In my defenselessness my safety lies.
You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again; attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.
The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings.
It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind.
Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper, and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive, that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought.
You are its slave. You know not what you do, in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice, who feel its iron grip upon your heart. You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him.
Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ's strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.
Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father's anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?
We will not play such childish games today. For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity.
We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.
Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God's ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, by His election and their own as well?
It is the function of God's ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.
Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits salvation brings.
You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt; be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come, in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven's children and the Son of God.
We pause but for a moment more, to play our final, happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless. So is the story ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tale he reads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defense against a vengeance he can not escape, is but his own deluded fantasy. God's ministers have come to waken him from the dark dreams this story has evoked in his confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. God's Son can smile at last, on learning that it is not true.
Today we practice in a form we will maintain for quite a while. We will begin each day by giving our attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes now becomes the least we give to preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal we have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turn us from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will we willingly give less at night, in gratitude and joy.
Each hour adds to our increasing peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God. At times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that we can offer as the hour strikes. Sometimes we will forget. At other times the business of the world will close on us, and we will be unable to withdraw a little while, and turn our thoughts to God.
Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God, in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice, and learn what He would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for all the gifts He gave us in the one gone by.
In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways, where you will walk in true defenselessness. For you will know that Heaven goes with you. Nor would you keep your mind away from Him a moment, even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world. Think you He will not make this possible, for you who chose to carry out His plan for the salvation of the world and yours?
Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it, as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength. We call upon His strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as He tells us, "I am here."
Your practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love, to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Be not afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are His gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
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Lesson 153
"In my defenselessness my safety lies."
This lesson is one of those that asks us to do the opposite of what it seems we need to do to function and survive in this world. This is because the ego confuses weakness with strength and strength with weakness. In believing that we have separated ourselves from God, the only real source of strength, we believe we are weak. From this belief in weakness, we imagine a world of weakness. To compensate for this weakness, we make up substitutions for God's strength to cover or hide the underlying our belief that we are weak.
Believing that we have really separated from God brings with it the belief that we have succeeded in harming God by tearing ourselves away from Him. To God this is impossible, but to a thought system that believes that separation is possible and real, harm is inevitable. Believing we have harmed God, we believe guilt is real and punishment is justified. Thus we believe God must be angry with us and seeks to punish us. So we carry a belief in an angry God and expect His punishment in every moment.
Thus we believe we must be on constant alert to defend ourselves against the evils of the world we have made. Yet these evils are only the reflection of our own belief that we have succeeded in separating from God. That is why in paragraph seven it says that defensiveness proclaims we have denied the Christ and come to fear his Father's anger. We see His fearful image at work in all the evils of the world.
Sometimes we openly acknowledge this. We call severe weather, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions acts of God. But most of the time when a loved one says something we perceive as hurting us we do not think of it as really a projection of our fear of an angry God. Yet our defensiveness, the the lesson is telling us, proclaims that this perception is a denial of the Christ. So when we fear a brother, it is really a reflection of an underlying fear of God.
The antidote to this is learning to see the Christ in all my brothers, which is to see the one true Self we all share as the Son of God. As we practice listening to the Voice for God all through the day, we will be guided to see the face of Christ everywhere. As we offer that perception to all our brothers, we learn that there is no true cause for defensiveness. And we rest in the strength of Love that is wholly defenseless. No longer do we fear pain and suffering at every turn, for we come to know that Love walks with us in every instant. We know that Love is changeless and therefore perfectly safe. There is nothing to defend, for what cannot be changed needs no defense.
Holy Spirit, help me to see Love everywhere today, that I may know my strength and see that same strength in everyone.
In this lesson, Jesus is reminding me to lay aside my belief in this world. He reminds me that this world is just a fantasy that provides a defense against remembering our true Identity as eternal Spirit and remembering our oneness in God.
The more I believe in the fantasies of this world, the more I will feel threatened and feel a need to defend. He reminds me that belief in the imaginings of this world will bind me stronger into defensiveness and will sabotage my connection with the inner peace of my true Nature as part of God. The more I sink deeper into the world's illusions by making them real, the more I will think I need to defend against these illusions.
Jesus tells me the way out of this dilemma is to focus on the true Strength that resides in my mind, behind the illusions of the world. This Strength that is still in my mind is the Christ in me. He tells me, "Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ's strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him." The Christ in me will guide me to look past dreams, past the fantasies of the world to the one Light that we all are. This is where my safety lies. This is where I will feel the peace, Love and joy of my true Identity.
It is from this place of inner peace that I will receive the guidance to take my role in the undoing of the game of fear. In the quiet place, left open and clear of the dreams of fear, I am guided to let my belief in weakness disappear. I am guided by the strength of my true, eternal safety. I am guided to accept God's gifts, which help me remember that I am safe and cannot be harmed in truth. I am guided to lay aside what was never real and see the Light of Christ in my brothers instead.
Ego is only of the mind. It is not of the body. Ego identifies with body but is not at home in the body and transcends individual bodies. Ego is the part of the mind that individualizes, that thinks it is separate from God. Ego thinks its is separate from the One first, then constructs the body lives. The ego is the part of mind that dreams the dreams to experience various situations, but then gets lost in its own little kingdom surrounded by defenses.
The Voice for God is everywhere. It is in all things, all places, all people. Only ego mind sees them as apart from God. Nothing is apart from God, no matter what the form appearances. The body life is neutral. It is only a construction. It means only what I think it means.
It is only in laying down the ego defenses that I can find my True Self. I can only find this in my mind. It is in my mind where I truly live. It is only in mind that I can find my True Self because this is where I truly live. Today I choose the meaning of my True Self. Today I choose to lay down the falsely constructed ego defenses with the help of Holy Spirit, for it is only in the defenselessness of my mind that I find my True Strength. When I see Oneness in my mind, then I see Oneness everywhere.
I had a very busy day. Lots to get done, tight time schedule, unexpected stresses. I didn't remember every hourly prayer, but before I left for work I asked Holy Spirit to make me aware of each time I was feeling defensive. It made for an interesting day. Mostly a lot of little things that normally I would not have paid a lot of attention to but cumulatively would have worn me down. Things like having an old man pull out in front of me and nearly cause a wreck. I could feel my forehead wrinkling and my mouth turning down in disapproval. I thought to myself, "What are you doing you old fart?"
Then I heard Holy Spirit reminding me that I didn't need to defend myself against old farts, and I felt a sense of gratitude that I was sent this reminder. Over and over today I found that I was giving away my peace in an effort to protect and defend my body. There were many opportunities for me to see that I have been responding to all kinds of perceived threats with defensiveness. It also gave me many opportunities to choose differently, to offer my bothers love instead. It felt good to do this. This is another of those lessons I need to work on daily for about a year!
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