“Such is the truth—at first to be but said and then repeated many times and next to be accepted as but partly true with many reservations.”   …ACIM

According to the King James version of the Christian Bible, roughly two thousand years ago Jesus told Pilate he had come to this world to “bear witness unto the truth.” Then Pilate followed up by asking him this question: “What is truth?” That question has been asked, although in different forms, since time began.

There has never been an answer to it that will satisfy everyone. That’s because, as the  Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, pointed out somewhere around one hundred seventy-five years later: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

And the reason that’s so is our belief that we’re all separated entities living in separate bodies. That belief is an illusion because it requires we be separated from our Source, which is Life itself. No one could be separated from their Source of Life and live, which makes it an illusion. And there’s no way truth can be found in illusions. In this world the truth is whatever each of us believe it to be. As the American poet, Walt Whitman once said: “Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.” 

“Nothing but the truth is true, and what is false is false.”   …ACIM

The Course’s whole message is a very simple, but for many, difficult  to accept, teaching. Which in simplified form can be stated as follows: You are, you always were, and you will always be as God created you. The main aspect of this is: There is no guilt in you. You are as innocent now as you were at your creation, and you will always be so. 

As an effect of this innocence it teaches the following: It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad or weak or frail.”

“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”    …Albert Einstein

When Albert Einstein said this he didn’t do so from religious or spiritual bias. He did so based on what he had learned as one of the brightest scientific minds this world has ever known. Through his work as a physicist he learned first-hand that everything in the universe is energy, and energy works on frequencies.

Abraham, that group of non-physical entities who speak through Esther Hicks, named this phenomenon the Law of Attraction. They describe it as, that which is like unto itself is drawn. In other words, like attracts like. As Einstein implied if we match the frequency of something we want it’s inevitable we’ll get it. But that being said, the opposite is just as true. If we match the frequency of something we don’t want we’ll also get that.

And now the question is, how do we match the frequency of something we want or don’t want? There can be no other way than through the process of thinking. As Richard Bach once pointed out: “We magnetize into our lives whatever we hold in our thoughts.”

There’s two words in Bach’s statement that need to be considered very carefully. The word, “whatever,” can mean nothing other than it matters not what it is, whether it’s something wanted or not wanted. And “hold” implies to continuously think about it, whatever it is.

“The body is a learning device for the mind. Learning devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to facilitate the thinking of the learner.”   …ACIM

How many of us hold the belief that the body is the whole sum of what we are? Oh there’s many who would answer something like, “not me, I know I’m not this body.” But, as my opening quote points out, these things are said, whether we’re aware of it or not, with many reservations.

Most of us want to believe we’re more than a physical body, but few of us really and truly do. I say this because if we really believed it there would be no sickness in our world. For God did not create anything that could be sick.

How many of us can accept the idea that the body is a learning device for the mind?  I would venture, not many, for that’s a truly radical idea. But if the truth were known, we would learn it’s nowhere near as radical as the idea that what God created as part of Him can be sick.

Facilitating the Thinking of the Learner

To facilitate means to make an action or a process easier. And now this question arises: How can the “body” make thinking easier for those who want to learn?  It boils down to our belief that the body is the real person – the whole sum of what we are.  As the Course puts it:“The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world . There is no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed.“

The teachings of the Course seem to be upside down and radical to those who follow the teachings of the world. But like everything else the world teaches the opposite is true. It’s the teachings of the world which are upside down and radical. What could be more upside down and radical than a teaching that teaches you you’re not who you are? That’s exactly what the ego does by  teaching you you’re a flesh body, born into a physical world.

Because of this erroneous belief we believe that all our pains, aches, and sicknesses take place in the body. As the Course tells us, “you think that a learning device can tell you how you feel.”

In order for the body to facilitate our thinking we must first learn and accept the idea that it’s our thoughts alone that cause us pain. I understand this to be a very upside down and radical idea to most. But for those who can accept it, it fits the criteria of my opening quote perfectly, which is: At first to be but said and then repeated many times and next to be accepted as but partly true with many reservations.

“Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is to recognize it and go the other way.”   …ACIM

Even though it’s an illusion, we believe the body is real and can tell us how we feel. Therefore, when we feel miserable, or in pain, or sick we feel it in the body even though the feeling is actually in our minds. It takes awhile for the idea to sink in that it’s it’s our thoughts alone that cause us pain. But once it does sink in we can begin to do something about it.

I’m going to end this post on a personal note. We have a friend who is well up in her so-called, golden years. Even so, she is hardly ever sick, and for her age is in excellent health. She doesn’t go to a Doctor very often. One time I asked her what she did when she had an ailment or something bothering her. Her reply was, “I take my mind off it and it goes away.” 

 

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