How is Sickness A Defense Against the Truth: Is Illness My Fault?

Sickness is one of those areas of teaching that many students of A Course in Miracles take serious offense to. It’s like, yes, ok, the world is an illusion; yes, fine, I need to forgive my brother so that I can release myself; yes, I get it, we are all the light of the world as created by God; yes, I understand, I have given everything all the meaning it has for me; Yep, I am not a body, I am free – I’m down with that; yes, sickness is a defense against the truth… wait, I’m sorry, what? WTF? Oh no. Oh helllll no.

It turns out that when it comes to illness, we are not actually ok or fine, it is not gotten or understood, and we’re definitely not down with it.

It is as if looking at sickness from the perspective of A Course in Miracles is that line in the sand that we draw, where all of our supposedly hidden resistance comes right up in our faces.

In response to the idea that the Course sets forth in Workbook lesson 136, “Sickness is a defense against the truth”(W-136.pI) our ego minds, if you’ll pardon the pun, throw up all kinds of arguments – “A defense? I didn’t ask to get sick! What about germs? Or carcinogens? Or free radicals? Or a pandemic? Or genetics? We can’t control that! It’s not my fault. That’s blaming the victim. How dare you? F*ck off.”

Or they assign the responsibility to God:

“It’s God’s will that I (or you) got sick. He wanted me / you to learn something from this experience.”

Or to their past selves,

“its Karma, because I did some bad thing in my 12,000 past lives and now I’m paying for it.” Or the equally destructive and unhelpful, “It’s my own fault, I created this. We create our own reality. I have no one to blame but myself.”

All of these projection ideas are effects, which arise from the belief that we are, or even could be, separate from our Creator, and they are all manifestations of unconscious guilt, whether projected externally or internally. That is, not coincidentally, also what causes sickness in the body.

But it is also what causes us to think that we’re a body in the first place – in a world, with other bodies, from whom we are separate. Like, our whole existence.

A Course in Miracles does have a lot to say about sickness – mainly that it is a tool used by our split mind – the ego – to further strengthen our belief that we are a body.

It’s not like A Course in Miracles is saying,

“Dude, the world is real but your sickness is all in your mind.”

Or,

“Bro, you are totally a body, but if it gets sick then that’s your ego.”

Yet those are some of the ways in which the ego-mind uses Course concepts to try to f*ck with us.

What the Course is actually saying is, sickness isn’t real, and neither is the body, or the world. Or put another way, sickness is made up in our minds, but so is the body, and the world, and the universe, and everything in it. So we don’t have to keep getting stuck on the concept of “sickness is a defense against the truth” as if it’s an insult. The split mind is a defense against the Truth. The world of form is a defense against the Truth. The body is a defense against the Truth. Belief that we are separate from God and each other is a defense against the Truth.

What comes after the statement “Sickness is a defense against the truth” is actually the more relevant part that we need to learn:

“I will accept the truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today.”
ACIM

The Course is reminding us here that all sickness and all healing are of the mind. It further asks that when we experience sickness, we offer this prayer:

“I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself. Sickness is a defense against the truth. But I am not a body. And my mind cannot attack. So I cannot be sick.”
W-pI.136.20:3-7

A Course in Miracles teaches us that the truth is that we are whole, perfect, eternal extensions of God. There is no darkness in us. We are pure love, pure light.

The last thing our ego mind wants is for us to know this, because when we know it, the ego will completely cease to have any power over us whatsoever, and will essentially be dead to us. We will be enveloped in our full awareness of the incredible gorgeousness of who we are as light, love, peace, and joy. The only thing that keeps the ego alive in our minds is our belief that the world, and the body, are our reality. So, given this, what powerful tool can the ego use to keep us convinced that the body is real, and therefore insure its own survival as the boss of us?

It can use sickness, pain and fear of death – and it can make that sh*t feel real. Attempting to dispel our belief that we are a body on our best day is challenging enough (like, I kind of hate knowing it’s all fake when I’m having a great hair day) but trying to remember that this is all an illusion when you feel like – as my sister puts it, “a wagonload of wooden a**holes” – or you’re in pain, or barfing your guts out, or whatever other form illness takes for you – totally sucks.

The ego’s uber-convincing argument is,

“See? The body is REAL! You can’t deny it because look how sick you are! Look at all those symptoms! And you’re not in control of it. I can make you completely focus on the body now, and distract you from all that eternal-life-light-love-rainbows-and-unicorns bullshit. I can make you miserable, and depending on what kind of illness, I can literally make you sick with fear, and I can ultimately make you die.”

This is the ego’s trump card – its crowning achievement. If we get too close to the truth, knowing who we are, opening the door to let that brilliant light of ourselves shine away whatever darkness we’ve been convinced we are, with the use of sickness the ego mind can snap us back to the belief that we are a body in an unholy instant.

However, the Course teaches that the body is in the mind, it is part of the mind – like everything else in the world of perception. There is no body outside of the mind. When you use the mind to unify, to join, to extend to other minds by using the body as a communication device, then you are using it for Spirit’s purpose.

So, how do we do that? How do we use the body for communication? How do we give it to Spirit?

FORGIVENESS.

Forgiveness of all people, all grievances, all judgment, all symptoms, all pain, all perceptions, all thoughts of anything that is not love. You aren’t really forgiving anything or anyone – you are forgiving yourself for believing in an illusion, a dream. Holding on to any unloving idea about anything or anyone throughout your entire life and all 12,000 other lifetimes will keep you firmly rooted in the belief that you are a body, and in the ego’s thought system of sickness and death.

Psychology teaches us that stressful thoughts – such as those of judgment, condemnation, criticism, resentment, victimhood, etc – result in projection onto others and guilt toward ourselves. Science has proven that this emotional response causes the central nervous system to produce a stress reaction in the body, which manifests as physical illness.

Our thoughts are literally making us sick.

In A Course in Miracles, the Atonement is the full realization that the separation from God never occurred. If it never occurred, there is no guilt about it, which means no attack thoughts and nothing to cause a stress response in the mind and body. As the Course states, “Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed.”

My absolute favorite quote from the Course is this:

“The truth in you is as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as love itself.”
T-31.VI.7:4

How is Sickness A Defense Against the Truth: Is Illness My Fault?

FREE Workshop: From Blocking Joy to Rocking Joy

Whatever form sickness appears to take for you, look in the mirror and say that to yourself every day. See yourself emanating sparkling, shimmering light from every cell. Forgive everyone and everything, knowing that as you do so you allow the medicine of love to flow through your body/mind. The rest recedes into the nothingness that never was. Who you are – this brilliant, radiant being – whole, and pure, and innocent, is in need of no defenses.

Thank you so much for honoring me with your whole, healed, innocent, gorgeous presence today. If this teaching resonated with you, please send me an email, or leave me a comment below. I love to hear from you and I read every one.

For more insight about how to allow love to flow through you and heal your life – check out my workshop From Blocking Joy to Rocking Joy: How to Be Happy No Matter What here.

I am blinded to all thoughts of sickness and healed by the brilliance of your amazing, beautiful, perfect light.

Kelly