Triumph of the Spirit

By Essie Thibodeaux-Lyles and Lionel Lyles

One of the most formidable tasks that an individual faces today is to learn this simple truth: That is, life is a journey of self-realization. "Getting" thoughts create barriers that prohibit understanding. An affected person is unconsciously misled to believe that the only reality that exists is the one experienced by the five senses. As such, spirituality is reduced to a mechanical affair, where the soul is bound and heaven is perceived as being a distant place that is unexperienceable until after death.

The message contained in this book illuminates the idea "heaven is a choice, and it can be experienced NOW."

To claim this miracle for self, it is necessary to re-work the thoughts in the mind. Those that create what is not wanted must be "let go," and, as a mother bear protects her cub, one must guard the thoughts allowed into the mind. Taking personal responsibility is at the heart of this self-work.

This personal revolution is a process. Any courageous enough to claim it can expect to create the following: intimate social relationships, responsive political systems, schools that teach children Who They Are, and loving families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 14, 2000
• ISBN: 9781475908152

Essie Thibodeaux-Lyles

Lionel D. Lyles is a native of Oakland, CA. His childhood was spent on a small rural farm located in Alexandria, LA. It was during this time that he gained a deep appreciation for nature. Lionel earned a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. He currently lives in Cecilia, LA.

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All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Lionel D. Lyles

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

INVITATION TO EXPLORE AWARENESS

THOUGHTS CREATE OUR PERSONAL REALITY

BIRTHRIGHT OF HUMAN BEINGS

MOVEMENT FROM LOWER TO HIGHER

CONSCIOUSNESS: THROUGH THE MIND FIELD OF THE EGO INTO SELF-KNOWLEDGE

ROLE OF FEAR IN THE MIND FIELD OF THE EGO

ILLUSIONS USED BY OUR EGO TO MAINTAIN

THE SEPARATION IN-AND CONTROL OF-OUR

MINDS

PRIVATE WORLD OF THE EGO: A SELF-BUILT

MENTAL PRISON

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: HOLY OR UNHOLY

THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION AND THE BREAKOUT

OF OUR SELF-BUILT MENTAL PRISON

CREATION OF A NEW WORLD

CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY

CHANGED CONSCIOUSNESS CREATES A NEW

WORLD THROUGH COLLECTIVE ACTION

TRIUMPH OF MY SPIRIT IN THE SIERRA

NEVADA MOUNTAINS

END NOTES

For Harmony, Zoe, Destiny, Lilia, Storm, Kain, and Quinton, and all of

the children of the world who ever have chosen to come to the planet to

seek an answer to the only question there is: Who Am I?

Acknowledgements

Sincere recognition is owed to a body of spiritual literature that awakened channels in us through which this book became a reality. Before any creations take material form, some sustained study, attention, and reflection must be given to the thoughts one will subsequently use to create an outcome. We spent three years co-creating this book; before we started work on it, one full year was spent pondering the thoughts contained in the following spiritual literature.

This book, therefore, is the outgrowth of the thoughts contained in A Course In Miracles, by Foundation For Inner Peace; Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Books 1, 2, and 3 by Neale Donald Walsch; Quantum Healing, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, and Task Of The Wizard, by Dr. Deepak Chopra; The Wisdom Of The Self, by Paul Ferrini; The Third Millennium, by Ken Carey; The Direction Of Human Development, by Ashley M. F. Montagu; Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons and Man’s Eternal Quest, by Paramahansa Yogananda; The Nature Of Personal Reality, by Jane Roberts; The Philosophy of the I Ching, by Carol K. Anthony; The Path Of Action, by Jack Schwarz; Man’s Aggression: The Defense Of The Self, by Gregory Rochlin; and Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss.

In addition, wide use was made of the wisdom contained in the Bible. It was used to offer evidence that love was used by God to create us; and, contrary to any other beliefs we have, we are, in fact, spiritual beings on an occasional human journey. Moreover, we would like to thank all of the other authors whose work helped us to complete this book, but is not listed here.

It would be an oversight on our part to not mention how grateful we are to Gaile White, whose kind heart spent many hours of her valuable time completing the task of managing the word processed manuscript on diskette. And a warm thanks goes to Brenda Thomas-Nero for helping to prepare this book manuscript for electronic submission to the publisher.

In summation, we would finally like to thank the Holy Spirit for giving us the personal power to create this book. All of the long days of living with it, and the innumerable hours it took to sit down in one place day-after-day and write, could not have been accomplished without our surrender to the Will Of God.

Introduction

Of all our needs such as food, heat, shelter, recreation, health, entertainment, clothing, there is one humans have in common that supersedes all others. That is, we need freedom of spirit. It is easy to satisfy our external needs; money can buy them for us. But it cannot buy freedom for our individual inner spirits.

This is the central paradox in American life today. Most Americans, to one degree or another, engage in material consumption to satisfy bodily needs, yet for some unexplainable reason, a vast majority remain unhappy, discontent, and dissatisfied with themselves. Until recently, the emptiness felt within was kept a secret, however, the burden of living in quiet desperation has grown too weighty. Divorce in our society is just one effect of the extent to which the spirit inside is incarcerated. The growing number of men and women who find it very difficult to connect spiritually is another. Some forty million women are now disinterested in sex, and Dr. Phil Smith has written a book devoted primarily to helping a growing number of Americans rescue their relationships.

The paradox mentioned earlier is rapidly eroding away our individual will power. There is a pervasive feeling among us of needing to do something to reverse our individual powerlessness. In his book Ismahael Daniel Quinn beautifully defines the cause of individual powerlessness. Specifically, Quinn points-out that a majority of Americans have unconsciously constructed a mental prison in their minds. Our individual spirits are held captive within the confines of the mental prison. Because the spirit is the most creative aspect in our lives, along with it being the power that MUST guide us, and since it is an inmate in our mental prison, a majority of us cannot seem to move forward in life. Most feel paralyzed to act because their individual spirits are locked up; the result is a feeling of powerlessness, lethargy, and hopelessness. Life seems confusing and passing us by. Daniel Quinn says that this is not unusual. It is a feeling borne of the idea that our individual spirits are imprisoned in our minds, and we cannot see the bars, which confine our spirits. Since we do not see them, events in our lives remain confusing, and the efforts we make to advance remain ineffectual.

This book, therefore, is about the specific actions we can take to free our individual spirits. At the outset, it suggests the need to undergo a personal revolution to free our spirit. Through a gradual process of change, the bars that contain our individual spirits begin to become known to us for the first time. It should be pointed-out here that those mental bars, which hold our spirit prisoner, will not relinquish their hold on our minds easily or willingly. That is why a revolution in our individual conscious awareness is required to free our spirits.

During a revolution, two distinct forces usually oppose each other. They are the oppressor and the oppressed. The oppressor, which acts as warden of our self-built mental prisons, is our ego. Our individual spirits consist of the oppressed. The reason a personal revolution poses a formidable challenge is our egos do not want to freely return to its natural role as a bodily servant of our individual spirits. Being a servant of spirit is an honor, but our egos want to be the leader in our lives. As such, we constantly feel the painful effects of our ego’s leadership because our egos despise knowledge and truth. Thus, while demanding we keep it in a leadership capacity in our lives, and for those who do so, their lives worsen. The ego’ plan for our happiness is material consumption, which has left a majority of us desperate for meaning and truth in our lives. In his poem The Mouse and Camel Rumi reveals how our ego misleads us. A caravan once set out on a journey to a distant land; a mouse decided it could lead it; however, when the caravan came to a river, the mouse told the camel, the water is above my head. The camel remarked, you should not be leading the caravan. Even though our ego places us in impossible situations all the time, we continue to try to cross the rivers in our lives while led by our ego.

Our oppressed spirits will not use its great power to subdue our ego. The spirit inside of us will not assume its leadership function in our lives until we consciously choose to remove our egos from a leadership position. Thus, our personal revolution calls for the individual to engage in a battle against her ego. By removing the warden of our mental prisons, we see its bars, and are able to tear them down. When a revolutionary blow is struck against our ego’s stronghold in our minds, a door is busted open in it, and our inner spirits pass through it to freedom. Guided by a free spirit, everything in our lives that is negative can now be transformed into something positive. It should be noted here that at the same time our oppressed spirits are liberated, we experience a simultaneous liberation of our ego-oppressor.

To assist us in carrying-out this great revolutionary and life changing self-work, each Chapter in this book emphasizes the specific actions we can take to win the internal struggle against the oppressor of our individual spirits. Information is included throughout that shows the struggle I personally fought against my ego. Only the names of various individuals important to the story have been changed to protect their anonymity.

A personal revolution requires courage. However, without proper information, the task can easily be given up. To see a personal revolution through to its end, one’s conscious awareness must be systematically raised about the self. There are thirteen Chapters aimed at helping an individual to achieve this goal.

At the outset, we must accept the fact that we are not a body but a spirit in a body that has boundless and unlimited potential. Since spirit is our true nature, it is stressed that no one is a victim of circumstances, but, more appropriately, the creator of those experienced. This information opens up to us that our individual birthright is not to suffer, but enjoy a life of peace and unlimited abundance. The notion of poverty consciousness is shown to have no validity because we have the potential to create any experience we desire. To help us be compassionate toward ourselves, in view of the fact that many have created substantial chaos in it, it is emphasized that the chaos is a necessary and valuable effect of forgetting. If we did not forget Who We Are, there would be no need for us to experience anything. Forgetting ourselves when we came to the planet allows us to mine the diamonds that are embedded inside the negative experiences we create. Closely associated with forgetting is conditioning. This refers to habits and routines that make mining the diamonds a vastly more interesting and challenging experience.

In fact, an entire range of illusions appear in our experiences, and pose as reality. How we can sort out illusion from truth is considered in some detail because the source of illusions is an individual’s belief in his separation from God. Several Chapters focus on the issue of separation because it is the illusions that we empower that form the bars of the mental prison in our minds. This prison is self-built, and the purpose of it is to hold our spirits captive. Forming a healthy relationship by a person whose spirit is held captive, is the greatest challenge he will ever face on the planet.

But since it is our mission on the planet to join with our brothers and sisters, the pain of not doing so increases to the point when we say enough of this chaos. At this point, a conscious decision is made to change our minds by tearing down the illusionary bars that hold our spirits captive. This allows our spirits to break free, and assume its function of guiding us in our creation of a new world that is free of pain, suffering, hate, and filled with love. The ultimate achievement of a personal revolution in our lives is our conscious use of love to create an external environment in which all peoples can collectively take action aimed at building a new world. Cooperation is the foundation of this new world; and the individual’s freedom to choose, or be self-determined, is the highest form of self-expression in it on a daily basis.

Some may doubt such a personal revolution is possible. I am a witness that it is. The last Chapter in this book traces my climb of Mt. Whitney during which I put to the test the philosophy this book rests upon. That is, every human being creates his or her own reality, and no one is a victim.

As I climbed to the top of Mt. Whitney’s 14,496 feet summit, I experienced a personal revolution in my life. If I had chosen otherwise, it is very likely that potential mistakes could have resulted in serious injury or death. Finally, it is not recommended that you climb Mt. Whitney to experience a personal revolution in your life. Rather, we suggest you see the burning issues in your lives as your mountain. By consciously choosing to increase your awareness, no doubt your climb to higher levels of self-awareness will make a great contribution to the creation of a new world.

Cecilia, LA June 22,2000

Invitation to Explore Awareness

You are personally invited to take this journey of self-realization. Your departure is a personal decision; those who are currently seeking the meaning of their existence will choose to embark now; others, who still believe there is no need for them to examine their thoughts and what they produce, will take longer to begin this process of self-examination. To start out now or delay is neither good nor bad; the main point here is not judgment, but patience. Regardless of how far afield you may currently be, when you are ready to take that first step toward unconditional freedom, and as you work through the forest, valleys, plains, peaks and unexpected shadows in your mind, you will increase your speed toward your destination of peace, hope and love. You will steadily gain momentum similar to a spaceship, which gains speed as it approaches the gravitational field of an object in space. The only requirement of (Y-OUR) journey is we must be willing to let go of unnecessary baggage (i.e., habits, illusions, boxes, etc.) in order to stay on the path that leads to freedom from all pain, regardless of its form.

No one who begins the process of remembering who you are will fail to succeed! As spirits who have chosen to inhabit human bodies on this journey, we are all destined to fulfill the purpose we have chosen for our lives. In the end, we will all achieve a state of being that is free of pain and suffering, and which we will come to know within ourselves as our God-being or a place of peace. Many refer to this place loosely as their need for peace of mind. Who would spend one more second in a state of turmoil, pain, and disease when, simply by a willingness to examine and undergo a change of mind, heaven on Earth can be self-realized.

Such is the reward that await you at the end of your journey of self-realization. It cannot be transferred to you through someone else, nor can it be acquired by listening to lectures and tapes, or for that matter, by merely reading this book, and then doing nothing else! While these aids are designed to be road markers, they cannot carry you along by themselves; what is required can best be obtained from the message in Second Corinthians, Chapter 9 and Verse 6, which states the following:

But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.¹

The extent to which your will is applied in intensity and sustained personal effort, the change from darkness to light in your life will come accordingly, and with increasing effortlessness.

Shall we delay any longer? How much time the fruit of your labor will take to manifest itself is your decision alone? However, one thing is certain; namely, that the time it requires to remove pain and suffering from your life will become proportionately less as you proceed along your path of self-realization.

The Primary Challenge

The problem we must solve comes down to one simple question: Am I a body or an idea? The main goal of the journey you have been invited on is to allow you an opportunity to freely explore this simple, but profound inquiry. Currently, with the exception of a small percent of the people in the West, and on the planet in general, the vast majority of human beings believe they are a body only. This is not an accident; the world education system teaches each generation that the satisfaction of one’s bodily needs is primary. It took me 45 years of living before I ever realized that there is something much deeper and more profound to my existence than the body in which my spirit exists. As I acquired more things that I thought my body needed to be increasingly comfortable, I simultaneously felt more restless. I once bought myself a pair of $100 Alligator shoes back in 1971; after I purchased them, which I had been wanting to do for a few years, I felt shortly thereafter that I needed something else to satisfy my body’s appearance. I needed a nice leather coat to match my Alligator shoes and so forth. Behind this momentum was the conditioning that I had received through 21years of continuous education, from first grade to my 21th year of education, when I was awarded a doctorate degree in 1977. According to A Course In Miracles, 1975, everyone who follows the world’s curriculum, and everyone here does follow it until he changes his mind, teaches solely to convince himself that he is what he is not. Herein is the purpose of the world.² I learned recently that I am not a body; however, the lesson came through some intense pain and suffering. As recent as 1993, I felt strongly that I was solely in charge of my own destiny. After working in a Juvenile Prison in Louisiana for three years, where I directed a $1.5 million rehabilitation program, I increasingly lost nearly all contact with the idea that I am a spirit on an occassional human journey. The idea I had that my body was in charge led me to the surgery room of Lafayette General Hospital, where I had a three inch polyp removed from my left nostril. Before the knock of the spirit, I was in a dream. As I listened to the voice of my body, the message I received was to live a fast-paced life; that included maintaining my belief in an external image. I wore expensive clothing; directed my staff; dined at Mansurs and the Camelot Club, which are two of the most expensive restaurants in Baton Rouge, LA; traveled around the country to various work-related meetings; and most of all, I held the belief that by going into a prison everyday, whose main goal is the delivery of punishment to its inmates constantly (24-7), I could remain an individual capable of giving and receiving love. What I also found out was this is an illusionary thought I personally empowered. By doing so, not only did I place my life in jeopardy, but I simultaneously came very close to losing Essie, my spiritual partner for the past nineteen years. To further highlight my greatly diminished capacity to think clearly, which was a result of my belief in the thought that I am merely a body that occasionally has spiritual experiences, rather than a spirit that has occasional human experiences, I left my prison job in 1996 without any visible means of income. Even though I had no source of income, I became obsessed with purchasing a Grand Cherokee Jeep. While Essie was amazed that this was what I wanted to do, I had no idea that my obsession with buying a jeep was an effect of my belief that I am only a body. My belief in the latter reached its peak during the years I worked in prison; punishing bodies was a daily, casual and accepted affair.

This story is not meant to gather sympathy for myself. Rather, it is purposely placed here to lay the foundation for the following question: Am I the only person in American society, or on the planet, who experienced pain and suffering as a result of my body confusion? Are there many others who are currently experiencing pain and suffering that body confusion inevitably causes?

The Dream of Pain and Suffering

The extent to which pain and suffering is a part of American life is evident through an examination of its overall health condition. This brings us back to a question raised earlier; that is, if a man or woman is experiencing pain and suffering, would he or she continue to choose to do so, if they knew a transition from pain and suffering to heaven requires only a change of mind? The following health statistics imply that a majority of us require awakening from the dream of pain and suffering. This is the condition in the body that eventually force us to take a look at the thoughts in our mind.

According to The World Almanac, 1997, heart disease, cancer, and stroke led the list of The 10 Leading Causes of Death, 1995. That year,

738,781³ Americans died of heart failure. Dr. Robert Ivker and Edward Zorensky research reported that men account for a larger proportion of these deaths. Their work showed that …..500,000[men died] from heart disease⁴ during any given year. In these cases, the event was severe leading often to sudden death; however, in many more cases where a heart attack occurs, death is not immediate. As evidence, it was reported in USA Today that congestive heart failure is a condition that occurs because the heart muscle is overworked or damaged, and it affects an estimated 2 to 3 million Americans.⁵ When the situation for women is considered, and similar to men, a majority are killed each year due to congestive heart failure. Moser stated …coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death for women in the US…⁶ Hypertension, which develops in response to prolonged stress, …was the most common risk factor for congestive heart failure…⁷ Another common risk factor that leads to poor health, pain and suffering, and possibly death is diet. Hellmich wrote Many Americans…are seriously overweight now than in 1980…Overall, 35% of adults(33% of men, 36% of women) are overweight enough to be unhealthy.⁸ Lombardi added, the National Center for Health Statistics in Washington calculates that 4.7 million children ages 6 to 17 were overweight in 1991…That was 10.9 percent of the school-age population.⁹ Right after heart disease, which is the leading cause of death among Americans, is cancer.

This affliction, and taking into account all of its many forms, took the lives of 537,969¹⁰ Americans in 1995. Boeck stated lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among US men and women, according to the American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts and Figures, 1997. The top four fatal cancers in expected deaths this year are lung cancer (160,000), colorectal cancer (55,000), breast cancer (44,000), and prostate cancer (42,000).n Dr. Ivker added, …nearly 100,000 men die each year from lung cancer…¹² Sawyer, who is freelance writer, wrote, called the silent killer, prostate cancer is striking increasingly younger men and will be diagnosed in 317,000 men this year. And more than forty-one thousand are expected to die from it.¹³ Rounding out the Top ten leading causes of death among Americans are the following: stroke (158,061); chronic obstructive lung diseases (104,756); Pneumonia and influenza (83,528); diabetes mellitus (59,085); HIV virus/infections (42,506); suicide (30,893); and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (24,848).¹⁴ Morris stated, …deaths among people with aids totalled 22,000 in the first half of 1996…¹⁵ What is more, Jill Nelson sheds additional light on the pain and suffering issue. She wrote, …a study conducted by the New York City Health Department [found] 1,156 women murdered over a five year period. Nearly half were killed by their intimate partners.¹⁶

Along the continuum of the dream of pain and suffering, the above are effects of the primary question articulated earlier. That is, am I a body or a spirit? Since the Greek era, it has been known that an identification with the body inevitably results in diseases and trouble for us.

Body Identification

The simplest way to express this thought is we store away our feelings associated with our experiences, and in the place of them, we erect mental images of ourselves, which we use as an attempt to get along in the world. For example, the moment a baby is born, the first reaction of the mother and others is look at how beautififul the baby’s body is. Her eyes, nose, hair, lips, feets, and skin color are-all-spoken of repeatedly. An emphasis on the baby’s body continues throughout her childhood; and in the event the physical features of the child happen to become unappealing, emphasis is then placed on the unattractiveness of the body. In any case, the main focus of conditioning is centered around the child’s external body.

In the classic book titled Plato: Five Great Dialogues, 1942, and turning to the Phaedo, a dialogue between Phaedo, Socrates, Appollodorus, Simmias, Cebes, Crito, and Echecrates, which takes place in the prison on the day Socrates drank the Hemlock poison, Socrates made this statement about the body. He stated, for the body is a source of endless trouble to us…and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and…takes away from us the power of thinking at all…money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and by reason of all these impediments we have no time to give to philosophy; and last and worst of all…the body is always breaking in upon us, causing turmoil and confusion in our inquiries, and so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the truth. It has been proved to us by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body.¹⁷ Socrates recognized, at the very beginning of Western Civilization, that a preoccupation with the body would act as a barrier to our evolving into a realization of our highest self. When the body is our lifelong concern, our nature; that is, our spirit, goes uncultivated. Herein lies the cause of the dream of pain and suffering. Socrates, in an exchange with Cebes, affirmed this saying …the soul is…dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins around her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change?¹⁸

When the body enters the world that we go into to work and play, and since most Americans enter the daily world at the request of their body, happiness and joy escapes us. Why? Because most of us think that we exist to acquire goods and services that satisfy our bodies. This thought is one passed down to nearly everyone through contact with the socializing influences of American society. No emphasis is placed on the one force that alone is capable of sustaining our lives-the spirit that dwells eternally inside of us. As proof, in the Gospel according to Saint John, being the word of God, it is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.¹⁹ The spirit is life, but the vast majority of Americans currently see the body as life. As a consequence, they move on their journey here in a perpetual search for meaning; as one pursuit ends in disappointment, another one is immediately taken up and so on and so forth. Fromm stated, Modern man does not know what to do with himself, how to spend his lifetime meaningfully, and he is driven to work in order to avoid unbearable boredom.²⁰ I have had the opprtunity to know personally people who had worked very hard for over 30 years of their lives in a particular career; when they reached that glorious moment of retirement, instead of hearing them say, I am going home to rest; my spirit is well-content; I heard them say consistently that ‘I am going to get another job, even though I don’t need the money.’ One gentleman I know, who worked for the St. Martin Parish School Board for over 30 years, now is a full-time employee of the St. Martin Parish Sherriff Department. There are numerous others who are doing the same thing all across this land! What drives them to work on well pass their work years is fear. Having neglected their spirits, the effect is an emptiness inside that compells one to strive on; however, by remaining focused on the body, the hollow inside widens; becomes more vast, and deeper.

According to Fromm, having fun consists mainly in the satisfaction of consuming and taking in; commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies-all are consumed, swallowed. The world is one great object for appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the sucklers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones-and the eternally disappointed ones.²¹ Whatever the attention is focused on, that will be manifested. Currently, a vast majority of Americans’ attention is focused on the satisfaction of their body.

There is no gray area; some may ask, can I focus on my bodily needs today and on my spiritual being tomorrow? The Course In Miracles asks the question as follows: Can you who see yourself within a body know yourself as an idea? Everything you recognize you identify with externals, something outside itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form you think you recognize.²² As we see, the body concept is powerful, but its grip on our minds can be broken. Let us address what must be done to break the mental stranglehold.

Confusion of Pain as Pleasure

The body’s constant goal is the search for pleasure through consumption! In order for our mind to cooperate so fully in the enterprises of the body, without any question or hesitation, it must be understood that the mind-itself-is unaware of its own natural function; and therefore, it acts according to the wishes of the body, which have been stressed fully through pre-determined conditioning since our birth. Haven’t you heard people say many times that their main concern is to be comfortable? In essence, what is meant by this is there is a certain lifestyle one must attain before he or she experiences peace. The dream house, a flashy car and expensive jewelry top the list of bodily comforts sought. That being the case, A Course In Miracles, 1975 states, by seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is.²³ To fulfill our body’s wishes, our minds join the body in its pursuit of things.

In doing so, our mind sinks into heightened confusion; it becomes unable to order the thousands of worldly material things in a way that it can remember its original, divine purpose. At the heart of the confusion in our mind is those worldly things we feel are pleasures,which are a serious compromise of the power of our mind. Having entered into this partnership with the body, and now that the body has reversed roles with our mind, the body leads the mind! Accordingly, now has the mind condemned itself to seek without finding; to be forever dissatisfied and discontented; to know not what it really wants to find.²⁴ Millions of Americans are engaged in seeking, but not ever finding what they are in search of—love!

In Plato Socrates stated he has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than anyone, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions.²⁵ Our unending search for meaning in worldly possessions always leads to a deadend street; we grow disillusioned, and we condemn ourselves. As nothing comes to our searching, our internal dialogue, that is, the conversation we carry-on within our mind, reflects a belief that we are undeserving, unworthy, and that we are destined in our lifetimes to experience pain and suffering. A Course In Miracles, 1975 states, and so he seeks it in a thousand ways and in a thousand places, each time believing it is there, and each time disappointed in the end.²⁶ Moreover, the latter added, the lingering illusion will impel him to seek out a thousand idols, and to seek beyond them for a thousand more.²⁷ Socrates captured beautifully the agony of those among us today who are perpetually beset by the wants of their bodies. He stated, those who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining table, the fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.²⁸ Why hasn’t what appears obvious caused a major uproar among us? Though our endlessly search for meaning in consumption is painful, something happens in our minds that allows us to continue on in pain.

In order for our mind to continue to seek and not find meaning, we attempt to resolve the matter through our denial of the truth. The moment the body becomes our goal, that is the self-same instant that we deny the truth of who we are. Having disowned our real self, that is, our spirit, we believe that our body identification is real, when, in reality, it is merely an illusion. As evidence, A Course In Miracles, 1975 stated, there is no pleasure of the world that does not demand this, for otherwise the pleasure would be seen as pain, and no one asks for pain if he recognizes it. It is the idea of sacrifice that makes him blind. He does not see what he is asking for.²⁹ To explain this important point further, let us use the lunar eclipse as an example.

For the sake of clarity, the moon will represent our happiness; the sun represents our spirit or divine source; and the earth represents our body identification or illusion. When a full lunar eclipse occurs, the earth is positioned in its orbit around the sun directly in front of the moon. At this exact point, the entire face and light of the moon is casted in a shadow. The shadow appears to be real, but it is a temporary illusion, because the moon is still the moon, and although the light of the moon is cut-off and darkness prevails, like the moon, the light of the sun that illuminates the moon still exists also. Similarly, when our body identification shadows our inner source of happiness, the latter is still there as the moon still is during a full lunar eclipse. After a period of time, the earth revolves to another position, and the moon and its beautiful light are both apparent and real as they ever were. For us, our happiness continues to be overshadowed by our external search for happiness outside of our self. Unlike the revolving earth that unveils the moon at the end of the eclipse, our body identification continues to shadow our inner happiness because we do not recognize the shadow as an illusion, but as something we made real. In short, we think that our body identification is happiness, and we decide against the happiness that rest peacefully inside us.A Course In Miracles, 1975 added, No one decides against his happiness, but he may do so if he does not see he does it. And if he sees his happiness as ever changing, now this, now that, and now an elusive shadow attached to nothing, he does decide against it. Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing form that shifts with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning.³⁰

Therefore, the pain we feel, although very real indeed(!), is interpreted by us as pleasure. And whereas we constantly asks for pain, by looking for happiness everywhere but inside our self, it is ironically called pleasure. This point is crucial to understand. Yet, it is difficult to grasp because, like an object that is moving in outer space, it will continue on its set course until some outside force causes it to assume a new and different path. The course that a vast majority of us are now on is one where pleasure is sought through the body, which, unless changed, no doubt ends in pain. According to A Course In Miracles, 1975, it is impossible to seek for pleasure through the body and not find pain…it is but the inevitable result of equating yourself with the body, which is the invitation to pain.³¹ Socrates added, their pleasures are mixed with pain-how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are colored by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth.³² Of critical concern to this inquiry now is one simple question: How do we break the inertia that our body identification has on our mind?

Inertia of Body Identification

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