What is the Body? 13

The following series of posts, begun on May first, are taken from Ken Wapnick’s, Journey Through the Workbook of a Course in Miracles, Vol. Seven, pages 69-72.  They represent a radical alternative to our ‘normal’, everyday view of the human body and our traditional views of spirituality.  This view is both horrifying and exhilarating.  See what you think.   It’s best not to swallow these ideas whole, nor reject them out of hand.  What’s best is to chew them over, mull them and reflect upon the rare occasions when the ideas seem to explain your experience.  The Course itself is believed to be channeled by Jesus as a correction to what’s been done with his ideas.

“’Then let us wait an instant and be still, forgetting everything we thought we heard; remembering how much we do not know.  This brother neither leads nor follows us, but walks beside us on the selfsame road.  He is like us, near or far away from what we want as we will let him be.  We make no gains he does not make with us, and we fall back if he does not advance.  Take not his hand in anger but in love, for in his progress do you count your own.  And we go separately along the way unless you keep him safely by side.’

The body is not holy in itself, as attested to by Jesus’ many references to it as mere dust, but is made holy because of the purpose given it by the right mind.  “You will identify with what you think will make you safe.  Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you.’  We believed our individual self was safe with the ego, and, again, at that moment we no longer had chose the ego thought system of preparation, we became it.

“‘The concrete part [of the mind] believes in the ego, because the ego depends on the concrete.  The ego is the part of the mind that believes your existence is defined by separation.’ On the other hand, when we realize the ego has lied and cannot make us happy, we gratefully choose Jesus as our teacher and his love as our identity—the choice for real safety.  As we continue our journey, we learn to accept that identity and none other.”