“Only the mind is real because only the mind can be shared.” (T-6. V.A. 3:2-3).

The body is neutral. Think of it as a mindless puppet and you are the one who pulls the strings. The puppet only responds to the decisions of the mind. The body has no thoughts, feelings or experiences of its own. It does what its master tells it to do. It is a symbol of what the mind dreams we are—a separated individual with a will of our own.

“The body is the symbol of what you think you are. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist.” (T-6.V.A.2:2-3).

If you want to try to prove that you are a body—that you are right and God is wrong, that separation is reality and perfect oneness is a lie—then you (the one pulling the strings) will want to make it seem that the body has power of its own and it can tell you who you are and how you feel. What better way to do that than for the mind to direct the body to feel pleasure and pain? This is all part of the ego’s plan to keep you mindless. Now it seems like life is in the body and not in the mind of the one pulling the strings.

“The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life.” (T.6.V.A.1:4).

The real question you should ask yourself is what rules the mind? Who is it that is pulling the strings of the puppet? Is it the ego that wants separation, individuality, and specialness to be reality? If it is then the body/puppet must be made to appear to be alive because it seems to prove that separation is real. Under the ego’s direction the puppet will attack (judge) other puppets, and feel pleasure and pain. It will be different from others of its kind. This is the ego’s world, based in the tiny mad idea of separation, ruled by separate interests, all coming from the mind.

There is another way but you first must get back to the mind and recover your power as a decision making mind. You are the chooser of what rules your mind and therefore what directs the body. If you like being a person in a dream in a world of separate interests then you are probably not going to want to do this.

The shift from the body to the mind is what transformation is all about. It requires willingness to abandon the ego as your teacher in order to learn from a teacher who is outside the dream. In A Course in Miracles that teacher is Jesus, because he is a symbol of perfect, ego-less, love. You could use any other symbol that works for you.

It is impossible for you to make this transformation from fear to love, body to mind without help. All the talents, skills, abilities that you have developed over the years have been useful only for navigating the ego’s dream of separation. These same skills cannot be used to shift your identity from the body back to the mind. Again, the ego’s purpose is to keep you from ever knowing you are a decision making mind. After all, if you knew you would choose against it.

Be forewarned. When the ego gets wind of this it will become one of its two predominant moods: suspicious or vicious. It will threaten you with sacrifice and loss as it sees its days of specialness are numbered. Awakened mind, Suzanne Segal, author of Collision with the Infinite, A Life Beyond the Personal Self, expressed the fear this way:

Life in a state of freedom from the ego “bears no resemblance to the stark emptiness that fear might paint it to be. People who tell me they don’t want to give up the personal because they believe they would be giving up love or joy or deep feeling don’t understand that the personal never existed. Nothing is given up. Love that appears to be personal is based on an ego-constructed sense of being separate.” 

At no one instant does the body exist at all. It is always past or future. In this very instant it can’t be found. Life is now and is in the mind. Hurry home.

A question to ponder: Why would it matter how long the body lives?