Lesson 153
In my defenselessness my safety lies.
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 attack, and all its “gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.
The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. 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 it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind.
Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but 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.
You are its slave. You know not what you do, in fear of it. You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice, who feel its iron grip upon your heart. You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him.
Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.
Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?
We will not play such childish games today. For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity.
We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all 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 we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.
Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God’s ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, by His election and their own as well?
It is the function of God’s ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.
Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits salvation brings.
You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin 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 lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven’s children and the Son of God.
We pause but for a moment more, 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 ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tale he reads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defense against a vengeance he can not escape, is but his own deluded fantasy. God’s ministers have come to waken him from the dark dreams this story has evoked in his confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. God’s Son can smile at last, on learning that it 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 salvation is the only goal we have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turn us from our purpose, we will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will we willingly give less at night, in gratitude and joy.
Each hour adds to our increasing peace, as we remember to be faithful to the Will we share with God. 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 God.
Yet when we can, we will observe our trust as ministers of God, in hourly remembrance of our mission and His Love. And we will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice, and learn what He would have us do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for all the gifts He gave us in the one gone by.
In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His 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 Him a moment, even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world. Think you He will not make this possible, for you who chose to carry out His plan for the salvation of the world and yours?
Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it, as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength. We call upon His strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as He tells us, “I am here.”
Your practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love, to help you keep your mind from wandering from its intent. Be not afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are His gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness.
INITIAL INSIGHT: “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 attack, and all its “gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.”
Anyone who has had a sudden inexplicable disease or accident knows that the world provides for safety against this. It is the same with finances. You can have the best plan in the world and save and invest wisely, and still have it all come tumbling down even though there was no flaw in your strategy. Relationships crumble, people you love die. The world provides no safety and that is just a fact.
“The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. 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.”
When things seem to go wrong with our plans, we can become angry or depressed, which is two sides of the same coin. In anger, we project our guilt outward in an attempt to defend ourselves. In depression, we project the guilt on ourselves which is a different kind of defense, one in which we punish ourselves in hopes of preventing further punishment from without (from God).
When we think we are victimized and unfairly treated we feel justified in defending ourselves. We think this is going to get us something we want, but the only thing it gets us is more unhappiness and more fear because the need for defense seems to prove we need defense. Not only do we feel attacked from without, but now we feel attacked from within because nothing we do helps and we are left confused.
“It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind.”
How have we endured this for so long? How could we have been so blind to what was actually happening for so long? In my past marriage, it seemed to me like my husband was the cause of all the misery I felt and I was constantly defending against his attacks on my peace. Even as a Course student, I failed to see the obvious, that whatever he did it was my mind that was making me miserable. It was my defenses that were binding me to the misery I suffered. It was my own thoughts and my continual defenses causing the confusion that was keeping me from seeing my part and thus releasing myself.
“You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness. For you behold the Son of God as but a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him.”
This was me in my marriage. I felt attacked and attacked in return as if my defenses could somehow save me from my own thoughts. This world is my illusion, the image of beliefs in my mind projected outward, seen as real and defended as true. Then I pretend that I don’t know where it all came from as if it has nothing to do with me.
Instead, I pretend that I am being acted upon by someone else and so it must be their fault. This is what I was doing to my husband. I was using him as the scapegoat for my own choices, and at the same time, I was teaching us both that we are helpless against the dreams of our desires. This is what I do every time I defend myself. I scare myself and I lose myself and I feel helpless against a hopeless situation.
“Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.”
This was the answer to the self-made prison in which I found myself in my marriage. I was not able to come to this realization while I was in the marriage, but once out of it, I did the work necessary to heal the relationship. I remembered that defenselessness is strength. I remembered that I had been choosing my own weakness but that I could choose Christ’s strength because it is mine to choose.
Once I realized this and made up my mind that the peace of God was far more important to me than being right, it was just a matter of letting the grievances come up and meeting them armored in love instead of blame. Through the strength of God in me, I was able to release my defenses and see all of the acts that I had once decided were unforgivable as simply unimportant.
“For our true purpose is to save the world, and we would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity.”
When my husband and I were married there was absolutely no way either one of us could have acted differently, working from the beliefs we both held at that time. More importantly, none of it was Reality. It was all a dream, an ancient memory we had put before our eyes so we could perhaps see it differently this time. And even the first time around it was just thoughts of something impossible, thoughts of something different from Reality.
There are moments within the day in which I play those childish games of defense, but I am very aware of them now and so they are brief. I am not letting my happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross my mind.
“We look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning.”
Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. … And who could be more mightily protected?
In my everyday life, I see that this holds true for me. When I am afraid and defending myself, I feel attacked even when there is no attack. I feel vulnerable to attack not yet seen. For instance, I used to think about my mom and her sister dying from Alzheimer’s if I follow that thought, I would worry about myself.
I would read articles claiming the latest research and maybe adding another supplement to my daily regime because the claim is that it might help prevent that disease. This kind of defense seems natural and necessary to the ego-mind, but all that it is doing is destroying my peace of mind and leading me away from Heaven.
On the other hand, when I remember that it is in my defenselessness that my safety lies, I hand the future over to the Holy Spirit. I surrender my mind to His use and I don’t have to think about it anymore or worry about it. It is no longer in my hands, as if it ever were, really. I am at peace, and happy and closer to knowing my Self and living from that Self. Ultimately, living from my true Self all the time, I can be completely defenseless at all times, and at all times I will be in peace.
“Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind.”
Jesus leaves us this major clue in case we are unsure how to ensure defenselessness. Can I stop thinking fearful thoughts? I used to be afraid of everything. I tried to defend myself from every possible bad outcome, being careful, always on the alert for disaster, buying more insurance. None of these defenses did anything for me other than to make me more nervous.
Now I have learned that I have choices about my thoughts. I notice a fear thought and I decide if I am going to follow that thought or let it go. As I do this more and more often, I see that it has made a difference in my peace of mind and that the fear thoughts diminished. I suppose that is because I am not so interested. The only way to stop them completely is to remember my Self. My Self knows Who it is and knows no fear. My Self knows my choices here will not hurt who I am.
“It is the function of God’s ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. …For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.”
Over and over throughout the Course, Jesus tells us that to have Heaven, I must help my brothers achieve Heaven. How do I help my brothers? The most helpful thing I can do is to remember my Self or as Jesus says, my only function is to accept the Atonement for myself. I saw that when I interacted with those who have done is, I felt stronger and more certain myself. When I had a challenge and needed help with it, I turned to those who no longer believe in problems.
Now I have the opportunity to be helpful in this way. When someone shares their problem with me, I don’t commiserate. I don’t help them look in the world for a solution. Instead, I offer what works for me. I help them find the root cause. I offer forgiveness solutions. I help them see another way to approach the issue, a way that does not foster more fear. As I do this, my faith grows stronger as well. What we give, we receive.
“Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play.”
The world is not real, it is an illusion, a virtual playground that we enter through our thoughts. With thoughts that are in alignment with the thoughts of God, we can enter through the funhouse and play games of salvation. Or with thoughts of the ego, thoughts of guilt, and fear, we can enter through the dark gate and into the creep show.
We buy the ticket we want with our thoughts. So, I watch my thoughts and I watch my words. They will tell me what it is I believe and what I believe is what I want. I have learned which thoughts to encourage and which thoughts to release. It doesn’t have to feel like a deathly serious game. We are perfectly safe no matter which choice we make. Death is not real.
But, if we want a more pleasant experience, we can play the game consistently choosing those thoughts which keep us going in the direction that brings us more happiness, and closer to the gate that takes us out of the game. I used to watch my thoughts and forgive the ones that were not true, but I did it with a vengeance as if my every poor choice was the sin that would condemn me to hell forever. I would make a choice for ego thinking and I would double-down on the error by feeling guilty for it.
Now, I spin the wheel and whatever comes up is good. Either I will choose the thought that will bring me closer to happiness, or I will choose the one that will bring me something I don’t want. Either way, I win because I learn through contrast. I choose God and I receive joy and peace. I choose ego and what I get causes me to suffer and I learn what it is I don’t want the next time. It’s a win-win. I don’t have a choice about playing the game, but I can choose to play it consistency with curiosity and with a light heart knowing that in the end, I cannot lose.
“Today our theme is our defenselessness. We clothe ourselves in it, as we prepare to meet the day. We rise up strong in Christ, and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength. We call upon His strength each time we feel the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose. We will pause a moment, as He tells us, “I am here.”
DAILY APPLICATION: The world provides no safety. There are not enough locks to keep danger out. There are no magic potions that keep aging at bay for long. There are no secrets to guaranteeing your relationship will last, your friends will remain loyal, your children will keep you in their lives. There is absolutely nothing you can do to ensure your children will live a happy, fulfilled life.
No amount of healthy eating, vitamins, or vigorous exercising, will keep the body alive past its due date. Everything shifts and changes and nothing can be depended on. You are wasting your time trying to make the world safe. It’s not going to happen. Safety lies only in defenselessness. The Course is so funny with its paradoxes. Do you want to be safe? Stop trying to be safe. Lay down your defenses and accept that you are eternal. You are Divine. Then you will know your safety.
Right now, we have a chance to really use this lesson. All around it is the illusion of danger. What choice will we make? Will we add to the nearly unbearable burden of fear that threatens the world, or will we be the lightworkers we are called to by Jesus. Will we add light to the mind or deepen the darkness? It is up to each of us to decide. For myself, I watch my mind to see which choice I am making, and if I am leaning toward defense, I choose again. What could I defend against other than this body which is an illusion? I am not this body and what I am could never need the least defense.
REGINA’S TIPS
In Chapter 1 of The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer writes, “… the mind talks all the time because you gave it a job to do. You use it as a protection mechanism, a form of defense.”
Is that true? Is the mind a form of defense?
Let’s watch it for a day and find out. As you watch, some forms of defense you might find are:
~ Thoughts attacking someone who threatens your psyche or gets in the way of what you want (even if it is just the position you want in traffic)
~ Mentally practicing a conversation with someone in order to achieve the outcome you want
~ Thinking about how you should look, be or act in order to be liked or respected by others
~ Thinking about what you can change, manipulate or control in order to achieve the outcome you want
~ Thinking about how you can avoid any feeling or circumstance that you find uncomfortable or painful
Today’s lesson tells us, “You are its slave. … You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defenses.”
Is that true? Are we slaves to the mind’s defensive chatter?
Let’s watch that too. Can you decide to let go of defensive chatter and then move through the day in relative peace, or do you find yourself listening to defensive chatter again?
Try this today: Whenever you notice the mind is chattering as a form of defense, look at what the mind is saying. Notice it. And then slowly say to yourself, “In my defenselessness my safety lies.” (Or you can say, “Peace lies in defenselessness.”) Take a breath and let go of the chatter. Move into a state of openness, acceptance and intuitiveness. Remain there. If you notice that you’ve slipped into being focused on mental defenses again, repeat this practice.
If a situation arises today that needs to be resolved, approach it differently. Instead of going to the mind’s defenses for answers, ask questions and remain open for intuition’s guidance. For example, ask, “How should I look at this?” or “What should I do now?”