me today, as always.  I know that You are with me, for life just keeps getting better and better.  My prayers are being answered, and You are guiding me to find the answers.  Thank You.

Amen.

How the Body Is Used

“The body could not help but be thus, as it was made with dual purposes in mind.  It was made to make real and then glorify a separated self, and it was made to punish that separated self for the separation.  Its creator had in mind what is reflected in the body:  self-aggrandizement and self-effacement, pleasure and pain, violence and gentleness.  (A Course of Love, 9.7)”

Affirmation:  “May I unite today, rather than live in dualism.”

Reflections:

1 – A Dualistic Manifestation

We know such variations in our everyday mood when we are tied to the body too closely.  We do know pleasure, and we can know gentleness–but not all the time, for the body is a dualistic manifestation.  We are often led astray by our desire for the things of the body, the pleasures of this world.  But these pleasures turn to ashes and dust in our hands when we have avoided the joys and attributes of God.  He gives us joy, harmony, peace, tolerance, kindness, gentleness, and the like.  Only when we place these intangibles above any material things do we find the peace of God that “passeth understanding” (from the Bible).

2 – Why So Dense?

Why do we so often seek to attract the things of this world, when we ultimately find that these things do not satisfy for long?  Why are we so dense?

3 – Ecstasy of the Spirit

It is because we have known such poverty of spirit that we do not know the ineffable heights to which the ecstasy of the spirit can lead.  We have bowed down to idols, with the ego’s firm approval.  We have had this part of ourselves, our ego, tell us what to do and when to do it.  And, when we learn that we can attract better things for ourselves, the first thing that we think about is the material.

4 – Material Needs

Be sure that God wants to meet our material needs as well.  He knows that we have physical bodies that desire warmth and comfort, but He would comfort our hearts as well.  And the only way that He can do this for us is to bind our will to His.  To turn to our egoic will is to deny the joys of God.  And to turn to the material to satisfy us is to turn to something insubstantial and non-lasting.  Everything in this world will one day turn to dust.

5 – Christ/Self’s Action

Be careful of what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it.  This is quotation the source of which I have long forgotten.  But it speaks to me today.  We need God and He knows it.  He would come from our depths to speak to us today, through the Christ/Self that knows both human and divine.  The Christ/Self mitigates the dual nature of spiritual/physical, and turns all to productivity.  May we have the happiness that we all seek, and may we get very clear about what will bring us that happiness.  It is not solely the material, or even primarily the material.  It is the intangible from God..

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would pray that I know the dualistic nature of the body no longer, that I experience the Christ/Self within that unites physical and divine.  This is a tall order, for I have traveled far into oblivion.  But I would reverse that direction today, to know You as my Creator and Sustainer.

Be with me as I seek to live a calm and tranquil life, but one with happiness and joy.  You know that I need aliveness and vitality, and the union of physical/divine in the Christ/Self can bring all these blessings to me.  Thank You.

Amen.