A Course in Health and Well-Being

I have just finished reading the Kindle ebook, A Course in Health and Well-Being, by Cindy Lora-Renard. If you still haven't heard of Cindy, she is the wife of renowned spiritual author and teacher, Gary Renard, who wrote the best-selling trilogy of Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality and Love Has Forgotten No One. In the books, Gary's teachers Arten and Pursah, who are ascended masters appearing to him as physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit, revealed to him that they are the next and final incarnations of Cindy and Gary respectively.

Cindy is therefore in her penultimate incarnation, or at least appearing to be so in this illusion. It is quite clearly evident from her book that Cindy is rather advanced along the path and an equal to her husband Gary. Never straying from the core message of A Course in Miracles, the messages in her book mirror the teachings of Gary Renard and Kenneth Wapnick which consistently remind us of the uncompromising truth — "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exist."

The Course teaches us that the world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference — the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. "Projection makes perception" (Text, p. 445). Similarly, Cindy spends the first half of the book stressing that we have to first deal with the content in our mind. Our only choice in every moment of this illusion is choosing between the Holy Spirit or the ego as our teacher, and that applies similarly to our health and well-being.

As Cindy writes in her book, "Although the world is an illusion, it doesn't mean you don't take care of yourself or do things that you feel are naturally healthy for you. You will always have preferences one way or another, and there is nothing wrong with that. Just because water is an illusion doesn't mean you don't drink it. As long as we believe we are bodies, living in a physical world, we need to do the common sense things that help us thrive." In the remaining chapters, she offers some practical tips and approaches on how to deal with various health issues and improving our sense of well-being.

Just as Gary did in his books, Cindy offers plenty of her own examples such as her panic attacks and life lessons. By using herself as an example, she illustrates that she is experiencing trials in life just like the rest of us and no different from others. She does not fall into the ego trap and puts herself on a pedestal. In the past when I was still doing the spiritual buffet, I have seen spiritual teachers doing just the opposite, trying to appear as though their life is perfect and conveniently leaving out the negativities in their teachings. Secondly, Cindy uses her own examples to show us how it all boils down to seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance and doing the forgiveness work.

Here's an example from her book where she demonstrates how to see through the ego's tricks and to reinterpret it with the Holy Spirit.

Having to do with animals, this represents one of my most challenging forgiveness lessons throughout my life. A while back I went into a pet store to pick up some cat food for Luna. As usual, I always walk by the cages where they keep the cats and dogs, waiting to be adopted. Almost every time I walk by these cages, I have a thought in some form, even if it's subtle, that these animals should not be locked up in cages, and that they are suffering. This time, as I walked by the cages, I noticed this one particular cat; a beautiful, pure, white cat with loving eyes, just watching all the activities. My thought was, "What a beautiful, sweet, adorable and loving cat. I wish I could adopt him, but I know Luna will not like it, since it's clear she wants to be an "only cat." Then, I started feeling bad for the cat that it was in a cage and that it must be feeling like it wants to be free, and maybe it feels alone and not cared for.

As I was leaving the store, I caught myself. I reminded myself I was projecting my own thoughts onto the cat and assuming that cats also think like humans. How do I know what the cat is thinking? It's very possible he was amused by what he was seeing and in no way suffering in any form. So, I continued to think right-minded thoughts remembering that I was dreaming, and I forgave my projected images and myself for dreaming them. I turned it over to the Holy Spirit, trusting in His strength, that His strength in me will prevail, not these ego thoughts that weren't contributing anything helpful to the situation. I remembered that if I choose to see the cat as suffering, then I suffer as well. Then, I let it go. But something happened later, and this is what can happen as a result of forgiveness. You can receive inspired thoughts and ideas.

Later that day I was at home sitting in a chair, and a thought came into my mind which I knew to be the Holy Spirit because it was just given to me: "How do you know that the cat wasn't blessing you?" In other words, offering me a chance to choose again and perceive another situation where God's gifts become my own. I had been thinking of the situation in terms of my own blessing onto the cat (a form of specialness) but wasn't perceiving the cat as simultaneously giving me a blessing. Wow! This completely helped me do a 180 in my thinking. Blessings are reciprocal in nature. When we bless, we are blessed in return. As we use what seems like painful situations as a way of thinking about others blessing us, because it gave us the opportunity to choose again how we are thinking about things, the gift becomes ours. Aside from that, ultimately there is no cat because there is no world. Images are not reality. This doesn't mean if you see abuse you allow it to continue; it just means that in your mind you can always come back to the truth, and that is what is helpful. Before I engage in any activity now where my help is sought, or even when I am just starting my day, after I turn it over to the Holy Spirit, I remind myself always that my goal is to be truly helpful. Then I let it go and trust in the process.

The above example somewhat mirrors my own. I was just visiting the zoo for the first time recently in years with my family and felt the same way about the animals on exhibit. So, Cindy's sharing of her example has helped me to reinterpret my own feelings about the zoo animals.

Also at some point while reading the book, I became quite envious of how Gary, Cindy, and her sister are all on the same spiritual path and how they could talk aout the Course and share their journey with each other. Then I thought about how my family is not into the Course and how I am all alone in this journey and then I caught myself falling into the ego's trap. This is obviously a lesson for me and reading Cindy's book has helped to surface this issue from my unconscious mind. Thank you Cindy.