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Now we shift from the beauty we found in the lesson yesterday to a much darker perspective, as we look at the whole thought system of the ego and its projection of guilt onto the body. When we are in pain of any kind and anything related to any kind of sickness, we feel removed from peace and joy. At such times, it is hard to realize that we are not our pain and suffering and that pain is a choice. In saying that pain is our responsibility and that we can choose joy instead, the inclination is to feel guilty instead of recognizing that we are responsible for our thoughts. Yet it is only our thoughts that cause us pain. (W.190.5.1)

It is easier to see that it is only our thoughts that cause us to suffer if we can look at other circumstances in our lives. For example, it is not the rejection of a friend that has hurt me, but my thoughts about that experience. It is not the rudeness of the woman at the store that has taken away my peace, but only my thoughts about that situation. It is not the person who almost backed into me as I was driving in the grocery store parking lot that has hurt me, but my thoughts about that person. In the same way, if I have some physical pain, it is my thoughts that are the source of the pain and not anything outside of my mind.

When I went through a painful process with dental surgery and bone transplant procedure and experienced the physical sensation that we experience as pain, I reminded myself that the sensation that I was feeling did not have to cause suffering. Despite the apparent pain, I could choose peace. The idea is that we can at least practice reducing the mental suffering that goes with pain. While the pain may not entirely vanish, the suffering can at least be diminished if not eliminated from the mind. It is not necessarily easy to apply this practice in painful situations, but it is effective because with thoughts and words of distress and discouragement, suffering intensifies. My experience with emotional pain is that it can be even more excruciating. Our thoughts can really become obsessive and keep us in hell. This is when it is especially important to do the practice of denying the ability of these thoughts to hurt us and bringing our minds to peace. It is a time to really focus on this teaching and take it in for the truth that it is. When I was going through a really difficult time in my life, I held onto the words of the Course like they were a life raft. In fact, they proved to be true in my experience. Once we start on this path, it is like swallowing a truth pill that can't be expelled. In other words, there is no turning back. Yes, we will delay and procrastinate, but we can never return to the ego thought system entirely, once we have tasted truth.

It is not easy to accept the thought that we can choose peace when we are suffering or see someone in our lives suffering with pain, illness, or frailty of any kind. In fact, the most often stated comment we hear or express is 'how could God do this to me or to them?' A loving God would not allow us to suffer. "If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God." (3.3-4) When we are in pain, we feel abandoned by God (2.5) and do not experience his eternal Love for us. Instead of feeling guilty, when we experience pain, this lesson asks us to see the foolishness of this thought (4.1) and to laugh at such an insane idea as that. (4.2) Certainly we can all attest, when we are in pain, it is hard to choose joy in such circumstances. We become our pain. "Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness." (T.27.VI.1.1-2) At times like that, when we get fearful, medications that mask the symptoms are suggested, even though the Course refers to such medications as magic. They are helpful temporary solutions, which help to reduce our fear and allow us to work with our thoughts. However, while we alleviate the symptoms with medication, we are not curing the problem.

What is the problem? Why do we experience pain? Some years ago I was at a workshop with Dr. Parkin. She is a medical intuitive trained by Carolyn Myss. For every bodily dysfunction that she diagnosed, she would prescribe the source of the problem in the mind. For example, a problem in the pancreas was a lack of sweetness in one's life. A pain in the abdomen was anger held in. Back pain was holding back love. Chest problems were a lack of compassion. A sore throat may hold someone back who fears speaking the truth, and so on. Jesus addresses this when he says, "Sickness takes many forms, and so does unforgiveness. The forms of one but reproduce the forms of the other, for they are the same illusion. So closely is one translated into the other, that a careful study of the form a sickness takes will point quite clearly to the form of unforgiveness that it represents." (Psychotherapy.2.VI.5.1-3) The intent here is obviously not to feel guilty, or make someone else who is suffering experience guilt, but if our thoughts are the source, then we do have the power of healing, which is in our own minds. While Jesus affirms the relationship between the symptom and the thought it represents, he goes on to say that there is not much point in bothering with this analysis since it won't affect the cure. "Yet seeing this will not effect a cure. That is achieved by only one recognition; that only forgiveness heals an unforgiveness, and only an unforgiveness can possibly give rise to sickness of any kind." (P.2.VI.5.4-5)

Pain tells us that we are something that we are not, that we are our bodies. (2.3) We have projected the guilt that we feel about separating from God onto our bodies and it is this guilt, which is the source of our pain. I am finding that I can increasingly connect instances of getting a cold to unforgiving thoughts. Jesus tells us that, "Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means to make the body real. What shares a common purpose is the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are equally unreal, because their purpose cannot be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning." (T.27.VI.1.4-8) Their purpose can't be achieved because, while they try to prove the body real, it is impossible. The body is nothing and has no meaning except what we give it in the illusion. It is just a dream figure, and the only purpose that pain has is to try to prove that, "'You are here, within this body, and you can be hurt." (T.27.VI.2.2)

Yet the truth about us is that, "Your Self is radiant, in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever and forever." (6.5) We use pain as a protection to keep us from awareness of that truth. By focusing all our attention on our pain and suffering, it becomes our existence. "Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free." (8.2). We gladly agree to suffer to prove that we are right about who we are as separated beings with bodily realities and that we exist. We gladly suffer to prove that others are responsible for our condition and thus guilty while we can maintain our innocence. It is our belief that we have to suffer to do penance so that we can be happy in the end and receive our reward from God. It is a belief that our suffering will be sufficient to atone for what the ego has convinced us that we have done.

Thus it is the guilt in the mind that needs to be healed in order to address the pain that is a symptom of guilt projected on the body. The only source of pain is our belief in sin. When I am in pain, it is truly challenging to look at it as my responsibility without feeling guilty. We slowly learn to look at our own thoughts and take responsibility for them, we can experience the truth. That is our goal. Instead of trying to make the pain go away, we can continue to focus on healing our thoughts and retraining our minds and letting go of our false perceptions of ourselves. We can learn to experience the joy that is hidden by our pain as we experience these moments of release. We can connect with God and know, in that connection, that He is pure Love and would never bring us suffering. When we realize we are outside of the dream and that our identity is not a body, then there is no way to experience pain. Pain is the shadow of the thought system that says we sinned and are now guilty and should fear punishment. We project our guilt out from our own mind and now we see God as punishing us. Thus pain is a mistaken thought of the guilt in my mind, which led to separation from God. Our identity as vulnerable beings who can be hurt and destroyed comes as a result of the separation.

My experience is that when someone is sick, they immediately judge themselves for not being sufficiently spiritually advanced. We chose the script of our lives from outside of this dream. Indeed, sickness of the body may be something that we have chosen for a specific purpose. It is also important to see that this lesson is not just about the pain of bodily sickness, but about reversing cause and effect. It is about recognizing that, "The world you see does nothing . It has no effects at all." (6.1-2) In fact, the world is already over, and nothing that we think is the cause of our dis-ease is true. While to us it seems that the world is the cause of our pain, it has no power at all. All of the power is in our minds. If our idle wishes and "strange desires" (7.6) bring these painful realities into our experience, then we can choose to no longer pay this painful ransom by recognizing the truth of who we really are.

I am continually amazed at how a particular lesson or passage from the text comes up exactly at the time when I am looking for an answer. It arrives perfectly to remind me of the truth. It is like Jesus is looking over our shoulders and talking to the specific issue that is going on for us. Something shows up perfectly in this teaching that seems to deal directly with an issue at hand. The point is that when we stubbornly hold onto anything and justify holding onto it, the ego is getting some juice out of it. If I hold onto my suffering, others will feel sorry for me, others will serve me and protect me, and will go out of their way for me. If we try to control someone with our sadness, they are supposed to do something for us as a result. Our neediness, we think, will "make" someone care about us, and there is juice in this kind of victimhood. Through it we believe that we will get the attention and love we seek, and experience the control that we think we need in order to keep us safe.

We use these kinds of manipulations to induce guilt in others. It is a misuse of our power, but it can all be released with the help of our Source. By looking at our fearful thoughts and admitting our strategies for manipulation and control, we have an opportunity to release the blocks to the love and radiance that we really are. Instead of holding on, we can choose to release and let go and in that find the freedom and joy that await us. Our holding on comes from feelings of worthlessness and valuelessness. Will anyone be there for me, just because!? Is that the real question or is it to ask ourselves 'who am I extending love to and what am I giving in this moment?' Enlightenment is not a future condition. It is to ask in every moment, what would love do now, in this very circumstance? As we give, so shall we receive. It does require trust and a leap of faith, but in it lies our freedom.

How do such transformations take place? Often they occur spontaneously as Jon Mundy has shown us in his research on mysticism, but for most, long term transformation requires consistent, determined and ongoing practice. How willing are we to commit to this? How willing are we to look at our blocks in every moment as they come up? Our path is so often marked by personal tragedies and deep pain, but it is precisely these events that can motivate our journey to healing. But we can be equally motivated by our experiences of ecstasy, which give us a glimpse of the eternal. Listen to your inner yearning for home, for freedom, for peace and to know love. It is this which propels you to look within. Looking for it in the distractions of the world will only take us further into pain. It is not to be found there. "Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness." (9.1-4)

Your world will change when you change your mind and "choose the joy of God as what you really want." (6.4) It is mostly our perception of the world that will change. When the belief in the ego is undone, we can know the Self that we are as a Thought in God's Mind, but we have denied this Self and instead we have taken a little corner of our mind and made it into our entire worldly experience, where there is pain and suffering. We have made this place our home. That is what the world is about. It is a world that seems to cause us pain. (7.1)  We have chosen it, as well as our experience in it, as part of our script. Therefore we are not a victim of anything that seems to be happening to us. The world is not the cause of our pain. Our experience here is illusory and serves one purpose, which is to keep us in the dream, but if our minds are the cause then we have the answer to all of our suffering within, and that is empowering.

The other view presented in this lesson is that God is the cause of our pain. In fact, that is how we see it when we suffer. We ask God, why are you doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this? And in this dream it all seems quite tragic. Yet Jesus says we can laugh at such insane ideas. "There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequences." (4.3) Clearly we have done nothing. We have not sinned, as the ego makes us believe. There is no need for guilt. We are still innocent and can choose to remember the truth, when we recognize we have been wrong.

The lesson introduces the idea that pain is a wrong perspective in that it implies that this God that is supposed to be loving is, in fact, a cruel God. The reasoning goes like this: If God is the cause of everything real, and if pain is real then God must be the cause of it making Him a cruel God. It is based on a whole thought system that starts with our belief that we have sinned and now God wants revenge on us and thus brings us punishment. This is not in our awareness, but it is what Jesus tells us is in the deep recesses of our minds. It reflects the Garden of Eden story where all was wonderful until we sinned and got kicked out of the garden to a life of pain and toil. Pain testifies to the apparent truth of this and makes a lie of who we are as changeless and unchanging, holy and radiant. We experience a world of pain and of death, which was not created by a God of pure love. It is all a projection from the wrong-minded thought system of sin and death. Love would not cause this to be, and it does not. Jesus tells us that it is foolishness to think this comes from God. It is a wrong perspective that we hold based on our belief in our sinfulness and that we now deserve punishment. It is this thought system that put the whole thing in motion and thus the events of our lives deliver the punishment that we think we deserve. Now pain seems to triumph over love.

Our way out of all of this is to recognize that the thought that God wants revenge on us is a foolish thought. It is our judgment that we hold against ourselves that sets off this whole cycle of pain, but now we can choose to lay aside all attack and defense and experience God's joy. Pain is illusion and joy is reality. Pain is the denial of that reality, and thus we can be grateful to be told that the way we have seen it is not the truth. "It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain." (5.1)

We can understand which choice we have made, for God or the ego, by paying attention to how we are feeling. We can see how we blame something outside of ourselves for how we feel, and then we can choose to remember that no one outside of ourselves can affect us. We can choose to do the healing work in our minds rather than trying to fix the dream. Nothing in the world can cause anything because the world is causeless. It does not exist so how can it cause pain? When we step outside of the dream, then cause is undone, there is no separate body and we are One.

To illustrate the above paragraph from my own experience, currently I am feeling trapped and limited in my ability to do what I think is in my best interests because of what I perceive as the demands my mother places on me daily to address both her physical and emotional needs. She is ninety eight years old,  frail and yet sharp mentally and quite capable of pushing my buttons. I have a long-standing pattern of martyrdom in my relationship with her, having been the one that took over the household responsibilities when I was a child. My mother would choose not to function in this role because it was "too much for her." There are days when I see her as the "cause" of my own unhappiness, and resentment comes up for me, but I see that she is in my life to help me to remember that she can't cause me distress. My thoughts about this situation alone are the cause of my suffering. "Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way." (5.2) There is nothing external to my mind. I am the cause of my feelings of oppression. I am giving this situation an interpretation that she is responsible for how I feel, therefore it is up to me to relinquish my investment in being right about my interpretation. It is these long-standing patterns that seem to carry significant karmic opportunities that go deep into the mind to be undone there. I continue to ask for help so that I do not choose to react to figures in a dream if I truly knew that I was dreaming it.

Today we are asked to, "Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven's peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you. Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness." (9.1-4) We may appear to judge others, but in the end it is ourselves that we condemn. It is a day to remember we have been wrong about ourselves. We must be humble, recognizing we don't know who we are and what we think we know is wrong. Watch today how you actively choosing against your peace and joy and want to prove that you are right about your perceptions. The only reason we invest in this is to prove that we are a separate identity and that this dream figure is our reality.