ARCIM

Daily Lesson 153 ~
June 2

In my defenselessness [my willingness to follow Truth without defensiveness] my Safety rests.

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 fear, and all its gifts of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It seems to threaten and then threaten yet again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.

The world gives rise only to defensiveness. For perceived threat brings anger, and anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness actually a threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of protection that cannot work because its foundation is unsound. 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 fast the mind, wherein another circle bound it, and another in that one, until escape from threat no longer could be hoped for or obtained. Threat-defense, defense-attack become the circles of the minutes and hours that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning each day only to start again. There seems to be no break or ending in the ever-tightening grip of imprisonment upon the mind.

Defenses are the costliest of all the costs that the ego would exact in tribute to its rule. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of Sanity seems only 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 in your mind, and thus in the world. You have placed yourself into the ego’s bondage in your mind because of this sense of threat. You know not what you do in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to believe in the “sacrifice” of Peace who feel its iron grip upon your heart.

You do not yet realize what you have done to sabotage the holy Peace of the Divine by your defensiveness. For you look upon the Children of the Divine, including yourself, merely as victims who need to be protected by fantasies, in dreams, and through illusions they have made, yet still helpless in the presence of the world’s threats, needful only of protection by still more fantasies and dreams, by which illusions of their safety comfort them.

In spite of this madness you yet will see that defenselessness – the willingness to follow Truth without defensiveness – is Strength. It testifies to Recognition of Divine Essence in you. Perhaps you will recall that this Course maintains that your choice is always between the Strength of Divine Essence in you and your own weakness looked upon apart from Divine Essence. Defenselessness can never be attacked because it recognizes Strength so great that the idea of threat is understood as folly, a silly game a tired child might play when it becomes too sleepy to remember what it wants.

Recognition that defenselessness is Strength is also recognition that defensiveness is weakness. For defensiveness proclaims that you have denied Divine Essence’s Strength in you and have come to fear the anger you have mis-projected onto your Creator. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god whose fearful image you believe you perceive at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend and protect you now, when it is only illusions that you fight?

We will not play such childish games today. For our true Purpose is to allow ourselves to be awakened and thus to awaken the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless Joy that remembering and fulfilling our function offers us. We would not let our Happiness slip by even one hour because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Children of the Divine; its tiny instant for Eternity.

We see beyond dreams today and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without any 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 – our willingness to follow Spirit – we stand secure, serenely certain of our Safety now, sure of awakening, and confident that we will fulfill our chosen Purpose as our Mission of Helpfulness extends Its holy Blessing through the world.

Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your Purpose, and how secure you rest, untouchable within Its Light. The Divine’s Helpers have chosen that the Truth be with them. What is holier than this? Who could be surer that their Happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed now by those who are among the Helpers of the Divine by Its Appointment and their own decision as well?

It is the function of the Divine’s Helpers to help their sisters and brothers choose to accept defenselessness, as they themselves have done. The Divine has appointed all to the holy Mission of awakening, but few have yet come to realize the Divine’s Will is simply their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, awakening waits, and darkness seems to hold the world in grim imprisonment. Until you teach what you have learned, you will not remember that Light has come to you, and that your release from illusion has been accomplished. For you will not see the Light until you offer It to all your sisters and brothers. As they receive It from your hands, so will you recognize It as your own.

Awakening can be thought of as a joyful game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves Its Children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games that teach them that the game of fear is gone. The Divine’s Game instructs in Happiness because there are no losers. Everyone who plays must win, and in their winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside when children come to see the benefits awakening brings.

You who have played that you are lost to Hope, abandoned by your Creator, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by separation 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 dispel our quaint and silly thoughts of separation forever from the innocent and holy minds of Heaven’s Children and the Divine Family.

We pause only for an Instant longer 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 of this world ended.

Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, so that everyone may learn that the tales they read of terrifying fate, defeat of all their hopes, and pitiful defense against a vengeance they cannot escape were only their own deluded fantasies. The Divine’s Helpers have come to awaken them from the dark dreams this world has evoked in their confused, bewildered memory of its distorted tale. The Divine’s Children can smile at last on learning that this tall tale 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 awakening is the only goal we have. Ten would be better, fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise in our minds to delay us from our Purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with our Creator and Its Holy Spirit. And with gratitude and Joy will we willingly again spend as much time as we can with the Divine and Its Holy Spirit prior to sleep.

Each hour of the day adds to our increasing Peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with the Divine. 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 the Divine. Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as the Divine’s Helpers in hourly remembrance of our Mission of Helpfulness and of the Divine’s Love. And we will quietly rest an Instant and wait on It and listen to Its Voice, and learn what Spirit would have us do the hour that is yet to come, while thanking It for the Gifts It gave us in the hour gone by.

In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of your Creator, and hear Its 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 It a moment, even as your time is given in offering awakening to the world. Think you your Creator will not make this possible for you who choose to carry out Its Plan for the awakening of the world, and yours?

Today our theme is our defenselessness—our willingness to follow Truth without defensiveness. We clothe ourselves in it as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Divine Essence and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that Divine Essence’s Strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that It remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by Its Strength. We call upon Its Strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermining our certainty of Purpose. We will pause a moment, as It tells us, “I am here.”

Our practicing will now begin to receive the Earnestness of Love, to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Have courage and confidence. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The Divine’s Helpers must always succeed because the Love and Strength and Peace that shine from them to all their sisters and brothers come from the Divine. These are Its Gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give It in return. You lay aside only what was never real, to behold Divine Essence and see Its Perfection.

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 13: From Guilt to the Promise of Heaven

 

3. The Terror of Awakening to Love

You may wonder why it is essential that you perceive clearly the intense antipathy and willingness to harm in the ego’s drive for separateness and autonomy, and realize their full extent. And you may think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show these to you, and dispel them without the need for you to raise them to your awareness yourself. But there is one more complication you are also not aware of that you have interposed between yourself and the Atonement. This Course has said that no one will tolerate the cost of fear if they recognize it. But in your disordered state you are not really afraid of fear, and therefore do not recognize it. You do not like fear, but it is not your willingness to harm in the name of “self defense” that really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your hostility. You keep it hidden because you are more afraid of what it covers.

You could perceive even the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear if you did not believe that, without the ego, you would find within yourself something you fear even more. You are not really afraid of destruction and death. Your real terror is of awakening and resurrection. Under the ego’s dark foundation, at the deepest level of your unconscious, is the Memory of the Divine, and it is of this that you are truly afraid. For this Memory gladly embraced in full awareness would instantly restore you to your proper Place in the Realm of Heaven, and it is this Place that you sought to leave in the separation.

Your fear of hate and attack, destruction and death is nothing compared to your fear of Love. You would be willing to raise to awareness in yourself the ego’s savage wish to destroy the Divine Child who is your holy Self, if you did not believe that keeping this wish hidden in the unconscious saves you from awakening in yourself the irresistible Attraction of Love. For this savage wish caused the separation. You have protected it in yourself because part of you does not want the separation healed, and this part realizes that by removing the dark cloud that obscures the wish to remain asleep, your Love for your Creator would impel you to answer Its Call, and soar into Heaven. To prevent this you secretly believe that the ego’s autonomy is your salvation, keeping you where you think you are, and not causing any harm if controlled behaviorally. But another part of you knows that still deeper than the ego’s foundation, and much stronger than it will ever be, is your intense and burning Love of the Divine, and the Divine’s for you. This is what you really want to hide.

In honesty, is it not easier for you to say, “I hate” in some form to the aspects of the world and of your relationships that you perceive have caused you suffering than, “I love”? For the ego associates love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your own real Power seems to the ego to be your real weakness. And this is what you will think while your mind is split. For you could not control your joyous Response to the Call of Love if you heard It, and the entire world you think you control would instantly vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be attacking the fortress that you believe has kept you safe, for this fortress was made to shut out the Divine, and the Divine does not will to be excluded.

The entire insane thought system of the ego has been built because you think you would be helpless in the Divine’s Presence. And you are intent on saving yourself from Its Love because you think It would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid It would sweep you away from yourself, and make you little. For you have come to believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made a world that the Divine would destroy. And you believe that by loving your Creator, which you do, you would throw this world away, which you would. Therefore, you have used the world to cover your Love for the Divine, and the deeper you go into the darkness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden beneath it. And it is this that actually frightens you.

In your bewildered and confused state of mind you have accepted insanity, because you made it, but you have not yet accepted Love, because you did not. You would rather be in bondage to destruction and death than a Child of the Divine in awakening and resurrection. For your separate individual death is more valued than your living Union, and what is given you is not so dear as what you made. You are more afraid of the Divine than of the ego, and Love cannot enter where It is not welcome. But hatred can, for it enters of its own desire, and cares not for your will.

The reason you must not keep your delusions hidden, but must clearly perceive them, is that they do not rest on their own foundation. In concealment they appear to do so, and thus they seem to be self-sustained. This is the fundamental illusion on which they rest. For beneath your delusions, and concealed by them as long as they remain hidden, is the loving mind that in anger thought it made them. And the pain in this mind is so apparent when this pain is uncovered that the mind’s need of healing cannot be denied. None of the tricks or games that you have offered your mind can heal it, for in its sickness is the savage wish for the destruction of the Divine Child. And yet this Child has not been destroyed, and can never be.

Here in your sickness of mind is both your pain and your healing, which has been placed where it is needed. For the Holy Spirit’s Vision is merciful and Its Remedy does not delay. Do not hide suffering from Its Sight, but bring it gladly to Spirit. Lay before Its eternal Sanity all your hurt, and let It heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from Its Light, and search your mind carefully for any thoughts that you may fear to uncover. For Spirit will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt yourself, and cleanse your mind of its littleness, restoring it to the Magnitude of the Divine.

Beneath all the grandiosity of the ego, which you have held so dear, is your real call for help. For you call to your Creator for Love, as your Creator calls you to Itself. In that Place of Calling, which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the Creator, in loving remembrance of It. You will find this Place of Truth as you behold It in your sisters and brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long for the Grandeur that is in them. And perceiving It in them you will welcome It in yourself, and It will be yours. For Grandeur is the Inheritance of the Divine’s Children, and no illusions can satisfy them, or “save” them from what they are.

Only the Divine’s Love is real, and Its Children will be content only with their reality. Awaken them from their illusions that you may accept the Magnitude of your Creator in Peace and Joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be hiding a dark place in your mind where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And you will thus exempt yourself from Its healing Power, because by not offering total Love, you will not be healed totally and completely. And healing must be as complete as fear is fragmented, for Love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar Its welcome.