This is the 10th A Course in Miracles talk,
And the subject is Causes of Disease.
The text states,
The body was not made by love,
Yet love does not condemn it,
And can use it lovingly,
Respecting what the Son of God has made,
And using it to save him from illusion.
The role of the body The emphasis of the course is not to heal the body,
But to achieve a joyful and peaceful mind.
Once that has been accomplished,
A healthy body will follow as a natural consequence.
However,
It is possible that someone could choose to have a disease,
So that a particular lesson can be learned more quickly.
For example,
A woman may decide that in order for her,
And perhaps those around her,
To learn more about faith and trust in God,
She will create a disease or give her the opportunity to look within,
And discover an inner strength she intuitively knew she has,
But has yet to experience.
This decision to be ill will be made on a level of a mind of which she is not normally aware.
There are many stories of people who have developed cancer,
And achieved spiritual breakthroughs in the process of working with their disease,
And its consequences on those around them.
Such a person may still die of the cancer,
But the peace of mind obtained means that the mind has been healed.
Thus we should not fall into the trap of judging others by the form of their illness,
For we can never know all the facts.
The Course states,
Health is inner peace.
The rest of this discussion of the cause of disease will focus on disease that is created by the guilt in our mind.
To heal our body,
We need a miracle,
A shift in perception.
For disease is only a shadow on our body of the guilt in our mind.
Jesus is well aware that this is not an easy task,
And that a compromise approach is often needed.
The text states,
Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently strong hold over the mind to render a person temporarily inaccessible to the atonement,
Which is the correction of our errors.
In this case,
It may be wise to utilise a compromise approach to mind and body,
In which something from our side,
For example a pill,
Is temporarily given healing belief.
This is because the last thing that can help the non-right-minded or the sick is an increase in fear.
Thus there is nothing wrong in taking pills,
Remedies,
Having surgery or going to therapy.
For real healing to occur,
However,
We must deal with the cause in our mind and not the effect on our body.
To investigate the cause of disease,
Let us begin with the role of the body.
Kenneth Wapnick likened the mind,
Which is outside time and space,
To a puppeteer with the body and brain as a puppet.
I think this is a good analogy to show the relationship between the two.
A puppet can do nothing unless its strings are pulled by the puppeteer,
Who is normally hidden from view.
This gives the illusion that the puppet is self-motivated.
In the same way,
We are easily fooled by appearances,
That our body gets sick or well by itself.
The whole focus of modern western medicine is to do something to the body.
Of course,
As long as we believe in the body and its so-called laws of operation,
Medicine will have an effect on the symptoms,
But it will not heal us.
If the cause in the mind is not treated,
The sickness will return in the same or a related form.
The workbook states,
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.
The body,
Like every form in the universe,
Is a creation of the ego's thought system.
However,
We still have a choice in how we use it.
In itself it is neutral,
And can serve either the ego or the Holy Spirit's purpose.
The workbook states,
My body,
Father,
Cannot be your son.
What is not created cannot be sinful nor sinless,
Neither good nor bad.
Let me then use this dream to help your plan,
That we awaken from all dreams we made.
Whilst we allow the body to be the home of the ego,
It will use it for its purpose of maintaining separation by judging and attacking.
This attack will also manifest in the body as sickness.
This serves the ego's purpose of concentrating our awareness on the body,
Which results in making the world appear very real,
And the Holy Spirit a liar,
Who will say to ourselves,
Don't tell me this body isn't real.
I am in pain.
If,
However,
We allow the Holy Spirit to use the body as a tool of love and communication,
To enable him to extend his message of forgiveness and joining,
We will experience health as a result.
The text states,
The Holy Spirit sees the body only as a means of communication,
And because communication is sharing,
It becomes communion.
When we experience pain in our body,
It is tempting to pray to have it removed.
The Course counsels us against this,
And instead asks us to pray to learn to forgive.
Because it is from unforgiveness that all our psychological and physical pain arises.
When the hate,
Attack and anger in our mind is healed,
Its reflection in the body will disappear.
The workbook states,
Pain is a wrong perspective.
When it is experienced in any form,
It is a proof of self-deception.
It is not a fact at all.
There is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright.
For pain proclaims God's rule.
Pain is the sign illusion reigns in place of truth.
It demonstrates God is denied,
Confused with fear,
Perceived as mad,
Seen as traitor to himself.
If God is real,
There is no pain.
Our mind decides everything,
Even though we are often not aware of this.
It chooses the moment of the body's birth,
As well as its death.
The Course states,
No one dies without his own consent.
If we use our body for the purposes of the Holy Spirit,
We will experience no fear when the time comes to lay it aside.
We will know that the body is not who we are,
And as our lessons are now complete,
We can let it go.
The text states,
When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone,
You will know that you will last forever.
Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death,
But nothing is accomplished through death,
Because death is nothing.
Everything is accomplished through life,
And life is of the mind and in the mind.
The body neither lives nor dies,
Because it cannot contain you who are life.
If we share the same mind,
You can overcome death,
Because I did.
The following story is an illustration of the power the mind has over the body.
One evening there was a knock on the door.
I opened it to find a nervous young woman,
Called Jane,
Who had arranged to have a healing session with me that evening.
Standing next to her was her girlfriend,
With whom she was in relationship,
And who had come to give her support.
Jane was so nervous that her friend almost had to push her into the room.
Upon talking with her,
It was apparent that she was afraid to be alone with a man.
The problem was that they both wanted a child,
And Jane was to be the mother.
She had been trying artificial insemination for some time,
But with no success.
Jane herself was a doctor,
And a medical colleague had informed her that she had a quote,
Hostile cervix,
Which killed the inserted sperm.
It seemed very likely to me that she had a deep issue around forgiveness of men,
Which had been reflected in her body.
As we talked together,
She mentioned that her early relationships had been with men.
When she was 20 years old,
She had been raped,
And this had left a scar upon her mind.
In one of her relationships,
She had become pregnant,
And had the pregnancy terminated.
We began the session with a relaxation,
Prior to focusing on Jane's feelings around men.
I suggested she work with forgiving the men who had caused her pain.
She experienced strong anger.
She felt this anger in her hands,
Legs,
And stomach area.
At the same time,
She experienced a headache.
We worked with acceptance of what was happening,
Both of us asking for help.
To her surprise,
Memories and feelings about her abortion,
Which she had repressed,
Began to surface.
Jane thought she had healed this issue,
But the awakened memories were intense.
At one point,
She began to crawl around the room like a baby.
She felt she was giving the aborted child the life she had denied it.
The guilt she was now experiencing was intense,
And she saw it symbolised as a vulture.
I encouraged her not to be fearful of it,
And try to accept it.
Jane reported that it gradually dissolved,
And she watched it with love and acceptance.
This was followed by a dramatic insight,
And Jane announced,
I can conceive.
I've forgotten this.
In her imagination,
She saw the energy of conception flow into her womb,
And the darkness leave it.
She felt this symbolised her forgiveness of herself.
At the end of the session,
Jane wanted to give me a hug,
But was apprehensive due to her ambivalence towards me as a man.
She cautiously held me for a short while,
And felt pleased she was able to touch a man again.
The following day,
She reported experiencing some pain in her lower abdominal area,
Which I took as a positive sign that something was changing for her.
She also told me that she was practising hugging men in her imagination.
A few months later,
I received a letter from her.
She had undergone artificial insemination again,
Had arranged to meet the donor of the sperm,
And had gone out for her meal with him.
Jane had realised her need to release her hatred of men,
Feeling this was reflected in her hostile cervix.
She finished the letter by informing me that she was now pregnant,
And later sent me a photo of herself and a partner with their new baby.
The psychotherapy pamphlet teaches that there is a correlation between the form of sickness in the body,
And the form of unforgiveness in the mind.
The psychotherapy supplement states,
Sickness takes many forms,
And so does unforgiveness.
The forms of one but reproduce the forms of the other,
For they are the same delusion.
So closely is one translated into the other,
That a careful study of the form a sickness takes will point clearly to the form of unforgiveness that it represents.
Yet seeing this will not affect a cure.
That is achieved by only one recognition,
That only forgiveness heals an unforgiveness,
And only an unforgiveness can possibly give rise to a sickness of any kind.
This realisation is the final goal of psychotherapy.
It can be very helpful for some people to see this connection between the mind and body.
However,
If this insight is not followed by forgiveness,
Healing will not result.
I have witnessed people discovering a painful suppressed memory,
Only to use it as evidence to support their attack upon the person deemed responsible.
The ego is always telling us that our present problems are due to events in the past,
And that we are justified in feeling the way we do now.
The Holy Spirit tells us that the past does not exist,
But only the present moment is real,
And the distress we are feeling now is due to a decision we are making in the present.
Our decision to remain a justified victim means we do not have to face the fact that we are responsible for everything we feel.
No one can take our peace away from us,
Only ourself.
It is as if each morning we wake up and switch on an internal tape recorder,
Which plays to us all the painful memories of our past.
Each day we review this tape and our feeling of being a victim is reinforced.
It is difficult to see that it is our decision in the present moment,
Which maintains our sickness,
And not our past history of trauma and abuse.
This constant replaying of the past makes our ego seem very real,
And blocks the awareness of the Holy Spirit from our mind.
As the Course states,
All forms of sickness,
Even unto death,
Are physical expressions of the fear of awakening.
