Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 24: Escaping the War against Yourself
4. Compromise as Attack and Awakening without Compromise
You do not always recognize the forms attack can take. If it is true that attack in any form will hurt you, and will do so just as much in an unrecognized form as in a form that you do recognize, then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of your pain. Attack in any form is equally destructive as in any other form.
Attack’s purpose does not change due to changing forms. Its source’s sole intent is the casting away or snuffing out of what isn’t wanted in order to get what is wanted. And no form can serve to cover the guilt and fear of punishment the attacker must feel. Those who attack may insist that their intent is benevolent, and cover for their attack with the appearance of its opposite. Yet they will experience the hidden pain they have simply shifted from one part of themself to another, and will look on their intent in nightmares where appearances are removed, and where the purpose rises to meet their confused awareness, and guilt and punishment seem to pursue them still. For everyone who thinks of violence in any form will experience the guilt of betrayal the thought entails.
If the intent behind thoughts of attack is harm, what matter the form the intent takes? Is harm in any form, however lovely and charitable it may seem to be, a blessing and a sign that the Voice of the Divine speaks through you to your sisters and brothers? The wrapping does not make the gift you give. An empty box, however beautiful and gently given, still contains nothing, and neither the receiver nor the giver is long deceived if the box was indeed meant to hold something of value. Yet you believe you gave them something, even if of little value to you, as a compromise to receive something in return. Withhold forgiveness from your brother or sister, and you attack them. You give them nothing, and receive of them only what you gave.
Awakening involves no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept only part of what you want. It means to take a little and give up the rest. Awakening can give up nothing true or real. It is complete for everyone. Whenever the idea of compromise enters, the awareness of awakening’s Purpose – Union – is lost, because It is not recognized. It is denied where compromise has been accepted. For compromise is the secret belief that awakening and its Purpose are actually impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. Thus it would teach that a little of what is different can be made to be the same, and yet what is truly the same remain intact and as one. Does this make sense? Can it be understood?
This Course is easy just because it makes no compromise with illusions. Yet it will seem difficult to those who still believe that compromise of some of the Truth is possible. They do not yet understand that if compromise with Truth and illusions were possible, then awakening would not be. It is certain that the belief that awakening is actually impossible cannot uphold a quiet, calm assurance that it has come. Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that and understand forgiveness. Would you not want to recognize assault upon your Peace in any form, if only thus does it become impossible that you lose sight of It? Peace can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and always in sight, if you defend It not and thus do not attempt to justify attack.
Those who believe that Peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on Its behalf, cannot perceive that Peace is within them. How could they know? Would they be willing to accept the fact that the purpose of attack is directed against themselves? Can forgiveness be accepted side by side with the belief that violence takes some forms by which Peace is saved? No one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose, for then they would cease to be perceived as enemies. And anyone who compromises with someone believed to be an enemy holds them still in contempt because of what they believe the enemy kept from them. Mistake not truce for Peace, nor compromise for the escape from conflict.
To be released from conflict means that it is over. The exit is open and you have left the battleground. You have not lingered there in cowering hope that battle will not return just because the guns are stilled a moment and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent. There is no safety in a battleground. You can behold it in safety and not be touched only from above and beyond. But from within it no safety can be found. Not one tree still left standing will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the belief in violence to get something of value. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate and the unnatural intent to harm. Think you the form that violence takes can offer safety? Can guilt be absent from a battlefield?
Do not remain in conflict, for there is no conflict without attack, and no attack without the thought of battle and the wish to cast away or snuff out what is believed to be in the way of what is wanted. You are not asked to fight against your wish to attack. But you are asked to realize that the different forms attack takes conceal the same intent. And it is this intent you fear, and not the form of attack.
The fear of the Divine is fear of Life and not of death. Yet the Divine remains the only Place of Safety. In It is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven is Union and therefore is wholly true. No difference enters. And what is One cannot conflict.
