If the body is an illusion, why do I have one?
I have mentioned many times that the body, along with all physical manifestation, is an illusion. It is not real. It is not the truth of who you are. Sometimes people ask me, “Why do we even have a body? What is it all about? The body certainly seems real. If you pinch me it hurts. It seems like I have a body. If I run up against the wall, it feels solid. It’s there. If I go under water, I can only stay so long. What do you mean this is an illusion?” These are all very good points. The ego does an excellent job in asking good questions.
What is there to do is to find the source. When you have conflict in the world, one person making a response to another’s action, it is in reaction. This can go back and forth endlessly. Where is the source of all of that contention? Where does it begin? It is one of those chicken and egg questions. When you speak of reincarnation, you may say that you have something happening now because of something you did in a previous life. Why did you do it then? Well, you had a life previous to that, and so back it goes. Where is the source? If we go far enough back, you arrive at the first man and the first woman. Is that the source? The Bible will tell you its creation story. There were Adam and Eve. They were in paradise and everything was perfect. Then she tempted him. Actually, she was first tempted herself by the serpent. Who was this snake? The serpent encourages her to just eat of this apple. God said not to eat of the apple or there will be severe consequences. That’s the Bible story.
What is the real story? The serpent is the ego. The fruit was of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Upon eating the apple, good and bad appeared. That was the original illusion. They are not real, as the ego is not real. The god that kicks you out of heaven is not the real God. It is your guilt. All of that is part of the illusion that began then. You allowed this voice that was separate from God to have power over you. You decided that maybe truth was being spoken. The ego said to believe in good and bad. Spirit said this will separate you from God; more correctly, create the illusion of separation. Spirit didn’t threaten punishment, It warned of the illusion you would thereby be creating. This was what Christianity calls “original sin”. The sin is the belief in good and evil. It separates you from God. Out of this whole separation story, you, who were in truth One with God, created this illusion of physicalness, created a world that seemed real, but is fueled by the opposing energies of good and evil, or duality. You manifested bodies and disappeared into them to hide from God, forgetting your Divinity, believing that your body was the truth of who you were. You believed that this body that feels pain when you pinch it, and this wall that you can’t walk through, and this water which seems impossible to breathe in are very real.
Before we talk about what to do with these bodies on this earth, in this physicalness, the first thing to understand is that they absolutely are illusions. They are not real. You are real, but your body is not. God is real. The physical universe is not. If something does not last forever, it is not real. If it has a birth and a death; it is an illusion. All that is real is eternal. It is good news is that the world is an illusion. I say good news because most of you aren’t having such a great time in it. The news of its unreality should be welcome to you. Time is not real either. God is timeless. You don’t have to worry about how long this hell is going to go on because time doesn’t exist.
We come back to the original question. Why even have these bodies? The answer is that in order to fully realize your Divine nature and Oneness with God, you need to do it in a body in the physical world. In a sense, you have locked yourself into this world and only you can let yourself out. When you use up one body, because they are quite expendable, you eventually choose to create another. If you don’t realize the truth in that body, you create another, and another. You have already created countless ones.
The body is not something to be honored or revered. Though it is not Divine or real, it is a tool, a vehicle. You respect and take care of it because it is a required part of realizing your Divinity. You do it in a body. If you deny the body or fight the bodily desires, through severe fasting, defying sexual desire, eliminating music and dance, or even gouging out your eyes so as not to be distracted by physical beauty, you are giving power to the physical. You are saying that it has such control over you that you have to go to war with it in order to ascend. It would be more aligned with truth to hold the physical as neutral. It has no meaning one way or the other. But now you are in a body believing it is real, which all of you do even though you might have some awareness through reading things here or from other studies, such as A Course in Miracles. You haven’t had the full experience of your Divinity. If you had, you would no longer be with your body. While you still believe your body is real you can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. That won’t work for you, so you take care of it. Otherwise, you will just have to trade it in for another. The body is a tool, and you take care of your tools or they are of less use. You created your illusion of separation by creating the illusion that you were a body, so you create the end of the illusion through a body. It is that simple.
In the eyes of God, none of this ever happened. Or, we could say it happened in the wink of an eye. The ego says there have been billions of years of evolution, so many lifetimes, and so much trouble and pain. But, it is just a blink of the eye of God. As you created the illusion, God created the solution. He made the Holy Spirit. As the ego dispenses confusion and falseness in one ear, Spirit whispers truth in the other. At some point, you will choose to begin shutting out the ego and listening to Spirit. At some point this transition will become complete, and you give your life fully to Spirit. You let go of judgment, separation, and fear. You fully realize the truth. Then time begins to disappear along with the universe. We call that ascension. You do it while you are in a body. That is the only reason you have a body. There is no necessity for you to suffer in the body while you are completing this process. Suffering only comes from listening to the ego. God would have you enjoy every moment. As you are transforming fear into love you will experience less and less pain on all planes.
Begin by acknowledging the body is not you, is not real. Do this even if you don’t fully understand or believe it. Accept that everything the ego tells you is a lie (Book I: Message 77: How do I discern Spirit from ego?). Give intention to turn your mind over to Spirit. Ask It to keep you focused on the truth until that is all that is there for you. The ego will always give value to things in the physical world and have goals. You will have goals. Don’t put any value in them beyond holding them as tools for your ascension. Nothing of the world has any other value. Any additional importance you place on the physical will bring you pain and separation from God. Spirit will provide you with all your physical needs as you are realizing your divinity. It is that easy.
Good Now
Sanhia