What is the Body?

Our special theme says, “The body is a dream. Like other dreams it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly revert to fear, where every dream is born.”

Two days ago we looked at the duality of the body itself. For example, it can be healthy or sick.

Yesterday we looked at how the body acts out the fearful thoughts that we believe. For example, it can become angry, deceitful or violent.

Today, let’s look at the dream of the body as me.

When we believe the body is me, we are affected by the duality that the senses perceive. We appear to experience the world directly. It seems to have a direct effect on us.

Is that true? Do we experience the world directly?

Let’s investigate and see what we discover.

I am going to lead you in an inquiry exercise. Some of you have experienced an exercise similar to this with me before. Read through all of the instructions, and then practice the inquiry on your own.

1. Find a sensitive spot on your finger and pinch it. Feel the pain. Notice that it appears you are directly experiencing the pain.
2. You can stop pinching your finger.
3. Close your eyes. Get in touch with awareness, that which observes, looks or sees.
4. Once you are in touch with awareness, pinch your finger again, but this time look at the pain from the position of awareness.
5. What is your experience when you look at the pain from awareness? Do you directly experience the pain or do you see the body experiencing pain?

Many of you will be able to see that you do not directly experience the pain. As awareness, you do not feel pain, but you can see that the body does feel the pain. It is as if you are one step away from the pain. The pain is an indirect experience for you.

(Note: This is the way I typically feel pain now, which is why pain is not as bothersome to me as it is to some people. I am certainly aware of the pain that the body feels, but I relate to pain from one step away. I see the pain. It isn’t a direct experience.)

When we identify with the body as me, we project attention into the body. With attention projected into the body, we appear to directly experience what the body experiences. We feel pain; we feel emotions; etcetera.

However, when we identify with awareness, attention is naturally with awareness. From the position of awareness, we witness the body and its experiences. As the witness, we are aware of the body’s experiences, but we are one step away from those experiences. We don’t have the sense of experiencing them directly.

That means that our experience of life will be more fearful if we identify with the body, because the experience will seem more direct. It will seem as if we are at the mercy of duality.

However, if we identify with the witness, we do not feel affected by duality. The experience is one of equanimity. Our happiness or contentment is untouched by the body’s experience of duality.

My holy Self abides in you, God’s Son.

The unaffected awareness that witnesses the world’s duality but does not experience it directly is the same unaffected awareness for everyone. Although the body’s “fence” creates the experience of “my awareness” and “your awareness,” it is the same awareness.

One way to see this is to listen to another person describe awareness. His/her experience is the same as your experience. The experiences are not different, because you are both looking at and describing the same awareness.

Today, we contemplate ourselves as awareness. As often as you remember, take a few moments to notice yourself as the witnessing presence. If needed, pinch your finger and look at the pain. Notice over and over throughout the day that you see the pain, but you do not experience it directly.

Each time that you notice yourself as awareness, remember that everyone is that same awareness. It is one light, shining through many minds and bodies. Today we focus on the one light, not the many forms.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation:

Loving Consciousness Description B

What is the Body?

Our special theme says, “The body is a dream. Like other dreams it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly revert to fear, where every dream is born.”

Yesterday we looked at the duality of the body itself. (For example, health and sickness.)

However, that isn’t the only way the body “can quite suddenly revert to fear.” The body also reverts to fear when we become worried, angry, jealous, deceitful, violent, and so on. The body acts out fearfully when we believe the ego’s thoughts of fear.

Our special theme says, “But we can change the purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for. The body is the means by which God’s Son returns to sanity.”

In other words, we can use this experience of being a human in a body to wake up from the ego’s illusion. That is what we are doing when we decide to meditate instead of doing something else. That is what we are doing when we decide not to act out from worry or anger, but to inquire into our thoughts instead. As we change the purpose given to the body, the body behaves differently.

Creation’s gentleness is all I see.

Today’s lesson says, “I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me. How fierce they seemed! And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone.”

This is reminiscent of our last special theme, “What is Sin?” Our ideas of what should be and should not be create a fearful world of duality. Duality is fearful, because it cannot be trusted. A lover can become an enemy. A leisurely drive can become a deadly automobile accident. A secure job can be lost. A smart and happy child can become addicted to drugs. And the examples continue.

For as long as we remain caught in the ego’s illusion by believing the ego’s thoughts, we experience duality, which includes all of the fear that comes with duality.

To become free of duality, we need to stop believing the ego’s judgments of what should be and should not be. We need to become gentle ourselves by abiding in love instead of in judgment.

Today we will continue to focus on love by practicing Loving Consciousness meditation and the Loving All Method.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation:

Loving Consciousness Description A

What is the Body?

Our special theme refers to the body as a dream. It says, “Like other dreams it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly revert to fear, where every dream is born.”

This speaks of duality. As we looked at our last special theme, we saw that outward focus, judgment and duality are the means by which the mind “seeks to let illusions take the place of truth.” And the “body is the instrument the mind made in its efforts to deceive itself.”

That means that the duality of the body, including its ability to be healthy and sick, for example, is part of the mind’s effort “to let illusions take the place of truth.”

I enjoy feeling healthy. I enjoy a body that is strong, flexible and pain-free. However, the body doesn’t always fit that description. If I begin to judge the body by deciding how it should be or should not be, aren’t I falling into the mind’s choice to deceive itself?

Here are some judgments that we commonly make about the body:

• Healthy or sick
• Fit or injured
• Strong or weak
• Attractive or unattractive
• Fat or thin
• Young or old
• Capable or handicapped
• Normal or deformed
• Okay or dying

Are you able to see your ideas of “should be and should not be” in that list?

Our current special theme says, “Made to be fearful, must the body serve the purpose given it. But we can change the purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for.”

Some people interpret that to mean that we can make the body be what we define as good by choosing truth as our purpose. For example, we can make the body healthy, fit, and strong and avoid sick, injured and weak. However, isn’t that still belief in what should be and should not be?

As I said above, I enjoy feeling healthy, and if there are steps I can take to keep the body healthy or to return it to health when it is sick or injured, I will most likely take those steps. However, does that mean I need to judge sickness or injury as “should not be”?

If my purpose is to let go of the ego illusion, don’t I serve my purpose better by loving all experiences exactly as they are?

I am surrounded by the Love of God.

Today’s lesson says, “Father, You stand before me and behind me, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. … There is no source but this, and nothing is that does not share its holiness. … We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.”

Today we contemplate all things as love. This is sometimes challenging, since the mind judges what should be and what should not be, and we often believe the mind’s judgments. It is common to believe that cancer should not be, mass shootings should not be, etcetera.

How do we see these things as love?

I could go into an explanation of love that might be somewhat satisfactory to the mind, but the truth is that the mind doesn’t see love. The mind sees its illusions of duality. The way we come to see that all things are love is to let go of the ego and its illusion. The way we do that is by ceasing to participate in the ego’s illusion—let go of believing the mind’s stories and judgments—and focus our attention on practices that point to truth.

Today we will focus on love by practicing the Loving Consciousness meditation and by practicing the Loving All Method.

The Loving Consciousness meditation is similar to Awareness-Watching-Awareness except that as you watch awareness, you also love, appreciate and cherish it.

As a review, I recommend this guided meditation today. It is 30 minutes long:

Introduction to Loving Consciousness Meditation