Hello, Sean. My perception has always been a bit "different." Ever since I can remember, and I'm now well into being a senior citizen, I have had tinnitus - constantly. Sometimes I don't "hear" it because there is enough external noise to drown it out. When things are quiet, it's very loud. But, I'm not "hearing" anything. It's something haywire in my brain that another part of my brain "interprets" as sound. Is what I think I "hear" "real"? My eyes don't focus together - this used to be called "lazy eye." I was supposed to wear a patch over my "stronger" eye when I was a kid to force my "weaker" eye to conform. I wasn't a "good" patient. So now, with my "weaker" eye, I can literally see a short distance around what my "stronger" eye sees as a corner. With very little effort, or just with relaxing, my eyes go out of focus, and I see two of whatever I'm looking at - for example, two moons. Which eye is "right"? Which moon is "real"? With the "knowledge" that my eyes and ears can't be fully trusted to report the "truth," how much of my brain's interpretation of that perception is likely to be "correct"? These "disabilities" have reinforced for me that what I think I "know" is the product of an unreliable interpretation of untrustworthy input, and made it easier to be still, and let Holy Spirit tell me Truth. Thank you. Kathy
On the ACIM view I'm talking about here, ANY data that the body's senses reports is suspect. It's ALL fragmented and partial - in this sense, there is no difference between someone with 20/20 vision and someone who is, for example, legally blind.
Those differences matter to the body for sure - I, too, have tinnitus and it's a real drag. I wear glasses to correct my vision. At the level of the body, it's well and good to take these things seriously. Doing so can help us feel more at home in our bodies in the world, which in turn allows us to give more attention to our spiritual practice, and the way in which it urges us to be in relationship with our brothers and sisters.
The course is just inviting us to realize the fragmented nature of the data we're receiving, and to correlate it to our equally fragmented interpretation of reality. We don't want to take our perception LITERALLY; it isn't revealing some fundamental truth.
But, again, taking it seriously is fine. I am very grateful for my optometrist :) But I understand that my glasses are basically just improving perception of what is illusory, rather than revealing a fundamental truth.
Eventually, that fundamental truth is revealed (in the context of the dream) in and as our awareness of God's presence as permeating all experience without qualification or condition. I think we are fortunate when we can - as you have done 🙏🙏 - let go of the human insistence that our perception is right or true. A lot of learning follows that letting go.
Once again, a heartful thank you for sharing what you know. Brilliant essay and it truly spot on..."being spiritual is sharing what you know"... and that you do in fine form dear Sean.
Thank you, Sean, for shedding more light about “the body” as understood by ACIM. As a newer student to these materials I welcome further clarity on this important subject. Your words today remind me that there is some quarrel about thought being part of the senses. J. Krishnamurti suggests that thought IS one of the senses. In one of his teachings he tells us that the flowering of goodness is the release of our total energy and that the control and suppression of our total energy *by thought* results in the fragmentation of our commonly understood senses. He asks: Does the body, the physical organism itself, have its own intelligence, and can there be *a non-fragmentary awareness* by all the senses? Specifically: “Can the body be aware of itself? Not you being aware of your own body (or parts of it), but *the body itself* being aware?” I’m interested, for all of us, in what happens when all the senses are acting together in harmony, when there is no fragmentation whatsoever. There is merit to J.K.’s question: "Can the organism’s (the body’s) own intelligence, which has been suppressed or destroyed by thought, be awakened?" And what might occur with the total freedom of this vast energy once awakened?
Thank you for these offerings that guide us into deeper inquiry.
If we accept that thought is brain activity, then sure. Thought is physical. Just look at an EEG or an fMRI or whatever. As Steven Pinker says, "mind is what the brain does." But we can only make that argument VIA the brain; we assume the fact we declare our investigation proves.
I think - if one leans towards the scientists and rationalists - that Donald Hoffman's argument that consciousness, or mind, is primary and matter arises from it is actually sounder than arguing that mind is bootstrapped from matter.
The course - like its gnostic and Platonic forebears - is basically taking Hoffman's side. Our experience of world and body occur IN the mind. On this view, the body is actually more abstract and ephemeral than a feeling of love or fear. It's an identity problem, not a metaphysical problem.
Where I think this view goes sideways - historically and presently - is when we then denigrate matter. Sex is bad, periods are bad, no pain no gain, mine is bigger than his, etc. It's helpful for me to remember that the course is not arguing AGAINST the existence of bodies, just against our IDENTIFICATION with them. It is inviting a shift in how we value the body, which shift is loving, open-minded and healing.
On that view, I think course students are called to be body-positive because that positivity reflects love. A body in pain reflects a mind at odds with itself - the body manifests the symptom; response to it is NOT a violation of the laws of God/Nature/Reality but rather a confirmation of them, ESPECIALLY when we realize that what is being healed is not a body but a mind.
(Which healing is actually pretty intuitive when one realies they are a mind NOT a body which - I stipulate - is NOT an easy lift)
With respect to Krishnamurti's ideas, I think the course absolutely anticipates a happy dream of gentle harmony between mind and body, but it arises not because the body suddenly PERCEIVES differently or better; rather, it arises because the mind no longer identifies AS a body, and therefore ACCEPTS the body, holds it in right perspective, and no longer expects it to be something other than what it is.
This is right perspective, or forgiveness - right seeing.
Bodies do seem proprioceptive; I experience my own as such; that doesn't feel controversial to me but you spend more time in that field than I do.
I'm not sure how a body's perception could be "non-fragmentary" - I think the mind can accept the body's inherent limits and by not asking it to be other than it is, bring about a deep and abiding peace (which is nontrivial to be sure) but bodyies ARE limits - a human does not see a flower as a butterfly does, a pit viper does not see a human as another human does. I can KNOW that the spectrum of light transcends my limited perception (which feeds the argument that mind or consciousness is primary and mattery derivative thereof), and I can build machines to enhance my perception, but I will NEVER know - am prohibited by my very struture from knowing - how a great white shark perceives its world.
Again, this limitation - which IS fragmentary - does not feel like a crisis or a problem, especially when I am no longer identifying as a body, but rather as mind, or consciousness.
Also, in a sense, we are just playing a game with the word "fragment" here :)
Thank you, Susanna, as always for the thought-provoking insights and sharing. Hope all is well!
In the context of separation, linear time is an invention. Not that long ago, time was cyclical and largely unnoticed - it followed the sun and the moon and the seasons. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Nor was there history; history only exists when we can write things down (writing is an extension of memory).
The concept of having time, or spending time, did not exist. The inventions of clocks and calendars slowly eclipsed the natural cycles which were not abstract but deeply embodied - the moon in its phases, the tides coming and going, the garden growing, baby deer appearing in spring et cetera. In a similar way, the invention of writing created history - gods and goddesses, kings and queens. Suddenly there was a past and a future; suddenly the cycle was broken and what remained was a line.
So you and I are subject to linear time as a metaphysical abstraction that is utterly tyrannical. Time is money, it wastes us physically, we are forced to race against it, et cetera.
Really, "The End of Doubt" is just urging us to see that while ACIM and its concept of Atonement appear IN time, it points to an awareness that is actually OUTSIDE of time in the way - properly understood - winter is outside time, crescent moons are outside time, and tomatoes growing on the vine are outside time. Nothing dies but returns.
In a sense, the course is suggesting that the invention of linear time - and the way it has metasticized - are products of fear. We are scared of change and death and so we are trying to control them. And yet, they cannot touch what we are in truth. Change and death are part of a cyclical process called Life - they are not threats to that process, they are not the end of that process.
Right now it is time for the sunflowers to bloom in our garden - the sunflowers are alive and they are not concerned at all with time. Can we be intelligent in the way of the sunflower - and bloom and turn to the light without worrying about time? Where is a beginning or an end to a sunflower? Its crown contain the seeds by which sunflowers will appear again after winter's desolation. The sunflowers I gaze at now are extensions of the sunflowers I gazed at last year.
This is not an abstraction but reality itself. It is right there to be seen :)
When we "save" time we are really accepting that time is simply a construct - an idea that we can use or not use according to its helpfulness. Then we are not its victims but its kind master. Let us use it to remember that we are not its subjects, and that it does not control life but rather appears in and as and to life. Let us use it to bring our brothers and sisters to peace with us.
The "End of Doubt" asks an interesting question: "How long can it take to be where God would have you?" (T-15.II.3:1). If we give attention to this question, then we will see that the answer is: it takes no time. No time at all. Creation is outside of time; time is merely a toy invented by the separated to sustain the separation. But like everything else in the context of separation, it can be given to the Holy Spirit, and put to a better use: we can use time to learn that Creation is outside of time, and that we are as God created us.
There is nothing to fear and everything to love.
It takes no time to be who and what we are; it takes no time to be in reality. But we are allowed to use time to remember this truth. And when we do, we serve the God of Love who would have us remember what we are in truth now.
Thank you as always, Sharon. I hope that's helpful.
Thank you Sean. Your Insight and Inspiration touches my heart. Your ability to speak with words that flow freely from your heart make understanding them easy and light.
I pray that God Our Father continues to bless you with His Wisdom to share with others.
Hello, Sean. My perception has always been a bit "different." Ever since I can remember, and I'm now well into being a senior citizen, I have had tinnitus - constantly. Sometimes I don't "hear" it because there is enough external noise to drown it out. When things are quiet, it's very loud. But, I'm not "hearing" anything. It's something haywire in my brain that another part of my brain "interprets" as sound. Is what I think I "hear" "real"? My eyes don't focus together - this used to be called "lazy eye." I was supposed to wear a patch over my "stronger" eye when I was a kid to force my "weaker" eye to conform. I wasn't a "good" patient. So now, with my "weaker" eye, I can literally see a short distance around what my "stronger" eye sees as a corner. With very little effort, or just with relaxing, my eyes go out of focus, and I see two of whatever I'm looking at - for example, two moons. Which eye is "right"? Which moon is "real"? With the "knowledge" that my eyes and ears can't be fully trusted to report the "truth," how much of my brain's interpretation of that perception is likely to be "correct"? These "disabilities" have reinforced for me that what I think I "know" is the product of an unreliable interpretation of untrustworthy input, and made it easier to be still, and let Holy Spirit tell me Truth. Thank you. Kathy
Thank you for sharing, Kathy.
On the ACIM view I'm talking about here, ANY data that the body's senses reports is suspect. It's ALL fragmented and partial - in this sense, there is no difference between someone with 20/20 vision and someone who is, for example, legally blind.
Those differences matter to the body for sure - I, too, have tinnitus and it's a real drag. I wear glasses to correct my vision. At the level of the body, it's well and good to take these things seriously. Doing so can help us feel more at home in our bodies in the world, which in turn allows us to give more attention to our spiritual practice, and the way in which it urges us to be in relationship with our brothers and sisters.
The course is just inviting us to realize the fragmented nature of the data we're receiving, and to correlate it to our equally fragmented interpretation of reality. We don't want to take our perception LITERALLY; it isn't revealing some fundamental truth.
But, again, taking it seriously is fine. I am very grateful for my optometrist :) But I understand that my glasses are basically just improving perception of what is illusory, rather than revealing a fundamental truth.
Eventually, that fundamental truth is revealed (in the context of the dream) in and as our awareness of God's presence as permeating all experience without qualification or condition. I think we are fortunate when we can - as you have done 🙏🙏 - let go of the human insistence that our perception is right or true. A lot of learning follows that letting go.
Love,
Sean
❤️
Once again, a heartful thank you for sharing what you know. Brilliant essay and it truly spot on..."being spiritual is sharing what you know"... and that you do in fine form dear Sean.
Thank you for reading & sharing, Sandra 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Beautiful and well put.
I need to be reminded of the need to take a step back when I am caught up in all that is right in front of my face.
amen to that :)
Thank you, Sean, for shedding more light about “the body” as understood by ACIM. As a newer student to these materials I welcome further clarity on this important subject. Your words today remind me that there is some quarrel about thought being part of the senses. J. Krishnamurti suggests that thought IS one of the senses. In one of his teachings he tells us that the flowering of goodness is the release of our total energy and that the control and suppression of our total energy *by thought* results in the fragmentation of our commonly understood senses. He asks: Does the body, the physical organism itself, have its own intelligence, and can there be *a non-fragmentary awareness* by all the senses? Specifically: “Can the body be aware of itself? Not you being aware of your own body (or parts of it), but *the body itself* being aware?” I’m interested, for all of us, in what happens when all the senses are acting together in harmony, when there is no fragmentation whatsoever. There is merit to J.K.’s question: "Can the organism’s (the body’s) own intelligence, which has been suppressed or destroyed by thought, be awakened?" And what might occur with the total freedom of this vast energy once awakened?
Thank you for these offerings that guide us into deeper inquiry.
If we accept that thought is brain activity, then sure. Thought is physical. Just look at an EEG or an fMRI or whatever. As Steven Pinker says, "mind is what the brain does." But we can only make that argument VIA the brain; we assume the fact we declare our investigation proves.
I think - if one leans towards the scientists and rationalists - that Donald Hoffman's argument that consciousness, or mind, is primary and matter arises from it is actually sounder than arguing that mind is bootstrapped from matter.
The course - like its gnostic and Platonic forebears - is basically taking Hoffman's side. Our experience of world and body occur IN the mind. On this view, the body is actually more abstract and ephemeral than a feeling of love or fear. It's an identity problem, not a metaphysical problem.
Where I think this view goes sideways - historically and presently - is when we then denigrate matter. Sex is bad, periods are bad, no pain no gain, mine is bigger than his, etc. It's helpful for me to remember that the course is not arguing AGAINST the existence of bodies, just against our IDENTIFICATION with them. It is inviting a shift in how we value the body, which shift is loving, open-minded and healing.
On that view, I think course students are called to be body-positive because that positivity reflects love. A body in pain reflects a mind at odds with itself - the body manifests the symptom; response to it is NOT a violation of the laws of God/Nature/Reality but rather a confirmation of them, ESPECIALLY when we realize that what is being healed is not a body but a mind.
(Which healing is actually pretty intuitive when one realies they are a mind NOT a body which - I stipulate - is NOT an easy lift)
With respect to Krishnamurti's ideas, I think the course absolutely anticipates a happy dream of gentle harmony between mind and body, but it arises not because the body suddenly PERCEIVES differently or better; rather, it arises because the mind no longer identifies AS a body, and therefore ACCEPTS the body, holds it in right perspective, and no longer expects it to be something other than what it is.
This is right perspective, or forgiveness - right seeing.
Bodies do seem proprioceptive; I experience my own as such; that doesn't feel controversial to me but you spend more time in that field than I do.
I'm not sure how a body's perception could be "non-fragmentary" - I think the mind can accept the body's inherent limits and by not asking it to be other than it is, bring about a deep and abiding peace (which is nontrivial to be sure) but bodyies ARE limits - a human does not see a flower as a butterfly does, a pit viper does not see a human as another human does. I can KNOW that the spectrum of light transcends my limited perception (which feeds the argument that mind or consciousness is primary and mattery derivative thereof), and I can build machines to enhance my perception, but I will NEVER know - am prohibited by my very struture from knowing - how a great white shark perceives its world.
Again, this limitation - which IS fragmentary - does not feel like a crisis or a problem, especially when I am no longer identifying as a body, but rather as mind, or consciousness.
Also, in a sense, we are just playing a game with the word "fragment" here :)
Thank you, Susanna, as always for the thought-provoking insights and sharing. Hope all is well!
Love,
Sean
Thank you Sean a loving simple reminder that we are all One Be still and know Love. ♥️
You're welcome, Janice - thank you for reading & sharing. I'm grateful.
~ Sean
Good morning
Your reflections on “I” are so helpful to me.
Thank you Sean. ❤️
Love Sharon
You're welcome, Sharon. Thanks for reading & being here.
~ Sean
Good morning Sean 🌞
I’ve been thinking about these two mentions of time and would love to get your insight.
In the Book chapter 15 II 2 Jesus says “Do not be concerned with time, and fear not the instant of holiness that will remove all fear”.
Then in Chapter 29 VII 9:3 Jesus says “Save time my brother and learn what time is for.”
Thank you Sean
Love Sharon
Hi Sharon,
In the context of separation, linear time is an invention. Not that long ago, time was cyclical and largely unnoticed - it followed the sun and the moon and the seasons. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Nor was there history; history only exists when we can write things down (writing is an extension of memory).
The concept of having time, or spending time, did not exist. The inventions of clocks and calendars slowly eclipsed the natural cycles which were not abstract but deeply embodied - the moon in its phases, the tides coming and going, the garden growing, baby deer appearing in spring et cetera. In a similar way, the invention of writing created history - gods and goddesses, kings and queens. Suddenly there was a past and a future; suddenly the cycle was broken and what remained was a line.
So you and I are subject to linear time as a metaphysical abstraction that is utterly tyrannical. Time is money, it wastes us physically, we are forced to race against it, et cetera.
Really, "The End of Doubt" is just urging us to see that while ACIM and its concept of Atonement appear IN time, it points to an awareness that is actually OUTSIDE of time in the way - properly understood - winter is outside time, crescent moons are outside time, and tomatoes growing on the vine are outside time. Nothing dies but returns.
In a sense, the course is suggesting that the invention of linear time - and the way it has metasticized - are products of fear. We are scared of change and death and so we are trying to control them. And yet, they cannot touch what we are in truth. Change and death are part of a cyclical process called Life - they are not threats to that process, they are not the end of that process.
Right now it is time for the sunflowers to bloom in our garden - the sunflowers are alive and they are not concerned at all with time. Can we be intelligent in the way of the sunflower - and bloom and turn to the light without worrying about time? Where is a beginning or an end to a sunflower? Its crown contain the seeds by which sunflowers will appear again after winter's desolation. The sunflowers I gaze at now are extensions of the sunflowers I gazed at last year.
This is not an abstraction but reality itself. It is right there to be seen :)
When we "save" time we are really accepting that time is simply a construct - an idea that we can use or not use according to its helpfulness. Then we are not its victims but its kind master. Let us use it to remember that we are not its subjects, and that it does not control life but rather appears in and as and to life. Let us use it to bring our brothers and sisters to peace with us.
The "End of Doubt" asks an interesting question: "How long can it take to be where God would have you?" (T-15.II.3:1). If we give attention to this question, then we will see that the answer is: it takes no time. No time at all. Creation is outside of time; time is merely a toy invented by the separated to sustain the separation. But like everything else in the context of separation, it can be given to the Holy Spirit, and put to a better use: we can use time to learn that Creation is outside of time, and that we are as God created us.
There is nothing to fear and everything to love.
It takes no time to be who and what we are; it takes no time to be in reality. But we are allowed to use time to remember this truth. And when we do, we serve the God of Love who would have us remember what we are in truth now.
Thank you as always, Sharon. I hope that's helpful.
Love,
Sean
Thank you Sean. Your Insight and Inspiration touches my heart. Your ability to speak with words that flow freely from your heart make understanding them easy and light.
I pray that God Our Father continues to bless you with His Wisdom to share with others.
Have a joyous day
Love your friend on the journey Sharon
Thank you, Sharon. As you know, I am always grateful for our dialogue and your thoughtfulness. Friends on the journey are what salvation is!
Love,
Sean