Are you a body with a soul or a soul with a body?

I said before that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. He is the Answer to everything, because He knows what the answer to everything is. The ego does not know what a real question is, although it asks an endless number. Yet you can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego, and thus establish your ability to evaluate its questions. When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego’s belief that the body is the proper aim of healing. Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong. T-8.IX.1:1-7

A Course in Miracles (pp. 305-306). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

“Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong.” Are you a soul in a body or a body with a soul? The ego answers one way and the Holy Spirit another. Which do you believe?

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity does not come from the body but from the soul.

Today it is suggested that we reflect on the question of whether you are a body with a soul or a soul with a body. With which do you primarily identify?

Focus on health and not sickness, on holiness and not separateness, on openness and not defensiveness.

Everything used in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit sees it cannot be sick. Everything used otherwise is. Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your decision to attack. 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. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life Itself. T-8.VIII.9:3-10

A Course in Miracles (p. 305). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The Holy Spirit does not accept sickness. The Holy Spirit always supports health. Health is wholeness while sickness is separation, division, and defensiveness.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. In other words UUs, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, promote healing and health.

What is truth?

 

The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism is to join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Pilate wasn't interested. He would not have been a good UU.

Loving without judgment.

The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so He can teach His message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you. T-8.VIII.9:1-2

A Course in Miracles (p. 305). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The body is a conduit of God’s unconditional love into the world. When we love everybody unconditionally all the time salvation of the separation has occurred on earth as it is in heaven.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth. This is the function of the Holy Spirit manifested in human intentions and interactions.

Today it is suggested that we love unconditionally without judgment whoever crosses our path.

How free are we really?

When you lay the ego aside, it will be gone. The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating your freedom of choice, which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore, never to undermine.T-8.VIII.8:6-8

A Course in Miracles (p. 305). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

Spiritual progress can be assessed when the degree of conditioning by the external world is measured. When we overcome this conditioning, we are liberated from it and free. In order to overcome this conditioning we need to be aware of it and then ask the Holy Spirit, “What would Love have me do?” Jesus tells us that if we ask we will get an answer. The clarity of the answer depends on the extent of our willingness to listen.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion which requires the setting aside of the conditioning of the ego and accepting Love.

Today it is suggested that we question our behavior, motivations and intentions and consider the extent to which they are the result of conditioning and socialization as compared to our conscious choice. How free are we really?

Consider the Oneness to which we ultimately belong.

Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same situation, does not bother to analyze it at all. T-8.VIII.6:1-5

A Course in Miracles (p. 304). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The ego loves baloney or more vulgarly, bullshit. The ego would have us live in fear because then we are more likely to listen to it. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, tells us that we are loved unconditionally and have nothing to fear. Being drops of the ocean we are meant to give up our separateness and rejoin the Transcendent Source from which we have emerged.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the awareness of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Like the Buddhist monk said to the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything.”

Today it is suggested that we consider the Oneness to which we ultimately belong.

Do we identify with our spirit or our body?

It is still true that the body has no function of itself, because it is not an end. The ego, however, establishes it as an end because, as such, its true function is obscured. This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to lose sight of the function of everything. A sick body does not make any sense. It could not make sense because sickness is not what the body is for. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of the body rests are true; that the body is for attack, and that you are a body. Without these premises sickness is inconceivable. T-8.VIII.5:1-8

A Course in Miracles (pp. 303-304). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition.

From a sociological viewpoint there is a distinction between illness and sickness. Illness is a scientific fact of physical dysfunction while sickness is a social role that people enact. In other words, sickness as a social role, once we become aware of this, is a choice. The ego encourages us to be sick because of the social rewards that can be obtained. However, when one considers that we are spirit in a body and not a body with a spirit, sickness makes no sense.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. How can this inherent worth and dignity ever be sick?

Today it is suggested that we consider whether we identify with Spirit or with our body and the implications of this choice?