This morning it's April 30th when the swine flu concern has spread around the world and
I thought maybe we could talk this morning about how A Course in Miracles would have
us look at swine flu. The most important thing to remember when we begin to talk about a
specific, a specific concern or problem, is that the Course does not address any of these.
And the reason that it does not address any specific issues any of us has is because all
the problems are perceived as being the same. That's why the first principle of miracles
is that there is no order of difficulty among them which is a correction for the ego's first
law of chaos that there is a hierarchy of illusions. All the problems that confront
us in the world, no matter what they are on a personal or collective basis, are simply
projections of the single problem that we all share which is our decision to join with
the ego instead of the Holy Spirit, the decision to make the separation from God real, and
the concomitant thoughts of sin, guilt, and fear real as well. All these then become projected
out into the world and take all different forms. What is most important as we look at
a specific situation like swine flu is to use it as a way of monitoring our own thinking,
our own reactions. Aside from the normal reaction saying that we should take whatever precautions
would be appropriate as we would with any concern or problem, despite these concerns
and despite the form of the problem, our response if we are right-minded would still be peaceful.
Lesson 34 is always very instructive in this regard, "I could see peace instead of this."
And the "this" would be whatever it is that arouses anxiety in us, engenders guilt, causes
us to be afraid, we could still see peace instead of this because peace is a decision
in the mind. And the mind is totally unaffected by the body since the body is simply a projection
of the mind and has never left its source in the mind. Our external concerns are simply
the projections of the decision of our decision maker to join with the ego. Once we do this,
we make separation real. We make our belief in sin real. We experience guilt, and guilt
demands that we be punished for it. We then project out our fear of punishment, ultimately
the punishment by this avenging deity who wants to seize back from us the life we believe
we stole from him. That we project this out and we become afraid of all kinds of things
external to us...things that affect our bodies or the bodies of our loved ones. In this particular
case, it's swine flu. It could be nuclear war, it could be famine, it could be AIDS,
it could be the loss of a job, it doesn't make any difference. The concern would always
be the same. It would be that somehow we are going to be punished because we deserve to
be punished. And once we believe we deserve to be punished or there is a danger outside
of us, our defensiveness is then justified, namely we have been justified in somehow defending
ourselves against this threat. Typically as a threat is seen as constituting an attack
on us, our defense would be also some form of attack. This is what is discussed near
the end of the text in the section "Self-Concept versus Self" where Jesus tells us how we all
put on the face of innocence and this aspect is always acted on. In this case, we are all
the innocent or seemingly or expected innocent victims of the swine flu. That is not our
problem and therefore we are justified in defending against this invader. And the invaders
could be Homo sapiens, people. It could also be micro-organisms such as a virus or a bacteria.
In this case, once again, we are talking about swine flu. So the concern at the same time
that we take the normal precautions to protect our bodies and the bodies of our loved ones,
that we above all take precautions to protect our minds, namely not protect our minds from
the ego perceived as the enemy, but protect our minds in the sense as the third lesson
of the Holy Spirit says, to be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom. Namely not that God
needs our vigilance but that we need to be vigilant how we have chosen the ego as a defense
against God or a defense against our choosing God, and that is always the problem. And when
we pay attention to that, that is the mind's protection that is building up the immune
system of the mind. And when we are at peace, then our minds would automatically dictate
to our bodies whatever it is we should do or how we should work with others to ensure
peace and safety for all people. But the peace and safety must begin within, otherwise there
is no peace and no safety. So that the Course's approach to the problem of swine flu as it
would be for any other problem is to use it as a means to heal our own minds; and when
our minds are healed, there is a peace that is totally invulnerable to anything that appears
to be outside of us.