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Chapter 2: The Psychological Foundation of Miracles ²

4. The Reinterpretation of Defenses

The Atonement is the only defense against illusion that cannot be used destructively. That is because even though everyone must eventually join the Atonement, It was not a device that was generated by the separated ones. All devices made by the separated ones, even those intended as helpful, can also be used destructively because of the split mind of the ones bringing forth the devices.

The Atonement Principle was in effect long before the Atonement Itself was set into motion in time through my acceptance of It in the fulfillment of the Resurrection. The Principle was Love, and the Atonement Itself was an act of Love. Acts were not necessary before the separation, because the time-space belief did not exist. It was only after the separation that the defense that Atonement provides, and the necessary conditions for its fulfillment, were planned. It became increasingly apparent that all of the defenses that human beings generated to use constructively were not enough to save them from the illusion of their nightmares because they could be used in a healing or harmful way. It was therefore decided that human beings needed a defense that was so splendid they could not misuse it. Although they could refuse it for a time, their miscreative use of will could not turn it into a weapon of attack, which is the inherent characteristic of all other defenses. The Atonement thus became the only defense that is not a “double-edged sword.” It can only heal.

The Atonement in the realm of time and space actually began long before the Resurrection. Many minds offered their efforts on behalf of the separated ones, but the strength of the attack of the wrong-mindedness of the separated ones was immovable at that time. Angels offered their assistance, too, but their protection was not enough to initiate a return to Sanity because the separated ones were not interested in Peace, and their desire determined what they would allow to come to them. They had already split themselves and were bent on dividing rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into themselves as the levels and sublevels of the mind or psyche turned against each other, and the separated ones, in turn, turned against each other. They established differences, divisions, disintegration, dispersion, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits they produced. Not being in their right minds, they turned their defenses from protection to assault, and acted literally insanely. It was essential to introduce a split-proof device that could be used only to heal, if it was used at all.

The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for this belief, and ultimately to make learning toward awakening complete. The Atonement is the final Lesson. Learning itself is temporary, like the classrooms, formal and informal, in which it occurs. (Let all those who esteem the human intellect keep this in mind!) The ability to learn has no value when transformation of mind and understanding are no longer necessary. The eternally Creative have nothing to learn. Only after the separation was it necessary to direct the Creative Force in them to learning, because transformed perspective and behavior had become mandatory.

Human beings can learn to refine their perspectives and improve their behavior, and can also learn to become better and better learners. These learning gains serve to bring people into closer and closer accord with the Divine Family. But the Divine Family itself is a perfect Creation, and Perfection is not a matter of degree. Only while different degrees are believed and perceived is learning meaningful. The evolution of human beings is merely a process by which they proceed from one degree to the next. They correct their previous missteps by stepping forward, progressing. This represents a process that is actually incomprehensible in temporal terms, because each person returns to Reality as they progress.

The Atonement is the device by which you can free yourself from the past as you move forward. It undoes your past errors, thus making it unnecessary for you to keep retracing your steps without making real progress toward your Return to Reality. In this sense, the Atonement saves time, but, like the miracle that serves It, does not abolish time. As long as there is need for Atonement, there is need for time. But the Atonement, as a completed Plan, does have a unique relationship to time. Until all separated ones have completely accepted the Atonement for themselves and awakened to Reality, Its various phases will proceed in time, but the whole Atonement stands at time’s end. At the point of time’s end, the Bridge of the Return has been built and completed.

One reason this understanding could be upsetting to some is because the Atonement is a total commitment. Some may still think that total commitment is associated with loss. This is the same mistake all the separated ones make in one way or another. They cannot believe that a defense that cannot attack is also the best defense. If it hadn’t been for this misperception, the angels could have helped bring the separated ones Home long ago. Using a defense that cannot attack is what is meant by, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.” The humble and those who practice harmlessness will literally receive the Earth because of their Strength.

A double-edged defense is inherently weak. Precisely because it has two edges it can turn very unexpectedly against those who wield it. This tendency cannot be controlled except by miracles.

The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to the Protection of the inner self, which, as it becomes more and more secure, assumes its natural talent of protecting others. The inner self knows itself as both a protecting sibling and a Child of the Divine. When the old, dysfunctional defenses are disrupted there is usually a period of actual disorientation, accompanied by fear, guilt, and vacillations usually between anxiety and depression. When old defenses are being reinterpreted rather than disrupted, as in this Course, the process is different, though it may be experienced the same as disruption. However, in the reinterpretation of defenses they are not disrupted, but their use for attack is lost. Since this means that they can be used only one way – in accord with Atonement or not at all – they became much stronger and much more dependable. They no longer oppose the Atonement, but greatly facilitate It. The Atonement can only be accepted within you.

You may have perceived Atonement largely as external to yourself thus far, which would minimize your experience of It. You have been shown the inner Chalice of Atonement many times in your life, but you may not have recognized or accepted It for yourself, internally. Your improper use of defenses, including your rituals, routines and other strategic “shields” designed to protect you from disequilibrium, may now largely be limited to this tendency toward “externalization,” or keeping things outside yourself, which is a form of distancing. Even if this is the case, it is essential to appreciate your own remarkable progress with regard to allowing yourself to be more open and vulnerable to reinterpretation and transformation.

The reinterpretation of defenses is essential to break open your defensiveness and set free the Inner Light. Since the separation, people’s defenses have been used almost entirely to defend themselves against the Atonement, and thus maintain their separation. They generally look upon this as a need to protect the body from external intrusion of some kind. Perceiving the body as a temple is only the first step in correcting this kind of distortion. It alters part of the misperception, but not all of it. It does recognize, however, that the concepts of subtraction (undoing) and addition (progressing) in physical terms are not appropriate. The next step is to realize that a temple is not a building at all. A temple’s real holiness is in its inner altar, around which the temple is built.

The inappropriate emphasis that people have put on beautiful temple buildings is a sign of their own fear of Atonement, and unwillingness to reach the Altar of the Divine within themselves. The real inner beauty of a temple cannot be perceived with the physical eyes. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot perceive the building at all, but it sees the Altar within with perfect Clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision.

For perfect Effectiveness, the Chalice of the Atonement belongs at the Center of the inner Altar, where It undoes the separation, and restores the Wholeness of the mind. Before the separation, the mind was invulnerable to fear because fear did not exist, even as a dream. Both the separation and fear are miscreations of the mind that have to be undone; dreams that must be awoken from. This is what sacred scripture means by references to the “restoration of the temple.” It does not mean the restoration of a building, but it does mean seeing the inner Altar to receive the Atonement there. This heals the separation, and places within the human being the one Defense that will make a person perfectly invulnerable against all split mind errors.

The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. In fact, both time and matter, or space, were repurposed and therefore re-created for this End. This appears to contradict free will because of the inevitability of this decision. If you review the idea carefully, you will realize that there is no contradiction. Everything is contained and therefore apparently limited in some way by the manner of its creation. Free will can temporize and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, Who set the Limits on Its Children’s ability to miscreate by virtue of their own real Purpose.

The misuse of will engenders a situation that, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high but they are not limitless. Eventually everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established in the mind it becomes a perceptual turning point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously undoing and releasing the overwhelming investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception – looking with the physical eyes and seeing with the spiritual eye – is usually experienced as conflict for a prolonged time, and can become very acute. But the outcome is as certain as the Divine.

The spiritual eye literally cannot perceive error, since error is unreal and therefore doesn’t exist in Reality, and only seeks Atonement. All the solutions that the physical eyes seek dissolve in the vision of the spiritual eye. The spiritual eye, which sees within, recognizes immediately that the Altar of the mind has been defiled and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the right Defense, it passes over all others, seeing beyond error to Truth. Because of the real Strength of its vision, the spiritual eye pulls the will into its own service, which compels the mind to concur. This reestablishes the true Power of the will, and makes it increasingly unable to tolerate delay. The mind then realizes, with increasing certitude, that delay is only a way of increasing unnecessary pain, which it need not tolerate at all. The pain threshold drops accordingly, and the mind becomes increasingly sensitive to what it would once have regarded as very minor intrusions of discomfort.

The Children of the Divine are entitled to perfect Comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect Trust. Until they achieve this they waste themselves and their true creative Power on useless attempts to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real Means are already provided and do not require any effort on your part at all. Egocentricity usually misperceives this lack of required effort as personally insulting, an interpretation that obviously arises from one’s misperception of oneself. Egocentricity and communion or true connection with others cannot coexist. Even the terms themselves are contradictory.

The Atonement is the only gift that is worthy of being offered at the Altar of the Divine. This is because of the inestimable Value of the Altar Itself. It was created perfect and is entirely worthy of receiving Perfection. The Divine is lonely while some of the minds that comprise Its Totality believe themselves to be outside of It, and these separated minds are lonely without their Creator. The formation of the universe of time and space perceived rightly is a way of healing the separation, and the Atonement is the guarantee that it will ultimately do so.