[acimlessons_list] Lesson 136--May 16

Allen Watson allen at circleofa.com
Sun May 15 06:12:06 EDT 2005 

Lesson 136

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

LONGER: 2 15 minutes

* Begin with this healing prayer, to help you rise above defenses so
that truth can come and set you free: "Sickness is a defense against the
truth. I will accept the truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly
healed today."

* Open your mind and let healing flash across it. The light of truth
will come to illuminate all the dark corners of sickness where dim
figures pursued double purposes. Your mind will be healed of all the
sick wishes it directed the body to obey.

REMARKS: If you practiced well your body will have no feeling at all, no
feeling of illness or wellness, of pain or pleasure. It will have no
power over the mind. Only its usefulness will remain. This releases the
body from limits. Instead of being filled with needs for protection and
sustenance, it will now be filled with continual strength to carry out
its usefulness. But you must protect this with careful watching,
responding quickly to any temptation to make the body real and so attack
it with sickness.

RESPONSE TO TEMPTATION:

Give instant remedy whenever you harbor attack thoughts, judgments or
make plans. Say: "I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my
body for myself. Sickness is a defense against the truth. But I am not a
body. And my mind cannot attack. So I can not be sick."

COMMENTARY

Another of these lessons that will repay careful study; there is a lot
of good stuff in here!

The main thought is plainly stated: Sickness is a means we use to defend
ourselves against the truth. It is a decision we make, chosen quite
deliberately when truth gets too close for comfort, in order to distract
ourselves and root ourselves once again in the body. On the bright side,
then, when we get sick we can congratulate ourselves that we must have
been letting in the truth in order for the ego to get this scared of it!

:) For instance, not too long ago Robert and I gave a weekend intensive
on "We are the light of the world: Accepting our function." In the
course of it I found myself being deeply impressed by the message the
Course was conveying to us all. The day after the intensive I got
diarrhea. Now, there is little that brings you down to a body level like
having to run to the toilet all the time! But I actually found myself
being amused by it. "How like my ego!" I thought. "What a predictable
reaction!" Instead of having the desired (by the ego) effect, it had the
opposite; it served to <remind> me of the truth instead of distracting
me from it. And guess what? It very quickly went away. "Defenses that do
not work at all are automatically discarded" (T-13.I.9:8).

Most people react to being told that they choose sickness by flatly
denying it. This is not something that is easy to discover. The lesson
says our choice is "doubly shielded by oblivion" (5:2). We choose first
to hide the pesky truth that has been nibbling away at our delusions of
separation and of the physical nature of our identity by making
ourselves sick; that is the original decision we made. We then choose to
forget we did it; the first shield of oblivion. Finally, we forget that
we chose to forget, the second shield. All of this happens in a split
second (3:4; 4:2-5:1). In that split second we are conscious of what we
are doing, but the shields are up so quickly that the whole process
<seems> to be unconscious (3:3).

We need to remember what we have forgotten, the deliberate forgetting of
our choice. We <can> remember if we are willing "to reconsider the
decision which is doubly shielded," that is, the decision to run away
from the truth, the decision that truth is something against which we
need to defend ourselves. This is why the exercise for the day is:

"Sickness is a defense against the truth. I will accept the truth of
what I am, And let my mind be wholly healed today."

The antidote to the whole process is not attempting to heal the sick
body, but to accept the truth about myself, to let my <mind> be healed.
Sickness is a side effect of rejecting the truth about myself; the cure
is to accept the truth instead, to reconsider the original decision
which, although veiled from conscious awareness, <must> be there for
sickness to have occurred.

The lesson warns us, in the final paragraph: "Do not be confused about
what must be healed" (20:2). It isn't the body that needs healing; it is
the mind. This agrees with the Text, which tells us:

"When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal
the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the
body is the proper aim of healing. Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit
teach you the right <perception> of the body, for perception alone can
be distorted" (T-8.IX.1:5, 6). It is that original decision to reject
the truth of what we are, because it seems to threaten what we <think>
we are, that must be questioned and reversed.

The lesson says some rather incredible things about the body of a person
whose mind is healed, and whose body has been accepted as nothing but a
tool to be used to heal the world. The body's strength "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" 18:2, 3). If a
body is not limited by time it does not age. Not limited by weather
means it needs no clothing or shelter. Not limited by fatigue, it needs
no sleep. Not limited by food or drink, it does not need to eat. Who of
us can say this is true of us? Perhaps we have experienced a few
glimmers of such brilliant light, fatigue thrown off, lack of food
overlooked for a time.

But no one I know is at this stage of perfect trust. We have a ways to
go, you and I. So I do not think we need be surprised when a cold
attacks, or the flu gets us down, or even if something "more serious"
happens. We're still afraid of the truth--big surprise! Rather than
thinking, "Oh, why did I do this to myself? What is wrong with me that I
am still getting sick?", let me say, "Ooops! I made a mistake. I forgot
what I really am and mistook my body for myself. Silly me! Let me remind
myself that I am not a body; this isn't what I am." The "sickness" of
the body can then become a catalyst for the healing of my mind, instead
of a defense against the truth.

    COMMENTARIES ON LESSONS FROM THE WORKBOOK OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES
    by Allen Watson, with Practice Summaries by Robert Perry
    The Circle of Atonement--Visit our website at <http://www.circleofa.com>

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Purpose, Process and Practice, (c) 1976, The Song of Prayer, (c) 1978, are
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