LESSON 199. I am not a body. I am free.
- Widen the horizons of our vision
- Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
- Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
- Intensify our motivation for freedom
We are Awareness-life-presence. We are not bodies. “Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found.”
We are being asked here to see the false as false—the temporary as temporary. As with forgiveness, the body is another illusion that can be used to let go of all illusion. Indeed, the lesson states, “Declare your innocence and you are free. The body disappears, because you have no need of it except the need the Holy Spirit sees. For this, the body will appear as useful form for what the mind must do. It thus becomes a vehicle which helps forgiveness be extended to the all-inclusive goal that it must reach, according to God’s plan.”
In order to surrender this illusion to the service of Holy Spirit or Awareness, we must surrender our beliefs about the body. Because we seem to have an experience of the body, we believe that we are contained within it. Indeed, in order to have any other tactile or visceral experience, we feel that “within” our bodies. All of the bodily sensations we experience, however, we, ourselves, place within the body. It is similar to the phantom limb syndrome experienced by amputees—their mind tells them they are experiencing a sensation in the missing limb, which is of course, impossible.
NTI Philippians, Chapter 2 says this of the body: “Do not be personal with the body as you watch it and observe it. Do not feel that you are looking at you. I tell you, the body that you observe is not you. It is merely an expression of your thought. You are the process of creation that is God. You are mind and spirit that is not in the world. Separate yourself from the body in order to observe it. Observe it in order to learn what you want to learn about yourself.”
We are asked by this lesson to wear the body lightly—to be willing to give this illusion up as all the others. The lesson states very clearly that the body is a limit. It is because we believe the body is “me,” that we value it so highly.
We can consciously choose to watch the body but to dis-identify with it in the same way we are learning to dis-identify with thought. Thoughts seem to appear within our awareness, yet we are coming to see we are not the thoughts. In the same way, recognize that the body seems to appear within your awareness, but you are not your body. Watch your body in the same way that you watch your thoughts. It is the thoughts to which the body responds. Learn this connection in order that it be undone.
When the body tells you that it is tired, for example, do you always find this to actually be true? I often lay down to sleep, sleepy, and find I can’t sleep. When the body gives you directives, see if you are able to at least delay them—don’t immediately move to comfort the body.
We are being asked not to value the valueless. We are asked to give up our fascination with the body and focus our attention on the truth of our nature—on awareness-life-presence. “The mind (Awareness) that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked.”
When we accept awareness as our identity, we become the observer of everything that appears including the body. We abide as our Self while temporary appearances come and go. We do not give undue meaning or value to anything that does not last.
“I am not a body. I am free. I hear the Voice that God has given me, and it is only this my mind obeys.”
