Question
17 from
The Most Commonly Asked Questions About
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 2: THE NATURE OF THE SEPARATION
17) Can the ego mind be equated
with the human brain?
No. The mind is non-physical and non-tangible; i.e., it cannot be dissected in a laboratory, photographed by a camera, or analyzed by any empirical method. The brain, on the other hand, is a physical organ that is quite tangible, and can be dissected and studied readily in a laboratory. It is the "computer" that seems to run the body, organizing the sensory data that enter it into seemingly meaningful patterns, and directing all the bodily systems and functions to adjust to the body's place in the physical universe. In truth, however, it is the mind that is the programmer and directs the brain to function as it sees fit, just as a computer does what the operator tells it to do. The mind is the command center from which all directives emanate, as they instruct the brain to establish as an experiential reality the world of time and space that is already over, and which in truth never even existed!
In and of itself, therefore, the brain can do nothing, because it is nothing but the receptor-organ of the mind. This insane belief that the brain can function independently of the mind -- which is crucial to the ego's strategy of protecting the split mind and therefore itself -- is reflected in this passage from the workbook:
You ... believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. it is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish that to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can think (W-pI.92.2).The relationship of the brain to the mind, of effect to cause, is stated here in the text:
The brain cannot interpret what your vision sees [based upon reason, or the Holy Spirit's Presence in the mind].... The brain interprets [only] to the body, of which it is a part (T-22.1.2:7,9).Clearly then, it is the mind that does the true interpreting, not the brain. This is underscored in this passage from the manual for teachers, where the cause of perception is seen to be the mind, not the eyes nor, by implication, the brain. This passage, incidentally, is not found in the first edition of the Course:
Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold [not the brain]. It is the mind that interprets the eyes' messages and gives them "meaning."... Its hierarchy of values is projected outward, and it sends the body's eyes to find it .... Yet it is not the messages they bring on which perception rests. Only the mind evaluates their messages, and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. It alone decides whether what is seen is real or illusory, desirable or undesirable, pleasurable or painful (M-8.3:3-4,7,9-11).
Reproduced with the kind permission of Gloria and Kenneth
Wapnick and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles
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