The first we tend to do on waking at the start of a new day
is to remind ourselves that we are a body. As we float back into waking
consciousness, we become aware of the body's physical sensations. We re-familiarize
ourselves with its physical environment, and like the quick recap of 'the story
so far' that we get at the start of the latest episode in a magazine story or
television series, update ourselves by recalling who we are and where we are
along the timeline of our life. In this way we use our minds to constantly maintain
our self-concept as a unique organism living in a finite world.
But we lose sight of the part consciousness plays in making
the body real to itself. We identify with the body, not with the consciousness
that perceives it. This is like believing you are the person in your dreams at
night, who walks and talks and to whom things happen, but who does not actually
exist at all; who is only a projection in the mind of the dreamer.
When you think of yourself not as a body, but as a mind, and
everything you see as happening in your mind, like a lucid dreamer you become
both observer and creator of your experiences. Everyone you meet is as aspect
of yourself. The you who takes part in what happens is only a vehicle for your
consciousness, supplies the eyes you look through and the body you walk in. Wherever
it goes, whatever may happen to it, you the dreamer are safe in your bed at
home. Horrors and delights are equally unreal:
You are at home...dreaming
of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. Is it your decision to
do so? You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you
think is real while you are asleep. Yet the instant you waken you realize that
everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all (T10 I
2)
Think of yourself as a mind, and you see the world
differently. You watch your body's impulses and become aware it is not the body
that makes mistakes, feels emotions, suffers, interacts with a seeming world.
It is not the body that learns. The body embodies the thoughts of the mind and
mirrors the mind's dreams back to itself. The body is not the problem. Whatever seems to be troubling you is inside, not
outside you. It is in your mind, and can only be resolved there. Think of
yourself as a mind, and you reclaim the responsibility for what it experiences.
When you forget that you are a mind, mindlessness takes
over. The Course calls this the ego, our body-identification, our self-concept,
our dream persona. Have you come across a picture book for small children (by Mo Willems) called
'Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus'? The pigeon wants to drive the bus and
tries every trick and wheedle it can think of. The ego, too, wants to drive our
lives, out of peace and into confusion and regret. Don't let the ego drive the
bus.
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