I can’t believe I’m attempting to write about this. Yet there must be a reason for it. Already as I write I hear it. I called this experience in because it was absolutely pivotal to my advance in trust with Jesus’ deeper teaching. It feels to me as if this experience, although not yet permanent, was a way that I could cast forward a few valuable breadcrumbs in the illusion of time, to form a luminous trail which would lead me further into the light.

It happened during the writing of “The Unequivocal Secret to Solving Every Single Problem.” I found myself so compellingly immersed in the message itself while I felt the transmission coming through. Then in one heavenly Holy Instant that extended to seven days in time, the body just gently fell away in my awareness. In retrospect, I think I must have fallen into the very state that I had been writing about.

The body is a big deal here in the ego dream. In fact it’s the biggest deal since time began because it has become the central hub of our existence. Every choice we make is centered on it which really boils down to a constant preoccupation with the body to bring us pleasure or to avoid pain. This central hub is nothing but an epic distraction meant to divert our attention from the True Source of our being as unopposed Love itself.

Furthermore, every one of our special relationships revolves around the body. I feel that until we begin to undo the false-self, 99.9 percent of our thoughts, wishes and concerns are dominated by the belief we are a body and not eternal spirit. Even in our sleeping dreams we still see our self and others as separate bodies.

While it remains a slave to the false-self, the body completely blocks the light of Love that beams unceasingly through us and in everyone we meet. The ego doesn’t want us to discover that the lasting Love, safety and innocence we long for just cannot be known until we prioritize the desire to behold the uninterrupted light of Love and guiltlessness in others. This necessarily involves our desire to look past the body and its seeming sins in others.

I feel that my increasing practice of this (Atonement) and the great joy it delivers has played a big part of bringing in this experience. After all as we offer forgiveness we also receive it.

Body Melting into Divine Purpose

As I wrote that mind-altering excerpt I mentioned earlier, I had an experience whereby the body seemed to have melted into my divine purpose. The body did not disappear. But my previous awareness of it had. Perhaps to be more specific, my past perception of its purpose evaporated.

The barrage of incessant thoughts and feelings of being a body ceased for a full seven days. Lurking concerns of aging and temptations to feel any kind of pain or discomfort were entirely hushed. Rituals of nutritional sustenance and physical exercise were clearly seen as the single source which underpinned them – fear. A resounding peace effortlessly washed over them all.

There was the sudden yet gently reassuring knowing that my will and God’s were irrevocably one and the same. It’s almost as if I could hardly remember a time when it wasn’t. As I breathed God breathed. As I looked out it was God witnessing only His reflection of Love and healing. As thoughts arose they were reflected as God’s. My mind held only what I thought with God.

In this continued state there was a distinct absence – of fear. Instead I was filled with a certainty that there was nothing in my body or seemingly external that could possibly betray me. This felt like an extremely rare experience even though it also felt as if it was the most natural one in the world.

Because the body was now fused with the Will of God through me, it had become a willing conduit for miracles. The body was no longer the ego’s puppet. So it had no malice, no independent desire or ability to betray my will joined with God’s.

As I saw and felt this divine amalgamation of will, flesh and Love, spontaneous waves of deep appreciation for the body washed over me. And these were interspersed with waves of deep remorse for the times I had mistakenly despised it for having betrayed me in pain, aging or sickness. Clearly, from this right-minded state I recognized the body was indeed neutral. It was wholly innocent. It had always done what I had asked it do. It merely played out my own denied wish for self-attack.

During that week I had many spontaneous instances of feeling overwhelming gratitude to be finally working with and through the body and not against it. I had always feared the body and now there was only Love.

What Precipitated this Miraculous Experience?

I feel this experience was the culmination of a number of factors that fell into consistent alignment during that week. A major contributor was my undivided focus on inner listening. So my “desire” for nothing else was a huge motivator. I set my intention and had refused to be distracted by anything else.

This alone must have shifted my perception in that Holy Instant. Suddenly it seemed my will and God’s were the same. There felt to be the falling away of a distinct “self” together with its thoughts and needs, and the essence that replaced this was a deeply resonant peace and certitude.

I felt an ease with the body that was both foreign and yet extremely familiar – a paradox indeed! It felt as if the restrictions of the body disappeared.

I became acutely aware of a peculiar phenomenon. The body was there…yet it was not relaying the usual moment to moment data that I was accustomed to. No data. I was incredulous. It was not reporting any unmet needs. How can I explain this? I can only describe it by saying that now I know what Jesus means when He said that if we have truly accepted the Atonement (healing) then the body should not feel at all.

There were no feelings of either pleasure or discomfort, yet this was not the numbness which comes from body denial. Instead I felt the most immense and joyous liberation.

I was reminded that this quite miraculous experience of being virtually bodiless was something I had worked diligently toward over a long period of time. It was the culmination of consistent forgiveness of all my judgments of everyone, the past and myself. However I couldn’t help but notice the most difficult of all to forgive completely was the body itself. To some degree, I still saw it as an independent entity apart from my mind and one that appeared to betray me unceasingly.

Jesus shares something quite profound in the following quote from lesson 136 and I believe this is what occurred for me:

“Sickness is a defense against the truth. I will accept the truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today.”

“Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal, and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.”

“Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains and nothing more.”

“Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body’s health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.”

“Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick.” W-136.15:6-7,16,17,18,19.

I’ve always had an intense dislike of being “in” a body at least in this lifetime. It seemed to me such an oppressive burden. Even as a child I remember gaining some sense of relief by thinking that one day I’d be free of it when I die. So there was this undercurrent of expectation that I would once again be free of the cumbersome burden of the body through physical death.

Death would be my escape I thought…something to look forward to.  And little did I know back then that this insane wish was the ego luring me into the mistaken belief that I would find God in death and thus not recognize Him where He really is here and now – in life – through closing the gap (forgiving) with all my brothers.

Thankfully, in 2011 when I began to take in Jesus’ deeper teachings, my attraction to death gradually began to be erased. And Jesus reminded me of this:

“There is a risk of thinking death is peace, because the world equates the body with the Self which God created. Yet a thing can never be its opposite. And death is opposite to peace, because it is the opposite of life. And life is peace. Awaken and forget all thoughts of death, and you will find you have the peace of God.” T-27.VII.10:2-6

The bodiless experience I had was not some random state. I really believe it came as a result of applied intent and purpose with Holy Spirit. During that week I reaffirmed the body’s proper role with great delight. Being liberated from slavery to the ego it was now happily in service to God.

I was acutely aware of the body serving as an ally in accepting the Holy Instant as the correction of fear. I was so present in each moment with absolutely no regard or care for what was to come. Gratitude and a new found sense of reverence replaced my age old thoughts of condemnation, disgust or pride in the body.

I was reminded that the body is the last special relationship that we willingly make Holy by giving it over to Holy Spirit completely. Until then there is a deep unconscious attraction to abandon the body to sin, sickness and death.

The Body’s Purpose for True Communication = Love without Fear

My bodiless experience prompted me to recall the body’s single purpose as a communication device. True communication is Love without fear, without attack.  It is to be used to extend and witness to our incorruptible innocence and our perfect immunity to all perceived dangers (attack) that only this undivided commitment can bring.

One thing that arose repeatedly in my awareness was that this was not my body. I no longer wished to use it to deny the will of God (Love); as a witness to fear and attack. I no longer wanted to use it to fulfill the ego’s will to be separate from my eternal Source of Love, joy and perfect health. I didn’t want to pursue distractions or defend myself from Love any longer. The body, when offered up to be assigned its Holy purpose will be a perfect conduit for God’s Will. And this I remembered.

Since then I have allowed an interruption of that joyous week of an uninterrupted bodiless state. But now there is a certainty that it’s only the illusion of time which seems to make this state temporary and not permanent. And I am reminded to be patient. Those who trust can afford to be patient because they know the outcome is certain – my will and God’s are one, so why would I be concerned? What a relief!

I happened to come across another section of the Course where it appeared to explain what had happened for me in that miraculous seven day window. In chapter twenty seven Jesus speaks about the ego’s purpose for the body which is separation and attack. And one of the most convincing forms of attack is illness and pain. While we consent to suffer then we unwittingly demonstrate to others that they too deserve to suffer – because they are guilty.

He says that as we advance in our forgiveness and trust we close the seeming gap between our self and our brothers and sisters. This heals our ancient decision to use the body for attack and separation. As the Holy Spirit divinely repurposes the body it reflects an open space where the ego’s goals of sin, fear, guilt and sickness are removed.

“Into this empty space (body), from which the goal of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its purpose. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, “Behold me, brother, at your hand I live.”… “The simple way to let this be achieved is merely this; to let the body have no purpose from the past, when you were sure you knew its purpose was to foster guilt.”  T-27.I.10,11:1

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