Lesson 136: Sickness is a defense against the truth
I used to get sick on a regular basis. A change in the weather from cold to warm or vice versa: head cold. Fall hits: sinus congestion and possibly a chest cold. It happened with regularity. I could tell you what time of the year it was by whatever illness I was experiencing.
That doesn’t happen to me these days, and hasn’t since one turning point in my life: my ability to finally forgive my father. It was like, well, a miracle. When I was in an unforgiving state over my father’s perceived abandonment of our family, I was angry. I was cynical. I was living in such negativity, you could almost see the cloud of anger, cynicism and turmoil swirling around me like the Peanut’s character Pig Pen.
I got sick a lot, and while A Course in Miracles has been poo-pooed as so much New Age, spiritual-bypass claptrap, science proves that our emotional state can most definitely take a toll on our bodies. Anger is linked to all manner of illnesses from high blood pressure, to migraines, to strokes and of course heart attacks.
The emotions the ego uses to cope with this world are what the Course would call our “defenses.” We believe we must defend ourselves in this world because people are always doing us wrong or have the potential to do us wrong. Our ego creates this emotional state that it wants to keep us in – anger, jealousy, fear, greed, etc. – and when those states are threatened, it convinces us that the outside world is out to get us.
When we attack, we weaken the bodies natural defenses, but we strengthen our identity with our bodies. We feel every ache and pain more acutely. Our overwhelming emotions keep us stuck in a cycle of illnesses – all spurred by our need to defend the body, which, the Course tells us, needs no defense. Our bodies are here because we believe we are separate from God and everyone else. Illness, then, proves that separation. Our bodies become ill and demand all of our attention and we see others as ill. These days we’re literally practicing separation out of a fear of catching a deadly virus. Our fear has manifested itself out here as a pandemic.
Which not to say, of course, that we should throw caution to the wind. While we are here, we need our bodies as a device to channel God’s love into the world. Healthy bodies do that better than sick ones, so we are to care for our bodies, but we must keep them in perspective. They are not who we are. The eternal soul that lives within us all will eventually drop these bodies one way or another. While we are not called to take risks, we’re also not called to see the body as our final incarnation. The divinity that we are is eternal and will never die.
What is in need of healing is our mind, as the last lesson reminded us – the way we perceive the world, the way we understand the world and how our bodies function within it. When we can heal our thoughts and understand we are always as God created us – as perfect, innocent, eternal beings already living within God’s realm – then “our body will respond with health” to a healed mind.
When we are relying on how our body feels to tell us the truth about ourselves, we are caught in ego, this lesson tells us. Relying on emotions and the bodies pain or pleasure signals to guide us will ensure our sickness continues. Instead, this lesson invites us to drop this mind sickness as our defense against the truth – that, in Reality, we are not these bodies.
If we can accept the truth of who we are – perfect, innocent, eternal beings already living within God’s realm – then our “mind will be wholly healed today.” If science is correct, that will automatically lead to a healed body.
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash