We Are Not the Container

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

This fall, the "universe" gave me a reminder call. Reminding me that we are not a temporary physical body. We're not the container. We're not form although we're temporally appearing as form and it's beneficial for us to take care of it. 

We're love that expands beyond the container to include everyone and everything. This reminder came in the form of three separate accidents over a period of three months. 

Every day, I would use my favorite tea-cup made of fine porcelain with just the right size and thinness, and adorned with a copy of Van Gogh's Irises. As a side note: The Iris is also the colored muscles around the pupil in our eye which controls how much light enters the eye. In Greek mythology, Iris is the the goddess of rainbows and messages.

While doing dishes, my husband accidentally broke the cup and insisted on buying me a new one.  Soon, I was the happy owner of a new special "container." I enjoyed it for no more than a month or so, until it suffering the same fate as the previous cup. This time by my own hands. Although disappointed, I let it be, and went back to using one of the other tea-cups we had.

The power of three. I still had a "special" glass. One morning I did a sweeping motion with my right hand and accidentally knocked it over, quickly realizing that nothing was going to save it from a fatal encounter with the floor.  After the loss of two beautiful cups and a my favorite 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. 

We're living in a culture that puts tremendous emphasis on the physical body. Much of the attention on our own (and other bodies) often involves some form of evaluation or judgement regarding - appearance, fitness, age, and all the various ways it does or does not please us. We know...at least after we've lived a bit...that it can break down and hurt in all manner of ways. 

It's easy to forget or not realize the love that we are in truth, and that the spiritual essence and light that fills, surrounds, and infuses the body, all bodies, cannot be broken. Spirit is unbreakable and eternal.

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. ~ ACIM

The ego, our self-made identity based on separation, is obsessed with the body and its protection. If we are identified with the body rather the spiritual Self, we will at some point stand face to face with existential fear. Like cups and glasses, the body will have to be discarded. 

What if we change our perception to seeing the body as a temporary communication tool and learning device?

Rather than identifying with what is limited, we can gradually come to identify with what is beyond form, with what is beyond the container.

We still got to do a whole bunch of unlearning of insane ego-thoughts. Learning to un-identify we them, not judging them. And eventually what we are will tell us of Itself. 

By noticing fearful thoughts and emotions in the light of compassionate awareness, we're addressing barriers to the awareness of the Love that IS. By reminding ourselves that we're not a body but rather spirit having a temporary earthly vehicle, we're loosening our attachment and identification with form. We're loosening perceptual habit pattern. Gradually, or not so gradually, we become more able to feel and extend love. Not special and conditional love, but inclusive and spacious love. A love that extends and creates beyond the limitation of the container.

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

Re-Sources:

ACIM

ACOL