Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 3: Oneness and Irreconcilability

 

2. The Strength of the Lion and Innocence of the Lamb

There is a point that must become perfectly clear before any residual fear that may still be associated with miracles becomes entirely groundless, especially for those whose orientation is in the tradition associated with my life on Earth. The event from that life known as the “crucifixion” did not set the Atonement into motion in time. The event known as the “Resurrection” did. This is a point that many very sincere followers of the Christian tradition have misunderstood. However, no one who is free of the scarcity fallacy will make this mistake.

If the event known as the crucifixion is looked at from an upside-down level-confusion point of view, it may certainly appear as if the Divine permitted, and even encouraged, one of Its Children to suffer because he was good. Many very devoted Christian ministers preach this message regularly. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which actually arose out of the combined mis-projection of a large number of would-be followers in my name, has led many people to be intensely afraid of the Divine, if only on an unconscious level. This particularly anti-religious fear-of-God concept enters into many religions, and this is neither by chance nor coincidence. The person of sound faith and reverence will pause and ask, “How could this be?” Is it likely that the Divine Itself would be capable of the kind of misthought and harmful actions that Its Own Words in all true religious teachings have clearly stated are unworthy of human beings?

The best defense to mis-projection, as always, is not to attack another’s position, but rather to stay within the Protection of the Truth. It is unwise to consider anything acceptable if you have to turn an entire frame of reference around or upside down in order to justify it. Such a procedure is painful in its minor applications, and genuinely tragic (in the normal meaning of this word) on a mass basis. Persecution is a frequent result (recall the earlier discussion on the third type of possession fallacy), justifying the terrible misperception that the Divine Itself persecuted Its Own Child on behalf of “salvation.” The very words are meaningless.

It has always been particularly difficult for those caught in this specific misperception to overcome it because, although the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error, people are unwilling to give it up due to its prominent utility in allowing them to avoid taking responsibility for their own miscreations. In a milder form a parent says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” and feels exonerated in spanking a child. Can anyone in their right mind really believe that the Creator of Perfection thinks or acts in such a way?

It is essential that all such thought be dispelled and that nothing of this kind remain in the mind of the miracle worker. I was assuredly not punished because my sisters and brothers were bad or because I was good. The wholly benign Lesson that the Resurrection teaches is lost if It is tainted with this kind of distortion in any form. Another such form assigning violence to the Divine is the assertion, “vengeance is mine,” attributed to the Divine or the Lord. These words represent a strictly reaping-what-has-been-sown or “karmic” viewpoint. The real meaning of the phrase is to lift all issues of justice to Spirit, Who, full of Mercy, knows exactly what is needed by everyone. Doing so releases the longing for justice as one’s own concern. Interpreting these words as if the Divine practices retribution is an absolute misperception of Truth, by which those who succumb to such a misunderstanding assign their own “evil” past to the Divine. A person’s “evil conscience” – i.e., a conscience that is convinced that the person’s past mistakes were evil – has nothing to do with Spirit. The Divine did not create such a conscience, and Spirit does not maintain it. The idea of karmic “retribution,” however apparently deserved by anyone, is antithetical to Truth and to the Atonement in every way. The Divine creates only perfect Love, and neither It nor Its Spirit could ever “hold” the misdeeds of a person “against” them, or hold these misdeeds against another, including me.

Be very sure that you recognize how impossible these forms of distortion really are, and how entirely they come about from mis-projection. These kinds of error are responsible for a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that the Divine rejected Its Own beloved Children and forced them out of the Garden of Eden, a symbol of paradise or the Realm of Heaven.

While the distortions discussed are not directly related to this Course, the nature of our shared goal of Atonement requires that any fear that is experienced in connection with this Course be cleared when it comes into awareness. I have made every effort to use words that are almost impossible to distort, but words are symbols and the mind can be very inventive when it comes to interpreting symbols. The Divine Itself is not symbolic in any way. It is Reality. The Atonement, too, is totally without symbolism. It is perfectly clear because It exists in Light. Since the Instant It was set into motion in time long ago, only people’s attempts to shroud It in darkness and obscurity have made It inaccessible to the unwilling, and ambiguous to the partly willing. The Atonement Itself radiates only Truth. It therefore epitomizes Harmlessness, and gives only Blessing. It could not do this if It arose from anything other than perfect Innocence. Innocence is Wisdom because It is unaware of evil, which does not exist in Truth. Innocence is, however, perfectly aware of everything that is true.

The Resurrection demonstrated that nothing can destroy Truth. Good can withstand any form of distortion, or evil, because Light abolishes all forms of darkness. The Resurrection was thus the perfect Atonement Lesson. It was the final demonstration that all of the other lessons I taught then were, and are, true. A person is released from all errors as they establish true belief that Good can withstand any form of distortion or attack. This is the Essence of the Atonement.

In the deductive approach to learning, the student grasps first the generalization of a lesson that they then come to understand is applicable to all single instances, rather than building up the generalization through numerous separate instances. If you can accept the generalization of the Resurrection Lesson now, which is that nothing can threaten Truth, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons. Another way of stating this general Lesson is that nothing can prevail against a Child of the Divine who places their mind, or spirit, into the Hands of Spirit. To the degree this is able to be done, the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its Creator, level confusion vanishes, and all sense of the separation disappears.

The Creator and Its perfect Creation – Divine Essence and the Divine Family – along with the Holy Spirit Who is the eternal Communication Link between Creator and Creation, are what in some traditions has been called the Holy Trinity. But this Trinity is actually One. There is no confusion within Its Levels, because It is of One Mind, One Heart, and One Will. This single Purpose creates perfect Integration and establishes the Sovereignty of the Peace of the Divine. But the Vision of This can be perceived only by the truly innocent. Because they understand the one Lesson of the Resurrection, they no longer deny, oppose or attack, and therefore they perceive truly. Because their hearts have again become pure, or free of fear, they’ve learned to stand within the only safe and sane Defense, the Atonement, which protects their true perception, instead of attempting to defend themselves against Truth. This is what is meant by the phrase, “When He (the Divine in all things) shall appear (be seen) we shall be like Him (know ourselves to be Its Children), for we shall see Him as He is (know the Divine and ourselves as we truly are).”

Sacrifice is an idea totally unknown to the Divine. It arises solely from fear of being found wanting in the Divine Record of All Things. This fear is particularly unfortunate because frightened people are apt to act viciously, compounding the very thing they are afraid of. Sacrificing ourselves or others on any level and in any way is a clear violation of the Divine’s Own Injunction that we should be merciful to all, even as our Creator is merciful. It has been difficult for some adherents of the Christian tradition to realize that this injunction or assignment of Mercy not only applies to others but also to themselves. In other words, though adherents of the Christian tradition generally (but by no means universally) recognize the contradiction involved in the idea or act of sacrificing others, for instance animals on altars, they are less adept at ensuring their own inability to sacrifice themselves, in the sense of giving up their own interests for something they believe is more important than themselves. Although this appears to be a much more benign error from the viewpoint of society, it is nevertheless inherently dangerous because once a defense such as sacrifice is used, its direction cannot be self-controlled. Those who have believed that sacrificing themselves in any way doesn’t violate the injunction to be merciful obviously have not been able to transcend the misperception of the need for sacrifice in general.

The Atonement is totally lacking in sacrifice at any level. For a person to work in the world under very great strain is always a sign that something is wrong in this regard. If you are sufficiently attuned to real Communication facilitated by Spirit, it will make it easy to correct your errors and free you to communicate without strain. As stated previously, it is important to be able to courteously say no to the invitations and requests of others if these are not miracles you are being asked to perform. The inability to do so indicates that a person has not entirely transcended egocentricity. I would never encourage you to “give of yourself” in this way, as it would be counterproductive on multiple levels, including allowing the fear that causes a misbelief in sacrifice to continue in its uncontrolled effects. Effective teachers never frighten their students. To frighten is to attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher offers, which in turn results in learning failure.

If your mind is bound to any extent by looking to the past for an explanation of the present, you won’t be able to succeed in separating the past from the present. It is only what the mind is creating now that really generates the future. The past in itself does not have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists.

Those who consider the body as the focus for healing are expressing their own failure to accept healing as already accomplished through Atonement. While they may recognize the value of the Atonement for others, they would be failing to accept Its corrective Merit for themselves. As this Course has frequently emphasized, human beings cannot control their own errors. Only Atonement can do that because it has already corrected all errors. Having miscreated their own errors, people believe in them. Because of their failure to accept their own perfect Freedom from the past, they will not really perceive others as similarly free.

I have been referred to as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Those who represent the lamb as blood-stained, a reference to the crucifixion (and an all-too-widespread conceptual error), do not understand the meaning of the symbol. Correctly understood, the symbol of the lamb is a very simple parable, or teaching device, that merely depicts innocence. The lion and the lamb residing in Peace together is a symbol of the fact that Strength and Innocence are not in conflict, but naturally live harmoniously together. Only in this regard is the lamb an appropriate symbol for me. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see the Divine” is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent can see the Divine in all things.

There has been some controversy among human beings as to whether visual perception is an attribute of the eyes or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can perceive, and correctly interpret or know what it is perceiving. This is not really open to question at all. Only the mind integrated with the heart and will knows anything. The body is an instrument through which at this stage of the Plan of Awakening the mind learns and understands. Experiences may be temporarily recorded in the body, including via phenomena such as “muscle memory,” but it is only the mind that can know what these mean. A pure mind knows the Truth, and this is its Strength. Such a mind cannot attack the body because it knows exactly what the body is. This is what “a sane mind in a sane body” really means. A sane mind never attacks, or, in the symbol of the lion, is never “out for blood” – for victory over another – because it associates Innocence with Strength, not with weakness, and therefore doesn’t confuse destruction with Innocence.

Innocence is incapable of sacrificing anything because the innocent mind knows that it has Everything and strives only to protect Wholeness. This is why it has become incapable of mis-projection, because to hurl something unwanted away from itself and onto someone or something else violates Wholeness. The innocent mind can only honor all sisters and brothers, because honor is the natural greeting of the truly loved to others who are like them.

In the lamb of God symbol, the lamb takes away the sins of the world only in the sense that the State of Innocence or Grace is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. Clearly it is the Atonement in which the “sins” or mistakes of the world are no more. Divine Essence is the true State of the minds of the Children of the Divine. In this State, a person’s mind does see the Divine in all, and because through this a person sees all things as they truly are, they know that the Atonement, not sacrifice, is the only appropriate gift to lay on the inner Altar, where nothing except Perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is Truth. That is why their Altars are truly radiant.