Sean Reagan

The experience of being embodied is always painful. This is not a criticism of the body; it is a statement about what we are in truth and how our confusion about our identity causes us to suffer by conflating “true self” with a body.

Critically, this suffering cannot be mitigated in a body or by a body. It has to be corrected further upstream, in the abstract and sometimes mysterious domain of thought, or consciousness, where the basic error of “what we are” occurs (it is an ongoing error, not a one-and-done error).

When I say that embodied experience is painful I obviously mean headaches, menstrual cramps, stubbed toes and cancer. But I also mean orgasms, endorphin rushes after long runs, the taste of triple chocolate fudge cake and throwing sticks for puppies by the sea.

We are not bodies. Nothing the body does is natural to us; it might be natural for a body, but it isn’t natural for us because we are not bodies.

The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain, and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. They appears to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.

T-13.In.2:2-11

The association of self with body (which is not separate from the association of self with world, i.e., the one brings forth the other) is a painful error which cannot be corrected at the level of the symptom. You don’t move your hand to a different part of the fire in order to end the burning; you take your hand out (and then find a professional who knows what to do with burns).

So, in this sense, the healing contemplated by A Course in Miracles is all or nothing. We are either bodies or we aren’t; it’s not a question of degree.

It takes time and commitment to reach the juncture where the truth of “all or nothing” clarifies. And even then it can be hard to accept. The temptation is to redeem the body. We mostly do this intellectually. We say “I know I’m not a body” and then do yoga, go for a run, and drink kale smoothies.

And here’s the thing. We could pound whiskey for breakfast, shoot heroin for lunch and visit Fight Club at night and the error would still be the same. And so would the error’s effects.

Of course, at the level of the body kale and heroin are not not be the same. But we are not bodies. The body cannot be redeemed.

But listen: the body cannot be redeemed because it doesn’t need to be. The problem is not the body; the problem is that we think we are bodies. We think we’re in bodies. We think what happens in and to bodies happens to us.

It’s like reading Lord of the Rings and wondering whether we should hop into the story and help Frodo ascend Mount Doom. Or try and talk Sauron out of his evil ways. That’s just not how reality works.

If we are not bodies, and the body is merely a communication device (e.g., T-6.V.A.5:5), neutral in its own right (T-20.VII.4:4), then what are we?

This is a really important question! Literally every lesson of A Course in Miracles is aimed at helping us answer it. And when we do find the answer, the embodied experience stops being painful because we now hold it in right perspective.

(Hint: it stops being an “experience”).

It’s like if we’re trying to build a house and somebody gives us a hammer. Holding the head, we try to drive nails with the handle. It doesn’t work – it can’t work. But once we hold it rightly, it works fine.

Right this very moment you are like Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde confusing itself for a wax disc. The wax disc is just a medium; it could as easily be a frisbee or a serving plate. The music goes on both perfect and perfectly unaffected.

Or, right this very moment you are like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony confusing itself for the paper on which the score is written.

Both of the preceding paragraphs are not wrong but they are similes. They point towards a truth that cannot actually be contained in language (any more than you can be contained in a body). Practicing A Course in Miracles is one way to effectively get at this truth.

And what is this truth? We move towards it when we remember that we are abstract, not material. We are closer to the light in which the material appears, not materiality itself.

Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth. Yet do these thoughts make clear the meaning of creation? Do these words bring perfect clarity with them to you? What can they seem to be but empty sounds; pretty, perhaps, correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor understandable. The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing.

W-pI.161.4:2-7

The body is nothing in and of itself; it merely has the function we give it. But in order to really experience the peace and joy inherent in holding this perspective of the body, we have to know what we actually are.

To say we are not bodies is a negative statement. It’s valuable because it closes down an avenue of thought that is erroneous. But what is the positive statement? “In truth, I am _____.”

How would you answer that? In terms that are true for you and not merely learned from the past – from ACIM or Nisargadatta or Tara Singh or John’s Gospel?

Our answer is literally the end of suffering – ours and everyone else’s. No other question merits our attention. And there is only one answer that will save us. “Only one answer” is not a form of pressure but of grace.

You know I’m right. How do you know?

There is nothing wrong with wanting a better body, more money, wilder and more vivid sensual experiences, awesome health, unbridled optimism. Part of being a body – and part of being a separate self – means wanting those things. It is those things.

It’s just that those things don’t exist and so, in the ultimate sense, they aren’t going to make you happy or satisfied. They’re sort of like mosquitoes. You brush one away and scratch the itch, but then another mosquito lands. On and on it goes. You can never swat all the mosquitoes.

There are helpful life hacks that can modify and amend our apparent physical experience. Diets, exercise regimens, meditation, psychotherapy, investment strategies, yoga . . . truly the list is endless. And partaking of it is fine. It’s more than fine. Given a buffet, why not help yourself to the myriad dishes?

Yet all these methods – including A Course in Miracles – subtly reinforce the very problem that gives rise to all the dissatisfaction and grievances that led to our searching for them. They take as fact the existence of the separate self. And so long as we are working on that self – even if very subtly – then we are going to experience depression and guilt and fear. Separation is depressing and guilt-inducing and fearful.

What am I saying here? I’m saying that if you feel like running, run, but don’t expect running to reveal the face of God. Even if you do happen to see the face of God while running, it’s not happening because you’re running. It’s happening because you are ready to see that you are always seeing the face of God. The same with becoming a vegetarian or a peace activist or a poet or anything else. Illusory projects directed at an illusory self will only yield illusory results. Those results come and go. Chasing after results – really, just believing there is one who can chase results – is the separation.

All we are doing in our study of A Course in Miracles is looking into the possibility that the separate self concept is an illusion. If it is, then the anguish that attends it is illusory also, and we are free. Is that so hard?

Often, when I say this, this way, someone asks: and what if we are wrong? What if the separate self is real?

To which the best answer is: how would you know? And who cares (with an emphasis on “who” rather than “cares”)?

If taking the separate self as real is the end of our inquiry, then that is a positive development!. It means that we can turn away from nondual paths and practices and seek out alternatives that are more consistent with what we have discovered. There is nothing wrong – and a great deal good and right – about that.

In either case, truly, there is nothing to fear or be worked up about. If we reach the Gates of Heaven, wonderful! If we don’t, wonderful! I love to bake bread; I have become somewhat skilled at it over the years. The apparent mistakes – the loaves that didn’t rise, the spices that didn’t mix well, the sweeteners that overwhelmed the dough – were all “errors” that informed my eventually consistent baking. Seen in that light, can I really say they were “errors?” I learned from them. Was there not – is there not now – simply baking?

If your life sucks, then go ahead and make it better. There is nothing wrong with this. But spare a thought for the underlying conceptual structure that makes your suffering possible: the discrete and separate entity known as the self, alone in a world that wishes it ill. Can you really and truly find that self? And if you can’t, why are you so worked up about its so-called problems?

Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person.
~ Nisargadatta

Although the phrase would have been alien to him, Nisargadatta is talking about level confusion here. Level confusion is basically a way of saying that we are confused about what we are and our confusion has consequences.

Level confusion is like looking in the mirror, believing the image is the actual self, smearing toothpaste all over the glass with a toothbrush, and then wondering why your teeth still have caramel corn in them.

It is a central metaphysical tenet of A Course in Miracles that we are not bodies, but free (W-pI.199.8:7-8). This is true because a body is a container, a limit, and what you are cannot be contained or limited.

Nisargadatta again:

The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. See that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that.

Again, Nisardatta is not a student of A Course in Miracles and so the language and underlying metaphysics he uses are different. But the fundamental concept is not. Nisargadatta’s “person” is the level of the body and all its thoughts, ideals, goals, dreams, desires, et cetera. It is at this level that ACIM’s ego operates. Indeed, the world and the body are literally the ego’s formal argument for its existence.

The level of spirit is nondualistic, abstract and invulnerable. It was not born and it will not die. It is perfectly still and endlessly creative. It is the freedom to which both ACIM and Nisargadatta point.

Level confusion is when we conflate the attributes of one level with the other. For example, we walk up to somebody sobbing at a funeral and tell them that “death isn’t real.” Or we pretend our writing is being channeled through Jesus or another ascended master.((I know, I know. This is a controversial example! Still, I stand by it. Attributing ACIM to Jesus is classic level confusion. But this is not a criticism of Helen Schucman; level confusion happens to all of us to one degree or another. It is a form of projection from which nobody is immune.))

This reflects a confusion in our identity because of the implication that what what we are in truth is the same at both levels, so that “what is amiss at one level can adversely affect another” (T-2.IV.2:2). Your cancer – or your headache – are not spiritual problems. Jesus is a symbol in the dream. He is not a figure outside it waiting for you to wake up and join him in a crusade of lovingkindness.

Thus, we are not called to deny or ignore either our bodies or the world (which in fact are the same phenomenon, the one bringing the other forth). Rather, we are learning to see them in a new way. Our goal is to take them seriously as learning devices, rather than literally as the be-all, end-all of existence and experience.

The body is merely part of your experience in the physical world. Its abilities can be and frequently are overevaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence in this world. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial.

T-2.IV.3:8-11

The metaphysics of A Course in Miracles posit two levels of experience: the bodily level and the spiritual level. Mind – which is thought – is the author of both.

When thought represents the bodily level is “makes” the physical world, which is lower than the spiritual level, which thought “creates” (T-1.I.12:2-3).((This is an old idea in the western philosophical canon; it derives from Plato’s ideas about Form. The world we sense is riddled with error; the real world is perfect and filled with Forms (or ideas) that are infinite and eternal. These Forms have correlates in the world of the senses, but those correlates are ultimately unsatisfying because they are fundamentally illusory. Through reason and logic we ascend from mere perception to actual knowledge of the pure Forms. This is the source of true happiness.))

In this way, A Course in Miracles perpetuates a dualism long inherent in Christianity (especially its Platonic applications): namely, that body and spirit are separate, the latter is lovely and beloved of God, and the former unworthy and despicable. As Saint Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians:

. . . the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Gal 5:17

Here is how A Course in Miracles puts it:

You see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite.

T-31.VI.1:1-3

This implies a clear, non-negotiable and fundamental division that would have been very familiar to Paul (and, in its way, to Plato)! The options are body or spirit and the game is all or nothing. Choose one and the other is utterly and instantly foreclosed to you.

Nor is the course – like the overarching Christian tradition from which it arises – vague about which one it thinks you should choose.

No one who carries Christ in him can fail to recognize Him everywhere. Except in bodies. And as long as he believes he is in a body, where he thinks he is He cannot be.

T-25.in.2:1-3

It is important to understand that this binary – this high-stakes choice between spirit and body – is a metaphor that appears within the world. It, too, is part of the dream.

Being clear about this is essential to translating experience from guilt and fear to a happy dream in which it is at last possible for God to take the last step.((Of this “last step” we generally do not speak because it is literally unspeakable (e.g., T-1.II.2:7). It’s a good example of level confusion – trying to translate what is perfectly abstract into clunky and imperfect material terms and experiences.))

Thus, a primary learning goal of the course, is to clear up what it calls “level confusion” – which is another way of saying, being clear about what is a dream and what is truth so that we remember what we are in truth.

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be . . . How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true cannot be false?

T-31.I.1:1-2, 7

But remember (sorry to keep hammering away at this point): all of this confusion occurs within the dream. It’s good to be clear and to understand but . . . all of that clarification and understanding is still just the dream. Rather than confuse it with awakening from the dream, we should simply allow it to make us happier in the context of the dream. A Course in Miracles has no other objective or function.

This discernment between what is false and what is true involves the rearrangement of perception so that body and spirit are equally held in “true perspective.” This heals us because sickness comes from “confusing the levels,” which is another way of saying “seeing them wrongly” (T-1.I.23:1-2).

This Mind/Matter split is a rigid binary from which A Course in Miracles does not deviate, though it does allow that when we accept it – when the levels are not confused but held in right perspective – healing can occur and manifest at both levels. That is, once you’ve turned your mind over to the Holy spirit, then your body . . .

. . . becomes perfect in the ability to serve an undivided goal. In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well.

W-pI.199.6:3-5

Thus, the body becomes a means to remember love and become happy in its remembering. It is neither an impediment to love nor a necessary element of love. It has no more importance to love than a fork has to the taste of the apple pie you’re eating. It’s just a means to an end that itself becomes a means to the greater end of happiness and, finally, oneness.

The body is the level of differences and distinctions. The problem is not that we see the distinctions – that’s inevitable because of bodies. It’s what bodies do. Rather, the problem is the underlying belief (in mind) that the distinctions are valuable in and of themselves. That is how they become real.

This is why we say that the real work of healing is at the level of mind, not the appearances (or symptoms) reflective of what mind is doing.

Thus, falling in love with a special someone is neither good news nor bad. Being healed from cancer means absolutely nothing with respect to God’s relationship with you. Channeled texts are not a sign of something you did or did not do in a past life. Waking up is neither better nor worse than not waking up.

God does not perceive differences at all (e.g., M-28.5:1-2). This is a radically different kind of love than what we experience and imagine in bodies in the world.

Bodies cannot get sick and so cannot be healed and so diagnoses of any kind – cancer-free or eight weeks left to live – are devoid of meaning.

Bodies are images that neither live nor die. They do not even have this life, let alone past lives.

Bodies – and the selves that appear confined to them – neither sleep or awaken, and so enlightenment (or any spiritual goal at all) is meaningless.

It’s at this juncture that folks tend to throw up their hands. If it’s all meaningless, then what is the point? Why do anything?

That’s the ego crying out for salvation. That’s its last dying wail, its plea for relevance. That’s ego begging you not to turn away from it forever.

“What’s the point” and “why do anything” are questions that only make sense from the perspective of ego. If you can see that – or be open to seeing that – then you can also see that Spirit has no interest in taking your so-called life away from you.

Rather, it will transform how you see that life, and in doing so teach you that seeing is what matters, not what is seen. And then it will teach you what vision is, and gently help you shift “seeing” to vision. Vision is what makes us happy.

The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it.

T-19.IV.A.15:2-3

Moreover, this transformed vision of the world is not ours alone. It is shared.

Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is feast that honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcome as an honored guest.

T-19.IV.A.16:1-2

In this meeting place we are joined with Christ, in fulfillment of an ancient promise (T-19.IV.A.16:4). Critically, this union is not predicated on either bodies or the world.

. . . would I offer you my body, *knowing its littleness? Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? No one can die for anyone and death does not atone for sin.

T-19.IV.A.17:5-6, 8

When we align with spirit, the way we perceive shifts, and in our shifted perception we see that loss is not possible. The happiness engendered in this insight – which is quiet, serious, and still – becomes the space in the false bondage of confusion slips off us.

“God takes the last step” is a promise made in terms that are understandable to bodies in the world. It is only at that level that we actually need help, for it is that level at which we think we live. It is at that level that we need the illusion of body and spirit as separate levels at all.

In fact, there is neither God nor steps nor firsts nor lasts. To ego this statement makes no sense. To what you are in truth, this statement does not exist. Therein lies the peace offered by A Course in Miracles.

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We live in a state of self-imposed exile from God’s Love. It hurts; there is a better way. Are we ready to accept that way and go home?

A Course in Miracles is a way to undo the effects of our supposed descent into fear. It helpfully frames this undoing – this journey from darkness to Light, from separation to the quiet stillness of our God-created being – as a two-step process.

The escape from darkness involves two stages: First, the recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually entails fear. Second the recognition that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. This step brings escape from fear. When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into holy communion but will also understand peace and joy.

T-1.IV.1:1-5

The “darkness” referred to here might be thought of as “lack of knowing.” We have forgotten what we are in truth, and this fundamental error makes knowledge of truth impossible.

This error – this confusion of identity – is both made and sustained through projection and denial. We don’t see hatred in ourselves, we see it in folks outside of us. That’s projection. We frame the violence of yelling at our child as justified under certain circumstances. That’s denial.

When we realize that projection and denial don’t actually work, we become fearful. Deeply fearful. It means we have to look at hatred and violence in our own self. We have to own those feelings in our heart, our mind.

Think of a messy room. We don’t like looking at the mess, so we turn off the light. Now we don’t see the mess because of the darkness. But the mess is still there.

That’s the first step, or stage, of the escape from darkness – the recognition that darkness doesn’t actually solve the problems it pretends to hide. Therefore, it doesn’t really hide at all. It can’t.

The second step of the escape is the realization that even if darkness could hide something, there is nothing that we want to hide.

This is the insight that healing – or salvation – comes from releasing literally everything that appears to constitute the egoic self. There is no secret, memory, mystery, goal or fantasy that we would keep from being raised to light. We commit to releasing every last shred of guilt, hate and fear. We will look at all of it.

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure it will jeopardize your learning.

T-24.in.2:1-2

When we say “yes” to this condition – when we are exactly that willing – then darkness no longer has any hold on our mind. It doesn’t work and that’s okay. We wouldn’t want it to.

Thus begins a sort of spiritual psychotherapy. We search for every scrap of resentment and hostility and dysfunction we can find and offer it to the Holy Spirit. If we’re scared in any way – however it appears, whatever the form – we look at it. If we’re hateful, we look at it. We look at it because looking at it is how it is undone. In the light of holiness – which is our willingness – nothing remains to mar the perfection of love. It is all undone.

As we do this work, we gradually remember the promise inherent in the first principle of miracles: there is no such as thing as a large or a small problem, and so they are all healed with equal ease. “All expressions of love are maximal” (T-1.I.1:).

No matter how egregious the hate appears, no matter how terrified we are of what we perceive in our self, love simply washes it away.

Why? Because it all arises from the same basic problem – the mistaken belief that what we are is a vulnerable body in a dangerous world. The miracle gently undoes this over and over, and eventually – in time, in bodies – we realize that we are ready to go home to God. We are ready to be done with piecemeal healing.

Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

W-pI.189.7:2-5

And there – and then – because it is God’s Will and we share that Will – we remember that we are creations of love given only to create as we are created. And all is well and will be well and was well, forever and forever, amen.