Split Minds are Bananas

A Course in Miracles suggests that we “not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind” (T-8.VIII.9:5). I want to understand this in order to practice it. What would that practice look like? And what is its relationship to Love?

A Course in Miracles suggests that our mind is split between its belief that separation is real and the truth, which is that there is no separation anywhere (e.g., T-12.I.10:5, T-16.V.15:1, M-12.4:6).

Separation – which always sugars out in separate interests that generate conflict – is an egoic fiction, a self-sustaining error. It repeats a lie in order to be able to repeat the lie again. But because we identify with ego, the lie appears as truth and separation as real.

To support this argument and keep us invested in it, ego argues – and we consent to be persuaded – that we are bodies, and that the body’s vulnerability and the inevitable permanence of death are our vulnerability and our end.

The body is the ego’s home by its own election. It is the only identification with which the ego feels safe, since the body’s vulnerability is its own best argument that you cannot be of God (T-4.V.4:1-2).

All of that is an analogy! It’s not literally true. It’s a way of telling a story that makes clear that suffering is something we do to ourselves. The body isn’t bad; we’re just confused about our relationship with it. That is why ACIM advises us not to let the body become “an image of our own perception of littleness” (T-8.VIII.9:6). The body’s vulnerability is its vulnerability, not ours.

When we conflate ourselves with a body, we also generate a world in which survival, not love, is the game we play. We believe we have to compete over scarce resources, a zero-sum conflict in which the prize is putting off death one more day. This places us in opposition to others in ways that make suffering inevitable. We reinforce the separation in others by treating them as potential enemies but this reinforces separation in us as well. If we can “have'” enemies, then we can “be” enemies. This, too, is an error. We are called to never let the body “reflect your decision to attack” (T-8.VIII.9:7).

Go slowly with that last quote. The body doesn’t attack, we attack. Bodies are beside the point. The suggestion is, we choose a way of seeing the world that obligates the body to behave as if it’s fighting to the death for a cookie. And the course is saying, don’t do that. Own your decision to be violent and own the effects of the decision. Don’t pass it off on biology or evolution. Don’t pretend it’s somebody else’s fault. “Men naturally defend their property.” “Of courese I killed my neighbor – he was going to kill me.” Just see how the potential for violence exists in you and then ask if there’s a better way.

In my experience, relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit means we stop thinking of the body as the self. That’s all! We simply give up on the 1:1 equivalency. We don’t deny the body – starve it, train it, punish it, spoil it. We simply accept that it reflects messages sent to it through a thought system that is uninterested in love. There is – thank Christ there is – another way. Adopt a thought system that is interested in love. What happens then?

Well, one thing that happens is that we become better at acceptance as a spiritual practice. Acceptance – which is a form of letting go – lightens us and allows us to experience our natural talent for holiness.

Health is seen as the natural state of everything when interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, Who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly (T-8.VIII.9:8-9).

Really the suggestion is, use the body for loving acts – feed the hungry, pay for a stranger’s coffee, grow flowers, pat a dog. Keep it simple and clear; have fun if possible. We are demonstrating to ourselves and others that there are grounds for hope. Heaven is not a future state available to some of us, but a present state of grace presently unrecognized that is given to all of us. It’s easy – just look!

And yes, ego is going to push back. Ego is going to fight. That’s what ego does! But sooner or later we reach a juncture where we don’t want to fight anymore. We surrender and walk away. “Forget it, ego. You win.” But those are not the words ego wants to hear. Contrary to popular belief, ego could care less about winning or losing. It cares about the game itself. You can’t stop playing.

But when we do stop – when we walk away from the shallow ego con game – the Holy Spirit is there to teach us how to live in bodies in the world, and how to use our bodies to enlarge the domains of peace and justice for all of us. This is how we achieve right-mindedness, a state of joyful acceptance of all life that “must be achieved before One-mindedness is restored” (T-4.II.10:1).

The suggestion the course makes is that right-mindedness ensures “right perception” which is “uniformly without attack” and thus undoes both wrong-mindedness and all its effects (e.g., T-4.II.10:2-3). We become “right-minded” in order to eventually remember the one-mindedness that is our inheritance and in which we are no longer confused about what we are, what the world is, and what relationship looks and feels like in truth.

The split mind doesn’t suture itself back together. It doesn’t come up with a better, prettier, holier idea to babble about. It simply sees that the “split” is an illusion, which is healing. There is nothing to do, and only we can do it. Shall we?