My body is a wholly neutral thing.
I am a Son of God. And can I be another thing as well? Did God create the mortal and corruptible? What use has God's beloved Son for what must die? And yet a neutral thing does not see death, for thoughts of fear are not invested there, nor is mockery of love bestowed upon it. Its neutrality protects it while it has a use. And afterwards, without a purpose, it is laid aside. It is not sick nor old nor hurt. It is but functionless, unneeded and cast off. Let me not see it more than this today; of service for a while and fit to serve, to keep its usefulness while it can serve, and then to be replaced for greater good.
My body, Father, cannot be Your Son. And 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.Miracles I'm noticing:
I struggle just a little bit with what the prayer here says when it says my body is not created. I think the entire process of life and the systems at work in our physical bodies is pretty incredible. It's difficult for me not to see that whole thing as a pretty neat miracle that God created. I understand the point - that it is not about my physical body, but about my spiritual being. But I still think God created us ... we didn't make ourselves, even though it was a physical process that conceived of each of us.
I understand how this is a dream - we make things real in our own minds, when the reality is that the physical body is just a vehicle for learning in this lifetime. If taken literally, today's lesson could imply that the body isn't all that important in this lifetime, so we don't really have to take care of it since it will just be cast off at some point anyway. I don't think that's what is meant here - but maybe that is just my take on what I'm reading, which would be justification for me to be too busy to go to the gym in the mornings! :)
The point I take from the lesson is that the body is neither good nor bad - it just is. And as we learn to accept every "body" as a child of God, there will be no need to judge based on any physical attributes. We are each given some body in this physical existence, because we each have a path to take and a lesson to learn. As Wayne Dyer has said many times, if his purpose in this lifetime is to teach compassion and understanding, what better way for him to be able to do that than to have been born into a family where the alcoholic father abandoned him and his mother and brothers when the three children were under 5 years old? What better way for him to learn compassion than to have been raised in foster care?
Those are the lessons I'm learning. I was fortunate to have been raised in a family which, although not financially prosperous, I didn't lack for anything. I was raised with both parents and both sets of grandparents within 50 miles of my home. I went to a good school, participated in activities, went to a good college, got a good education, got a good job, etc. There are lessons for me in that life, too.
I don't think the point is to find fault with wherever we were born and raised, but to learn the lessons that everything can teach us. There is a bit of dysfunction in every situation unless and until we begin to understand that everything is perfect exactly the way it is because we're on our way to enlightenment and we have lessons to learn.
That awareness is my miracle for today!
Conversations With God
The Four Agreements
A Course in Miracles
The Disappearance of the Universe
A Return to Love
2 comments:
Hello again, Jodee!
Although I frequently quote from The Course, (as you know) there’s a wealth of wisdom there, and I totally agree with its premise of atonement through forgiveness, and stuff like that. But I also have reservations about some aspects, and you just identified one.
I still wonder how (or why) God would have this incredibly vast creative potential, but keep it “off limits” to Himself - as us - preferring rather to endlessly “extend” in what sounds like a pretty-much undifferentiated state.
Why would God shun some aspect of Himself that (not yet having experienced it) could only be understood and evaluated by not shunning it? I can only wonder if that wouldn’t be a case of Self-denial, and it just doesn’t sound very God-like to me.
God as His own forbidden fruit?
Ok, just one quote. Chapter 14, Part 3:
“No thought of God’s Son can be separate or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the whole Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of.”
Sounds BIG!
The Course’s writer has an obvious basic agenda - promoting a view that implores us to ultimately renounce the world as something that never should have happened, and in fact, once the “carpet gets rolled back up;” with every speck of its history, records, and all memories thereof; it literally WON’T have happened, because there will be nothing in Reality to witness otherwise.
Cayce’s view was that we are co-creators in EVERY sense with God, and that our reawakening to that, and eventual return to Him, was intended to be with full knowledge. In fact, the experience was the point of it all. So, I am personally not ready for full-membership in ANY club that says the world (and us, with our little specialized physical bodies) exists in spite of God, instead of because of Him.
Yes, there’s a lot about this world; especially the way we treat each other; that I don’t care for. But there’s also this amazingly incredible beauty and intelligence at work that seems to me more an EVIDENCE of God’s presence, than a consequence of only our little effort, and without His approval.
I like the right-minded/wrong-minded distinction made in The Course, and I see a lot of overlap in that (and other things) with other perspectives, like Cayce, Seth, Conversation’s With God, Unity, etc., and so I’ll continue to study ACIM. And I really do think it is exceptional in identifying the underlying psychological dynamics, and spiritual basis of life.
But would God still be God, in the pure God-sense, if he drew Himself up into an entity-like being to make a decree that the work of His own potential should not have been?
I’ll keep reading, and maybe I’ll change my mind someday.
If ACIM had a church I’d probably get kicked-out for this post, but I’m not worried - GOD still loves me!
Dennis
Dennis:
As always, thank you for your thoughtful response!
I don't see today's lesson as a personal agenda item for the writers; rather, I am trying to read the lessons as suggested in the preface (p. ix):
"You need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required."
I also really appreciate another line in the preface: "It is not intended to become the basis for another cult. Its only purpose is to provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher."
Those two ideas help me when I struggle with the understanding of some of the specifics, such as the lesson we both found a bit confusing. I have not read much Cayce or the Seth books, but have completed all the Conversations With God books as well as both of Gary Renard's and most of Wayne Dyer's, and find so much similarity there.
Again, thank you so much for your loyal readership and also your loyal comments! You are truly a miracle!
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