A Course In Miracles - Chapter 8, Section VIII
ACIM is read one section at a time. It is a guidebook leading us back to our true natures, as we open to the awareness of love's presence. All quoted material is from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, publisher, and the copyright holder. This material is used with permission. (Foundation for Inner Peace, 448 Ignacio Blvd #306 Novato, CA 94949 USA). Glossary-Index for a Course In Miracles, 8th edition, Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. Music by Bensound.
Transcript
Hi,
I'm Teresa Hubbard.
Welcome back to our continued reading of the text to A Course in Miracles.
We continue today in Chapter 8,
The Journey Back.
Section 8 The Body as Means or End.
To summarize my takeaways,
In section 8 of chapter 8,
We are offered a contrast between the body and mind and our perceived notions of sickness and health.
The body exists in a world that seems to contain two voices fighting for its possession.
In this perceived constellation,
The body is seen as capable of shifting its allegiance from one voice to the other,
Making the concepts of both sickness and health meaningful.
The voice of the ego teaches that the body is to attack with,
And equating us with the body,
It teaches that we are to attack with.
This demonstrates that the body is not the source of its own health and that its condition lies solely in our interpretation of its function.
In contrast,
The voice of the Holy Spirit teaches that the function of our bodies is as a communication device used to reach our brothers,
So he can teach his message through us.
This will heal them,
And therefore heal us.
Everything used in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit sees it cannot be sick.
Everything used otherwise is.
When we choose to lay aside the ego's voice,
It is gone.
The Holy Spirit's voice is as loud as we are willing to listen.
It cannot be louder without violating our freedom of choice,
Which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore,
Never to undermine.
Healing is the beginning of the proper perspective of life under the guidance of the one teacher who knows what life is,
Being the voice for life itself.
I invite you to keep a few things in mind as you listen to the reading.
The Course uses male pronouns,
Yet this is simply a way of pointing to the spiritual being having no gender.
The Course is written in first person,
And although not introduced directly to the reader,
It becomes clear that the words are from Jesus,
Often quoting from the Bible.
The Course uses traditional Christian terms in a non-traditional manner.
These words are simply pointers to truth,
Nothing more.
A few terms you will hear within this reading,
Knowledge and perception.
These terms were introduced to us back in chapter 3 where we were shown the difference between knowledge and perception.
Knowledge is power because it is certain,
And certainty is strength.
Knowledge comes to us from God and provides the strength for creative thinking.
To create as God creates,
We must know what we are creating and accept it as our own.
Perception on the other hand is temporary.
We can see in many ways,
Because perception involves interpretation,
Which means it is not whole or consistent.
Two more terms are the two teachers which are the ego and the Holy Spirit.
The ego is our belief in the separated or false self that we made as a substitute for the self that God created.
The Holy Spirit is the communication link between God and us,
Bridging the gap between the mind of Christ and our human minds,
The voice for God.
And the vinyl term is God.
God is the Creator,
The source of all being or life.
God's essence is Spirit,
Which is shared with all creation.
Yet the word God can be limiting,
Since universal energy and life are infinitely vast and cannot be contained in a word.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles Chapter 8,
The Journey Back Section 8,
The Body as Means or End Attitudes toward the body are attitudes toward attack.
The ego's definitions of anything are childish and are always based on what it believes the thing is for.
This is because it is incapable of true generalizations and equates what it sees with the function it ascribes to it.
It is not equated with what it is.
To the ego,
The body is to attack with.
Being you with the body,
It teaches that you are to attack with.
The body,
Then,
Is not the source of its own health.
The body's condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function.
Functions are part of being,
Since they arise from it,
But the relationship is not reciprocal.
The whole does define the part,
But the part does not define the whole.
Yet to know in part is to know entirely because of the fundamental difference between knowledge and perception.
In perception,
The whole is built up of parts that can separate and reassemble in different constellations.
But knowledge never changes,
So its constellation is permanent.
The idea of part-whole relationships has meaning only at the level of perception,
Where change is possible.
Otherwise,
There is no difference between the part and whole.
The body exists in a world that seems to contain two voices fighting for its possession.
In this perceived constellation,
The body is seen as capable of shifting its allegiance from one to the other,
Making the concepts of both health and sickness meaningful.
The ego makes a fundamental confusion between means and end,
As it always does.
Regarding the body as an end,
The ego has no real use for it,
Because it is not an end.
You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own.
When you have achieved it,
It has not satisfied you.
This is why the ego is forced to shift ceaselessly from one goal to another,
So that you will continue to hope it can yet offer you something.
It has been particularly difficult to overcome the ego's belief in the body as an end,
Because it is synonymous with the belief in attack as an end.
The ego has a profound investment in sickness.
If you are sick,
How can you object to the ego's firm belief that you are not invulnerable?
This is an appealing argument from the ego's point of view,
Because it obscures the obvious attack that underlies the sickness.
If you recognized this,
And also decided against attack,
You could not give this false witness to the ego's stand.
It is hard to perceive sickness as a false witness,
Because you do not realize that it is entirely out of keeping with what you want.
This witness,
Then,
Appears to be innocent and trustworthy,
Because you have not seriously cross-examined him.
If you had,
You would not consider sickness such a strong witness on behalf of the ego's views.
A more honest statement would be that those who want the ego are predisposed to defend it.
Therefore,
Their choice of witnesses should be suspect from the beginning.
The ego does not call upon witnesses who would disagree with its case,
Nor does the Holy Spirit.
I have said that judgment is the function of the Holy Spirit,
And one he is perfectly equipped to fulfill.
The ego as a judge gives anything but an impartial judgment.
When the ego calls on a witness,
It has already made the witness an ally.
It is still true that the body has no function of itself,
Because it is not an end.
The ego,
However,
Establishes it as an end,
Because as such,
Its true function is obscured.
This is the purpose of everything the ego does.
Its sole aim is to lose sight of the function of everything.
A sick body does not make any sense.
It could not make sense,
Because sickness is not what the body is for.
Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego's interpretation of the body rests are true.
That the body is for attack,
And that you are a body.
Without these premises,
Sickness is inconceivable.
Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt.
It is a witness to your frailty,
Your vulnerability,
And your extreme need to depend on external guidance.
The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its guidance.
It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes.
The Holy Spirit,
Perfectly aware of the same situation,
Does not bother to analyze it at all.
If data are meaningless,
There is no point in analyzing them.
The function of truth is to collect information that is true.
Any way you handle error results in nothing.
The more complicated the results become,
The harder it may be to recognize their nothingness.
But it is not necessary to examine all possible outcomes to which premises give rise in order to judge them truly.
A learning device is not a teacher.
It cannot tell you how you feel.
You do not know how you feel because you have accepted the ego's confusion,
And you therefore believe that a learning device can tell you how you feel.
Sickness is merely another example of your insistence on asking guidance of a teacher who does not know the answer.
The ego is incapable of knowing how you feel.
When I said that the ego does not know anything,
I said the one thing about the ego that is wholly true.
But there is a corollary.
If only knowledge has being,
And the ego has no knowledge,
Then the ego has no being.
You might well ask how the voice of something that does not exist can be so insistent.
Have you thought about the distorting power of something you want,
Even if it is not real?
There are many instances of how what you want distorts perception.
No one can doubt the ego's skill in building up false cases.
Nor can anyone doubt your willingness to listen until you choose not to accept anything except truth.
When you lay the ego aside,
It will be gone.
The Holy Spirit's voice is as loud as your willingness to listen.
It cannot be louder without violating your freedom of choice,
Which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore,
Never to undermine.
The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers so He can teach His message through you.
This will heal them,
And therefore heal you.
Everything used in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit sees it cannot be sick.
Everything used otherwise is.
Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind.
Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness.
Do not let it reflect your decision to attack.
Health is seen as the natural state of everything when interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit,
Who perceives no attack on anything.
Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly.
Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher who knows what life is,
Being the voice for life itself.
