ACIM Chapter 6. III. The Relinquishment of Attack, P 1, 2

ACIM III. The Relinquishment of Attack, P 1, 2. As we have already emphasized, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker.

III. The Relinquishment of Attack, P 1

¹ As we have already emphasized, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker. Therefore, what extends from the mind is still in it, and from what it extends it knows itself. The word “knows” is correct here, because the Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe in your mind through His impartial perception. By attacking nothing, He presents no barrier to the communication of God. Therefore, being is never threatened. Your Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego never was and never will be part of it, but through the ego you can hear and teach and learn what is not true. You have taught yourself to believe that you are not what you are. You cannot teach what you have not learned, and what you teach you strengthen in yourself because you are sharing it. Every lesson you teach you are learning.

I am happy to be reminded that my true Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego cannot really touch me. My being is never threatened. I am as God created me, and nothing will ever change that. I am His perfect creation, and I am that right now!

So, what the heck is going on?

What is it that is happening that makes it seem like I am so much less than that? In my absolute freedom, I chose to have a different experience. In A Course in Miracles, we call that experience ego. The ego has never been part of my true mind, but it is part of my experience. It is a choice I made and continue to make as I continue to teach myself that the truth is not true.

When I think attack thoughts, I project attack into my life and thus teach myself that I am endangered. This is an absurd lesson because as the Son of God, I could never be in danger. However, through my projection of self as a fragile body with feelings easily hurt, I convinced myself that I needed constant defense. To defend myself, I attack, and the cycle continues. I have built up layers and layers of belief through this unbroken cycle of defense and attack, and I have taught myself that I am what I could never be.

Because my true mind is unassailable, I can stop this crazy thinking and return to sanity. The Holy Spirit is in my mind for that purpose. I can make a different choice by allowing the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the belief that attack is my only option. As I am ready to wake up, the Holy Spirit shows me how love is my true strength.

I have been letting go of this belief that I am separate and under siege

The ego mind is all in a panic about this. Sometimes, its desire to continue as the maker of my world appears as an all-out assault on my peace. It will generate thoughts of disaster, and these will be projected as stories of pain and suffering like my child being sick or guilt over something I did or something I failed to do.

Other times, it will try to shore up its position through a running commentary of past errors and future dangers. This mind chatter has been part of my experience for so long that I hardly notice it, and yet, through these thoughts, I am teaching myself that I have reason to be afraid and reason to protect myself.

Here is an example of this that occurred when I was still working.

One morning, while I was getting dressed, this chatter was going on. Suddenly, I realized what was happening. I was thinking about a mistake someone at work had made and the repercussions that error could have on my financial situation. I began to feel very angry and resentful of that person. This is something that happened months ago, and whatever repercussions occurred were so minor that I can’t even track them.

But the ego found fertile ground in my mind to sow some seeds of fear and doubt. I saw myself as separate from this man and saw him as the enemy. I wanted to see him reprimanded at the very least and maybe fired so he couldn’t do this awful thing again. All this was passing through my mind almost casually.

I imagined the ego quietly going about its devious work, sowing seeds of fear and anger while I wasn’t paying attention, making sure that it kept me involved in its plans of defense and attack. Its real goal is to keep me from remembering who I am because then it ends. The ego accomplishes this by encouraging me to look at others as separate from me and see myself as vulnerable.

When I noticed what I was doing, I halted the flow of attack thoughts.

This is not what I want. I don’t want to attack that man. I want to see him as my brother, as my self. We are one Self, he and I, and I would not attack myself. It is not my goal to see him just as “not guilty.” My goal is to see him as he is, in truth.

I want to see his holy Self, and I want to see myself as that one as well. I can’t have one without the other because what I teach myself about him, I learn. If I believe he is less than holy, I learn that I am less than holy. As I teach separation, fear, and guilt, I cut myself off from my real mind and thus disrupt communication with my Father. Allowing untrue thoughts to go unquestioned in my mind is how I continue to choose my ego. Questioning those thoughts and asking for correction is how I choose to awaken.

III. The Relinquishment of Attack, P 2

² That is why you must teach only one lesson. If you are to be conflict-free yourself, you must learn only from the Holy Spirit and teach only by Him. You are only love, but when you deny this, you make what you are something you must learn to remember. I said before that the message of the crucifixion was, “Teach only love, for that is what you are.” This is the one lesson that is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson that is one. Only by teaching it can you learn it. “As you teach so will you learn.” If that is true, and it is true indeed, do not forget that what you teach is teaching you. And what you project or extend you believe.

The reason Jesus reminds us to teach only love is because in teaching only love, we teach what we are. This is important because we have denied our Self and must re-learn what we are. In the world, we go to an expert to learn what we don’t know. We go to a teacher on the subject, or a book explaining it, or dig out the instruction manual.

To remember who we are in reality, we turn to the only teacher that remembers, the Holy Spirit.  We read books that awaken the truth we have hidden from ourselves. We dig out an instruction manual such as A Course in Miracles. And as we follow the directions, the mind will begin to awaken. We teach what we are learning to remember, and the memory becomes stronger and clearer.

This would be a short and to the point course if we paid attention only to that.

What seems to happen, though, is that we experience some resistance to waking up and that resistance sidetracks us. We learn what we teach, and that can serve our awakening, but if we teach separation, we reinforce that instead.

It can be frustrating when I slip back into my ego, but it is understandable.  Here is an experience I have had, and maybe you, too, have had a similar experience. Someone is introduced to me, and I hear his name wrong. “Hi, Myron. Let me introduce my friend, Saul.” My ears hear the name Saul, but my mind automatically connects to Paul because of the Bible story from my youth. In my mind, his name becomes Paul. Maybe I will be corrected soon, but the idea is stuck in my mind, so when I think of him, I think, Paul.  I do this until I deliberately replace the name Paul with Saul. Eventually, I taught myself his correct name.

This is what happens with the separation idea.

I have listened to the ego for many years because I believed it was me, and I believed what it had to say to me. Even though the Holy Spirit has corrected me, and I know that I am not the ego and I know the ego does not actually exist, I have a very long-standing false assumption that does not go away without the effort of deliberately replacing the old story with the truth.

The most efficient and fastest way to re-learn what I already know is to stick to the teacher who knows, asking for help and correction, listening to only that teacher. As I learn from the Holy Spirit, I teach what I am learning to reinforce it and encourage that belief in others. This reinforces the truth for me, making my awakening easier. It reinforces the truth for them as well. The more I stick with the plan, the more smoothly the awakening unfolds.

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