We Are Not the Container

Reflections on A Course in Miracle Lesson 199, I am not a body. I am free.

Here's a short story that has become a reminder to see beyond the body, beyond the container of spirit. It's the content, who we are, that truly matters. Yet, we are quick to judge not only our own body but also other bodies. A now, a little sharing from the summer of 2025.

My husband and I are tea-drinkers, and every day I would use my favorite tea-cup, a fine porcelain cup with just the "right" size and thinness. It was adorned with a rose-colored flower painting inspired by Van Gogh's Irises.

While doing dishes, my husband accidentally broke it and insisted on buying me a new one. After a little pushing, I said "yes".  Soon, I was the happy owner of a new special cup, a new "container" decorated with the same art-work, and this time in green and blue colors.

I enjoyed it very much for no more than a month or so, when it suffering the same fate as the previous cup. This time by my own hands while doing dishes. Although disappointed, I decided that the content, the actual tea, was more important than the container itself. 

Now, I still had a "special" water glass, we had no other like it. This glass had endured countless dishwashing experiences without harm. It was tall and slender, just the right height and width. One fall day, I did a sweeping motion with my right hand and accidentally knocked it over. Nothing was going to save it from a fatal encounter with the floor.

After the loss of two cups and a glass in a short period of time, it hit me that I could see it all as a reminder-call from the universe to look beyond the limitation of form.

Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself.  Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found.

The ego, our self-made identity based on separation, is obsessed about the body and it's protection. If we are identified with the body, rather than our essence, the spiritual Self, we will come from a place of fear. Eventually, like my cups and glass, we know that the body will have to be discarded. Yet, the Love that we are beyond this physical vehicle, endures.

When we shift our perception and understand that the body is a temporary vehicle, or a learning device, and embrace the idea that our essence is Love, it changes everything. We still got to do a whole bunch of unlearning of ego-thoughts, welcoming them and forgiving them...but gradually we are releasing barriers to knowing the light that we are. Gradually, we're loosing our attachment to form, to containers, to bodies and are able to feel and know that we are extensions and expressions of love. Of light.

Love is the source of your being. You flow from love. What flows from love is changeless and boundless.

~ A Course of Love

Warmly,

Tone-Lise