OrEd-T-19.5-Obstacles to Peace-b.2
b. The Second Obstacle.2
Pleasure and Pain
68. My little part is to give the Holy Spirit the whole idea of sacrifice, and to accept the peace He gave instead, without the limits which would hold its extension back and so would limit my awareness of it, for what He gives must be extended if I would have its limitless power and use it for the Son of God's release. It is not peace I would be rid of, and having it I cannot limit it. If peace is homeless, so am I and so is Jesus. And He who is our home is homeless with us. Is this my will? Would I forever be a wanderer in search of peace? Would I invest my hope of peace and happiness in what must fail?
69. Faith in the eternal is always justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience, and wholly loving. It will accept me wholly and give me peace. Yet it can unite only with what is already at peace in me, immortal as itself. The body can bring me neither peace nor turmoil, neither pain nor joy. It is a means and not an end. It has no purpose of itself, but only what is given to it. The body will seem to be whatever is the means for reaching the goal that I assign to it. Only the mind can set a purpose, and only mind can see the means for its accomplishment and justify its use. Peace and guilt are both conditions of the mind to be attained. And these conditions are the home of the emotion which called them forth, and therefore is compatible with them. Only I must think which emotion it is that is compatible with me.
70. Here is my choice, and it is free. But all that lies in it will comes with it. What I think I am can never be apart from my choice. The body is the great seeming betrayer of faith. In it lies disillusionment and the seeds of faithlessness, but only if I ask of it what it cannot give. Can my mistake be reasonable grounds for depression and disillusionment, and for retaliative attack on what I think has failed me? I must not use my error as the justification for faithlessness. I have not sinned, but I have been mistaken in what is faithful. And the correction of my mistake will give me grounds for faith.
71. It is impossible to seek pleasure through the body and not find pain. It is essential that this relationship be understood, for it is one the ego sees as proof of sin. It is not really punitive at all. It is only the inevitable result of equating myself with the body, which is the invitation to pain. For it invites fear to enter and become my purpose. The attraction of guilt must enter with it, and whatever fear directs the body to do is painful. The body will share the pain of all illusions, and the illusion of pleasure will be the same as pain.
72. This is inevitable. Under fear's orders, the body will pursue guilt, serving the ego, its master, whose attraction to guilt maintains the whole illusion of its existence. This, then, is the attraction of pain. Ruled by this perception, the body becomes the servant of pain, seeking it dutifully and obeying the idea that pain is pleasure. It is this idea that underlies all of the ego's heavy investment in the body. And it is this insane relationship which it keeps hidden and yet feeds upon. To me it teaches that the body's pleasure is happiness. Yet to itself it whispers, "It is death."
73. Why should the body be anything to me? Certainly what it is made of is not precious. And just as certainly, it has no feeling. It transmits to me the feelings that I want. Like any communication medium, the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has no feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver. The ego and the Holy Spirit both recognize this, and both also recognize that here the sender and receiver are the same. The Holy Spirit tells me this with joy. The ego hides it, for it would keep me unaware of it. Who would send messages of hatred and attack if he only understood he sends them to himself? Who would accuse, make guilty, and condemn himself?
74. The ego's messages of attack and guilt are always sent away from me in the belief that someone other than me will suffer. And even if I suffer, someone else will suffer more. The great deceiver recognizes that this is not so, but as the "enemy" of peace, it urges me to send out all my messages of hate, and free myself. And to convince me this is possible, it bids the body search for pain in attack upon another, calling it pleasure and offering it to me as freedom from attack.
75. I will not hear its madness, and will not believe the impossible is true. Let me remember that the ego has dedicated the body to the goal of sin and places all its faith in the body that this can be accomplished. The ego's sad disciples chant the body's praise continually, in solemn celebration of the ego's rule. Every one believes that yielding to the attraction of guilt is the escape from pain. Every one must regard the body as himself, without which he would die, and yet within which is his death equally inevitable.
76. The ego's disciples do not realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. Freedom is offered them, but they have not accepted it. What is offered must also be received to be truly given. For the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Father and offering His messages unto the Son. Like the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the sender and the receiver. For what is sent through Him returns to Him, seeking itself along the way and finding what it seeks. So does the ego find the death it seeks, returning it to me.
