Hand noun /hænd/

• The part of the body at the end of the arm that is used for holding, moving, touching, and feeling things. ‘The baby gripped my finger with her tiny hand.’

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We love with them, we pray with them, we bless with them, we feed with them, we see with them, we speak with them, we create with them, but we also attack or protect with them. As part of our bodies, our hands are the means by which we communicate; we express ourselves in this physical reality, the outer manifestation of the inner capacity to handle our physical reality and our experiences. And still, as part of the body, they cannot do anything by themselves. Who directs them, who tells them what to do, and who takes the decisions?

 

If a decision needs to be made, it is, of course, the mind and not the body that makes it. There is a great deal of resistance to recognising this because the existence of the world as you perceive it depends on the body being the decision-maker. Words such as reflexes, instincts, and similar expressions signify attempts to infuse the body with non-mental drives or motivators. In actuality, these words just identify or characterise the problem. They don't respond to it.

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You are the Son of God; you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, utterly unafraid, sinless forever, because you were created out of love, and there is nothing outside you. This was given to you as knowledge, which you cannot lose. This is what you must ultimately learn, or rather, remember.

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What more could God give you than knowledge of Himself? What else is there to give or to be said? Believing that you could offer and receive something else from someone else, someone outside of yourself, has cost you the sight of Heaven and of your identity. And you are unaware of the strange thing you have done. You've moved your guilt from your mind to your body. However, since a body can do nothing of itself, it cannot be guilty. You who believe you hate your body deceive yourself. You despise your mind, for guilt has entered into it, and it would remain separate from your brother’s, which it cannot do.

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Bodies are separate from minds; minds are joined (but you do not identify with them), bodies are not. Separation appears to be attainable only when the attributes of the body are credited to the mind; hence, it is the mind that appears to be isolated, fractured, and alone. The mind projects its guilt, which keeps it separate, onto the body, which suffers and ultimately dies as a result of being assaulted to maintain the separation in the mind and prevent it from realising its identity. Although the mind cannot attack, it may make fantasies and command the body to carry them out. However, the body never seems to please the mind, and thus the mind will assault the body by intensifying the projection of its guilt upon it unless it is convinced that the body is acting out its fantasies.

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The mind is obviously delusional in this. It cannot attack, but it continues to insist it can, and it demonstrates this by harming the body. The mind cannot attack, though it may fool itself it can. And when it thinks it has attacked the body, this is all it does, it is attacking the body. It can project its guilt, but projection won't make it go. Furthermore, even though it is obviously capable of misinterpreting the body's functions, it is unable to alter the roles that God has established for it to play. God did not create the body. However, God does not judge it and may make loving use of it, recognising what the Son of God has made and utilising it to save him from falling into delusions.

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The body cannot be guilty. It is absurd to direct the body's attack and hold it responsible for what you wished it to do, using it as a scapegoat for guilt. You cannot live out your fantasies, for you still want the fantasies, and they have nothing to do with what the body does. It does not dream of them, and they make him a liability where he could be an asset. Because of your delusions, your body has become your enemy, weak, flimsy, and cunning, deserving of all the hate you put into it. You have come to identify yourself with this thing of your hatred, the instrument of vengeance, and the perceived source of your guilt. This thing you made to serve your guilt stands between you and other minds. You have turned something meaningless against God's Son by declaring it to be his home and acting as though it were.

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The body is merely part of your experience in the physical world, yet the body is not part of you. Only the ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the body is more real than the mind is. Although the body is outside of you, it appears to be all around you, isolating you from other people while keeping you apart from them and them from you. There is no barrier between God and His Son, nor can His Son be separated from God except through illusions. This is not God's Son reality, though he believes it is. God and His Son are one and the same; the only way that His Son could be apart from Him is in his imagination or illusions. Despite his belief that this is reality, it is not. God placed no barriers between Himself and you, so you cannot construct any around yourself.

 

Would you not have the instruments of separation reinterpreted as means for salvation, and used for purposes of love? Would you not welcome and support the shift from fantasies of vengeance to release from them? You can use your body best to help you enlarge your perception so you can achieve real vision, of which the physical eye is incapable. Learning to do this is the body’s only true usefulness. You can now extend your hand and reach Heaven; you, whose hand is joined with your brother's, have started to reach past the physical body, but not outside of yourself, to your shared identity together.

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The laws of limitations have been lifted for you to welcome you to openness of mind and freedom. Peace will join you there, simply because you have been willing to let go of the limits you have placed upon love and have joined it where it is and where it has led you in answer to its gentle call to be at peace.