ARCIM

Daily Lesson 196 ~
July 15

It can be only myself I attack, or release from insanity.

When today’s idea is firmly understood and kept in full awareness, you will be free of the insane belief that to attack a brother or sister somehow saves yourself from harm, realizing that to attack another is merely to attack yourself. You will understand that their safety is your own, and in their healing you are healed. You will cease the mad attempt to harm yourself, and will no longer bind your body to forms of retaliation.

Perhaps at first you will not understand how Mercy, limitless and with all things held in Its sure Protection, can be found in the idea we practice for today. The idea that you can only attack yourself may, in fact, appear to be a sign that punishment can never be escaped. For the ego, under what it perceives as threat, is quick to cite truth to hide its lies. Yet must it fail to understand the truth it uses thus. But you can learn to see these foolish applications, and deny the meaning they appear to have.

For in today’s idea do you also teach your mind that you are not an ego. For the ways in which the ego would distort truth will deceive you no longer. You will no longer believe you are a body with which to attack or be attacked and destroyed. And you will behold within today’s idea the Light of Resurrection, seeing beyond all thoughts of attack and of death to Thoughts of Liberation and of Life, through your Release from insanity.

Today’s idea is another step we take in leading us from bondage to the State of perfect Freedom. Let us take this step today that we may quickly go the Way Awakening shows us, taking every Step in Its appointed Sequence as the mind relinquishes its burdens one by one. It is not time we need for this, but only willingness. For what would seem to need a hundred years can easily be done in just one Instant by the Grace of the Divine.

The dreary, hopeless thought that you could attack others and not harm yourself once nailed your understanding to the cross of delusion. Perhaps it seemed to offer you “salvation,” the belief that you could escape your fears while still keeping them. Yet it merely stood for the belief that the fear of the Divine was real for you. And what is that belief but hell? Who could believe their Creator is their deadly enemy, separate from them, and waiting to destroy their life and blot them from the universe, without the fear of abandonment and martyrdom upon their heart?

Such is the form of madness you must believe if you accept the fearful thought that you can attack another and be free yourself of the results of attack. Until this belief is discarded, hope will not be real. Until you understand that this, at least, must be entirely impossible, how could there be release from the belief in devastation? The fear of the Divine is believed real by all who think they can attack another and be free themselves from the results of attack. And they will not perceive this thought’s foolishness, nor even conceive that this belief is there, which alone would make it possible to question it.

To question this belief at all, its form must first be changed at least as much as will permit fear of retaliation to abate, and the responsibility for fear returned to some extent to you. From there you can at least consider if you want to go along this painful path. Until this shift has been accomplished, you cannot perceive that it is only your thoughts that bring you fear, and your deliverance from fear also depends on you.

Our next steps will be easy as you take this one today. From there we go ahead quite rapidly. For once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own thoughts and decision, the fear of the Divine must disappear.

You do not yet believe that fear is caused entirely by yourself. When you do, the Divine, Whom you had thought to banish from yourself, can be welcomed back within the holy mind It never left. Its banishment may appear in form that denies the very existence of the Divine, a defense that is constructed along these lines:

 

If I don’t feel anything, then I also avoid feeling pain.

If I deny the existence of the Divine, then I also deny that fear of the Divine exists in me.

 

Such defenses only push the problem of dissociation and banishment into unawareness. They don’t solve the problem because it isn’t acknowledged and given to Atonement to be released. Only Atonement’s Release is awakening.

Awakening’s Song can certainly be heard in the idea we practice for today. If it can be only yourself you attack, then you did not hurt the world and need not fear its vengeance and pursuit. Nor need you conceal in denial or terror the fear of the Divine that mis-projection hides behind. You now see that the thing you dread the most is your awakening—of taking full responsibility for the power of your creative activity, which is Release from insanity.

But you are strong, and it is Strength you want. And you are free, and glad of Freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound because you feared your Strength and Freedom. Yet awakening is in Them.

There is a moment in the Return to Sanity in which terror seems to grip the mind so totally that life appears quite hopeless. When you realize, once and for all, that it is yourself alone you fear, the mind perceives itself as split. And this perception had been concealed while you denied the existence of the Divine, or believed attack could be directed outward and thus avoided. It seemed to be an enemy outside yourself that you feared, and defended against for your very life. And thus a force outside yourself became your mortal enemy and the source of terror. Now for a moment is a murderer perceived within you, eager for your death, intent on plotting punishment for you until the time when it can kill at last. Yet in this Instant is the time as well in which awakening comes. For fear of the Divine has disappeared. And you can call on It in Its Love to release you from madness and illusions, calling It Creator and yourself Its Child.

Pray that this Instant may be soon, even today. Step back from fear and advance to Love. Every Thought of the Divine goes with you to help you reach this moment of denial and terror, and to go through and beyond it quickly, surely and forever. When the denial and fear of the Divine are gone, there are no obstacles that still remain between you and the holy Peace of the Divine.

How kind and merciful is the idea we practice today! Give it welcome as you should, for it is your Release from madness. It is indeed only yourself that you can attack. Yet your awakening, too, will come from you.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 18: The Reality of the Holy Relationship

 

4. The Two Gifts of Defense and Their Frames

The Divine established Its Relationship with you to bring you Happiness, and nothing you do that does not share Its Purpose can be real. The Purpose the Divine ascribes to anything is its only Function. Because of the Divine’s Reason for creating Its Relationship with you, the Function of all relationships became forever “to bring Happiness,” in the only true meaning of this phrase. And nothing else. To fulfill this Function, you relate to your creations as the Divine does to Its. For Everything the Divine created and that Its Children create is Part of Happiness, and so the Function of Everything is to extend Happiness, as the Creator did. Happiness is extended in Heaven through Love, Knowledge and Creation. Whatever doesn’t fulfill this Function must be unreal.

In this world it is impossible to truly create. Yet it is possible to spark and extend Happiness. We have said that the Holy Spirit would not deprive you of your special relationships, but would transform them. And by that, all that is meant is that Spirit will restore to your relationships the Function that was given them by the Divine. The function you gave them in the past was clearly not to spark and extend Happiness, as evidenced by their results. But the holy relationship shares the Divine’s Purpose, rather than attempting to make a substitute for It. Every special relationship that you have made is a substitute for the Divine’s Will, and glorifies yours instead of Its, because of the delusion that they are different.

You have very real relationships in this world, which you perhaps have not recognized only because you have raised their substitutes to such predominance that, when Truth calls to you to be in relationship, as It does constantly, you have responded with a substitute for yourself. Every special relationship that you have ever entered into has as its original fundamental purpose the aim of occupying your mind so completely that you would not hear the Call of Truth.

In a sense, the special relationship was the ego’s response to the creation of the Holy Spirit, Who was the Divine’s Answer to the separation. For although the ego did not understand what had been created, it was aware of what it perceived as a threat. The entire defense system that the ego evolved to protect the separation from the Holy Spirit was in response to the Gift of the Holy Spirit with which the Divine blessed the world, and by Its Blessing enabled the world to be healed. This Blessing holds within Itself the Truth about Everything. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit is in close relationship with you, because in Spirit is your Relationship with the Divine restored to you. Our Relationship with the Divine has never actually been broken, because the Holy Spirit has been joined with everyone since the separation began and Spirit was created to heal it. And through Spirit have all your holy relationships been carefully held, to serve the Divine’s Purpose of Happiness for you.

The ego is hyperalert to threat, and the part of your mind into which the ego was accepted is very anxious to preserve its reason as it perceives it. The ego does not realize that it is totally insane in the Context of Reality. And you must realize just what this means, if you would be restored to Sanity and Reality. The insane protect their thought systems, but they do so insanely. And all their defenses are as insane as what they are supposed to protect. The separation has nothing in it, no part, no “reason,” and no attribute, that is not insane. And its “protection” is part of it, as insane as the rest.

The special relationship, which is the ego’s chief defense, must therefore be insane. You have only a little difficulty now in realizing that the thought system it protects is merely a system of delusions. You recognize, at least in general terms, that the ego is insane in the Context of Reality—the only context that has true Value. But the special relationship still seems to you somehow to be different. Yet we have considered it far closer than many other aspects of the ego’s thought system that you have been more willing to let go. However, while this one aspect remains you will not let the others go. For this one is not different. Retain this one, and you have retained the rest.

It is essential to realize that all defenses do what they would defend. The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they offer you what they defend, by defending it for you. What they defend is placed in them for safe-keeping, and as they operate, they bring it to you. Every defense operates by giving gifts, and the gift is always a miniature of the thought system the defense protects, set in a unique frame. The frame of the ego’s “gift” of defense is very elaborate, set all around with jewels, and deeply carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value in itself, and to divert your attention from what it encloses. But you cannot have the frame of any defense without the picture inside the frame, or the thought system the defense purports to protect. The ego’s defenses operate to make you think you can.

The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the defenses the ego uses. The ego’s thought system is offered here, surrounded by a frame so heavy and so elaborate that the picture is almost obliterated by its imposing structure. Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of pleasure and self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-sacrifice. The glitter of blood shines like rubies in the frame, and the tears of those in the special relationship are faceted like diamonds, and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.

Do not let the frame distract you, but behold the thought system within the frame. By perceiving this clearly you will see that the “gift” of the special relationship is given you for your doom, and if you accept it, you will believe that you are doomed, or damned, to seek but never realize what the frame promised.

It is essential that you understand that you cannot have the frame of any defense without the picture. What is valued in the special relationship is the frame, for in the frame is perceived no conflict in the dream that your fantasies will be fulfilled in the relationship. But the frame is not the ego’s actual offering; it is only the wrapping for the “gift” within. Be not deceived by the most superficial aspects of this thought system, for these aspects enclose the entirety, complete with every aspect. Your undoing lies concealed as the hidden intention in this glittering gift. Let not your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. Behold the picture within, and realize that the entire separation is offered you there.

That is why the Holy Instant is so important in the defense of Truth. The Truth Itself needs no defense, but you do need defense against your own acceptance of the “gift” of the special relationship, and the perpetual forgetting of Reality that is its purpose. When you who are Truth accept an idea so dangerous to your Release to Truth, you threaten Truth with destruction in your experience. And your defense must now be undertaken to keep Truth whole for you. The Power of Heaven, the Love of the Divine, the Peace of Divine Essence and the Joy of Its eternal Spirit are gathered in and as the Atonement to defend you from your own attack against the Truth in yourself. For you are Part of Them as They are Part of you, and when you attack yourself They must provide your saving Help and Grace, for They love you as They love Themselves.

The Holy Instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven. It is a picture, too, set in a frame. But if you accept this Gift, you will not perceive the frame at all, because the Gift in the frame can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your attention on the Picture within. The Holy Instant is a Mirror of Eternity. It is a Picture of Timelessness set in a frame of time. If you focus on the Picture, you will realize that it was only the frame of time that made you think that the Holy Instant was a representation. Without the frame, the Picture is seen as what It represents. For, as the entire thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven resides in this Instant, borrowed from Eternity and set in time for you.

Two gifts are thus offered you. Each is complete, and cannot be partially accepted. Each is a picture of all that you can have, perceived very differently. You cannot compare their value by comparing a frame to a frame. It must be the pictures only that you compare, or the comparison will be entirely without meaning. Remember that it is the picture or thought system that is the gift, not the frame. And only on this basis are you really free to choose. Behold both of the pictures to compare them. One is a tiny picture, hard to perceive at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed, and hung in Light, lovely to behold for what It is.

You who have tried so hard, and may still be trying, to fit the better picture into the wrong frame, and so combine what cannot be combined, accept this and be glad: these pictures are each framed perfectly for what they represent. One is framed deliberately so the picture will be out of focus, and not seen. The other is framed for perfect Clarity. The picture of darkness, doom, and death grows less convincing as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless aspect that seems to shine in darkness from the ego’s frame is exposed to Light, it becomes dull and lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally you behold the picture itself, seeing at last that, unprotected by its frame, it has no meaning.

The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain Eternity. Here the frame does not distract. The Picture of Heaven and Eternity grows more convincing as you behold It. And now through real comparison a transformation of both pictures can at last occur. And each is given its rightful place when both are seen in relation to each other. The dark picture, brought to Light, is not perceived as fearful. But the fact that it is just a picture is brought home at last. And what you see there you will recognize as what it is: a picture of what you thought was real, and nothing more. For behind this picture you will perceive nothing.

The Picture of Light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what is beyond the Picture. As you perceive this, you realize that It is not a picture, but Reality. This is no figured representation of a thought system, but the Thought Itself. What it represents is there. The frame fades gently, and the Divine rises to your remembrance, offering you the Whole of Creation in exchange for your little picture that is entirely without value, and entirely deprived of meaning. As the Divine ascends into Its rightful Place in your mind and you to yours in Its, you will experience again the Meaning of Relationship, and know It to be true.

Let us ascend in Peace together to our Creator, by giving It Ascendance in our minds. We will gain the Remembrance of Everything by giving the Divine the Power and the Glory, and holding on to no illusions of where These are. They are in us through Its Ascendance. What the Divine has given Its Creation is Its. This shines in every Part of It, as in the Whole. The whole Reality of your Relationship with the Divine is in our holy relationship with one another. The Holy Instant shines alike on all relationships, for in It they are One. For here is only healing, already complete and perfect. For here is the Divine, and where It is, only the Perfect and Complete can be.