A Course in Miracles says, “Health is peace of mind” and concludes that “A beautiful healthy body is the same as a sick, ugly body. They are both equally unreal.” According to ACIM principles, true healing can only take place in the mind and occurs when wrong thinking is replaced with right thinking. Can this reflect as a healing in the physical body? Yes, but not always.

The idea of a mind-body connection is becoming increasingly seductive these days, as more Course students and teachers seem to be focused on the idea that the body can be healed, through the mind. Of course this is true, especially if it could be helpful as a symbol of forgiveness to another needing healing; however the emphasis seems to be on healing the body as its own entity rather than the mind itself with physical healing resulting as a possible “side-effect” or “symptom” of the healed mind.

I see this as particularly dangerous for Course students because the ego can so easily high-jack failed efforts to heal the body via the mind and turn these efforts into a sense of defeat that one is simply not spiritual or good enough to receive a physical healing. This sense of failed effort can actually perpetuate the condition of dis-ease mentally and physically for the person experiencing sickness and in the end do more harm than good.

Ultimately, once we start to look at the body in the first instance as the “proof” that healing in the mind has taken place, we are simply barking up the wrong tree. The ego’s purpose of the body is to serve as proof that we are separate, not proof that we are healed and whole. Because the ego is always concerned with the FORM and not the CONTENT it can easily distract a mind experiencing physical sickness into believing that physical healing is the main priority, thus keeping us focused on the illusion of separation.

In reality, according to the Course, the body is neutral or nothing. It has no will or mind of it’s own to tell you that it is happy or sad or needs something. It has no real instincts or reflexes that we haven’t endowed it with. However, when used for Spirit’s purposes (and not the ego’s), it can serve as a valuable communication device, but it doesn’t HAVE to be physically healed in order to carry out this “special function,” as Spirit’s focus is always on the content not the form.

In other words, a physically sick or disabled body can serve as a communication device just as easily as a perceived “healthy body.” The point is that although a healed mind CAN result in a healed body, it is not always the case, and although everyone would like to be physically “healthy” many have experienced awakening, deep inner peace and joy EVEN while living in a sick, disabled or dying body. The key is not to give it importance it simply does not have. Heaven is ultimately in our mind.