"Sickness is adefense against the truth."

When we evaluate a threat, decide escape is necessary, and set up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that we have judged as real.  All this cannot be done unconsciously.  Afterwards our plan require that we must forget we made it, so it seems to be external to our own intent; a happening beyond our state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on us, instead of one effected by us.

It is this quick forgetting of the part we play in making our "reality" that makes defenses seem to be beyond our control.  But what we have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion.  Not remembering is a sign that this decision still remains in force, as far as our desires are concerned.  Defenses must make facts unrecognizable.   

"Sickness is not an accident."

We cannot heal unless we understand what purpose sickness seems to serve.  When this is seen, healing is automatic.  Like all defenses, sickness is an insane device for self-deception.  Like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts.

The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole.  The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.  Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness.  They are secret, magic wands we wave when truth appears to threaten what we would believe.  They are a part of the unconscious mind.    

"Heaven asks nothing."

It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice.   Our present trust in the Creator is the defense that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, joy that constantly increases, as our lives become a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality.  Let our present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only our defenses would conceal.

Without defenses, we become a light which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own.  It will lead us on in ways appointed for our happiness according to the ancient plan, begun when time was born.  Our followers will join their lights with ours, and it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy.  Our brothers and sisters will lay aside their cumbersome defenses, which availed them nothing and could only terrify.  from "Underneath the Mango Tree."  by BID  

"We defend ourselves thinking we are attacked."

An attack that is not real giving illusions full reality and attempting to handle them as real.  This sense of threat is an acknowledgement of our inherent weaknesses; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on us to make appropriate defense.  The world is based on this insane belief.  Defense is frightening.  It stems from fear.

The body is not in need of defense.  It will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it.  We must understand the "self" that needs protection is not real.  The body, valueless and not in need of defense.  We need merely to perceive as apart from us, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over.  Defend the body and we have attacked the mind.   from "Underneath the Mango Tree"  by BID

"Let us perceive forgiveness as it is."

Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world.  The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it see illusions as illusions, not as truth.  There is a simple way to find the door to true forgiveness.  When we feel that we are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow our minds to dwell on what we think he/she did, for that is self-deception.  Ask instead, "Would we accuse ourselves of doing this?"

We must keep our minds as free of guilt and pain as God intended it to be, and as it is truth.  Lies would condemn.  In truth is innocence the only think there is.  Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the hell of guilt and Heaven's gate.  Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach us its beneficence.

Let us perceive forgiveness as it is.  Would we accuse ourselves of doing wrong?  We would not lay this chain upon us.  No one is crucified alone, and yet no one can enter Heaven by themselves.  from "Underneath the Mango Tree." by BID.