The
ego uses physical illness and pain to make the body
real to you. That is its primary goal for illness
and pain. This shows up as using them for many
reasons: To get attention, to punish you, to avoid
situations, to make others guilty, etc. But of
course no matter how physical symptoms show up
their origin is in your mind. Ultimately all
healing is the result of you accepting healing in
your mind, either directly in your mind, or through
"agents" like medicines, doctors, and treatments
that seem outside of you and that remove the
symptoms in a way that your mind can accept. Using
external agents is what A Course in Miracles calls
"magical thinking", but it is necessary until you
can accept healing directly.
"The miracle is useless if you learn but that
the body can be healed, for this is not the lesson
it was sent to teach. The lesson is the mind was
sick that thought the body could be sick;
projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no
effects."(T-28.II.11)
Often students contact me because they are
having a physical issue that they want to resolve.
They want to know how they can use their mind to
heal their body. But using the mind for the sake of
the body is no different than using external means
to heal the body. The mind's purpose is never to
serve the body because the body is never real. It
is an effect of your mind, a symbol of the
separation. A sick body is an effect and symbol of
the guilt that you feel for separation from God.
To use the mind to heal the body, then, is to
continue to make the mistake of identifying with a
body, which will perpetuate the guilt that brought
about the physical symptoms in the first place.
Illness or pain may go in one form, but they will
simply come
again in another form. The body is in the mind,
and the body can serve the mind, but it cannot work
the other way around. The body is never you, and to
focus your mind for healing what is never real is
to misuse your mind.
When I explain this to students they give
examples of people who have spontaneously healed,
or who have worked at their thoughts to heal their
mind. Of course this happens. All physical healing
is the result of a choice of the mind, no matter
how it seems to come about. But as long as you
perceive a body as your reality your mind is
unhealed, and this will show up in the body in some
form. And the ego will be glad to use your mind to
heal the body to make your perceived separation
from God more comfortable (when this is a
convenient goal for the ego). You can shift
physical symptoms around, and you can change them,
but you will not wholly undo sickness until you no
longer identify with ego. So rather than focusing
on a body that is never you, your time is better
spent with What is you: Communing with God,
practicing the Holy Instant, extending Love, and
building trust in the Holy Spirit through accepting
Its Guidance. This is how your perception of
separation from God is undone; this is how your
mind is healed of its misidentification. And this
will result in a body that no longer manifests a
mind that is sick with separation from itself.
Liz Cronkhite is a mentor for students of A
Course in Miracles. She has been a student of the
Course since 1984, and a life-coach since 2000. You
can learn more about her, and the mentoring and
resources she offers students, at
www.acimmentor.com.