OrEd-T-18.7-Dreams and the Body.1
49. There is nothing outside me. That is what I must learn. That realization will restore the Kingdom of Heaven to me. God created only the Kingdom of Heaven, and He did not leave it nor separate Himself from it. The Son of God also dwells in the Kingdom of Heaven, along with His Father. And the Son of God has never left the Kingdom of Heaven either, where His Father and He dwell together. The awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else besides perfect Oneness is the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no inside or outside. There is no place and no condition that is the Kingdom of Heaven.
50. God could give only knowledge of Himself, as that was all there was to give. Believing that there was something else to give and get has deprived me of the awareness of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the loss of my Identity as the Son of God. And even stranger, I displaced the guilt I felt in the mind, onto a body. A body can do nothing of itself, so it cannot be guilty. I deceive myself when I think I hate the body, when it is the mind I hate. For guilt had entered into the mind, and the mind wished to separate, which it cannot do.
51. Separation seems to be possible by assigning properties of the body to the mind. The mind then seems to be fragmented, private and alone. Guilt in the mind is projected onto the body, which suffers and dies because it seems to be attacked. Guilt holds the separation in the mind, and the mind does not know its Identity. Mind cannot attack, but it can make fantasies, and direct the body to act out its fantasies. But this does not satisfy. The mind must believe that the body is actually acting out the mind's fantasies, or the mind will increase the projection of guilt upon the body.
52. Here, the mind is clearly delusional. The mind cannot attack, but it can deceive itself and maintain it can, and use what it does to hurt the body to prove it can attack. This is all it does when it believes it has attacked the body. The mind can project its guilt, but the guilt does not leave the mind. It misperceives the function of the body, only it cannot change the body's function from what the Holy Spirit establishes it to be. Love did not make the body, yet love does not condemn the body, and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made, using the body to help save Him from illusions.
53. We would have the instruments of separation reinterpreted as means for salvation, and used for purposes of love. We would welcome and support release from all those fantasies. Our perception of the body can be sick, but we must not project this perception upon the body. For our wish to make the mind destructive can have no real effect at all. We can make fantasies in which our will conflicts with His, but they are nothing more than fantasies. We cannot make what God created into something that is not His Will.
54. It is insane for me to blame the body for what I wanted it to do, and then use it as a scapegoat for my guilt. It is impossible for the body to act out fantasies. My fantasies have nothing to do with what the body does. However, fantasies have made the body weak, vulnerable, and treacherous, worthy of the hate which I invest in it. Fantasies make the body into my enemy, a liability where it could be an asset. Yet, I still want fantasies, but the body doesn't dream of fantasies. I have identified with this thing I hate, proclaiming it to be the dwelling-place of the Son of God. I have made it an instrument of vengeance, and the perceived source of my guilt. I have done all this to a thing that has no meaning. All meaning lies in joining, but bodies do not join. Only minds join.
55. I have made the body as the host of God. But, neither God nor His most holy Son can enter where hate, vengeance, violence, and death abide. The body I made to serve my guilt, stands between my mind and other minds. The minds are joined, but I do not identify with them. I see myself locked in a separate prison, incapable of reaching out, or of being reached. But I would not escape from the body, leaving it unharmed. I hate this prison I have made, and with my guilt upon it, I would destroy it.
