ACIM Lesson 135 Contemplation

"If I Defend Myself I Am Attacked"
Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future.

Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind.

Transcript

Welcome to Active Meditation The Course in Miracles,

Lesson 135 If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

Would you defend yourself unless you thought you were attacked?

That the attack was real?

And that your own defense could save yourself?

Herein lies the folly of defense.

It gives illusions full reality,

And then attempts to handle these illusions as if they were real.

Defending yourself adds illusions to illusions.

Thus,

Making correction doubly difficult.

And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future,

When you attempt to activate the past,

Or when you attempt to organize the present as you wish.

You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening,

Because it must contain what threatens you.

A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness,

A belief that there is danger,

Which has power to call on you to make an appropriate defense.

The world is based on this insane belief.

All the world's structures,

All its thoughts and doubts,

All the world's penalties and heavy armaments,

Its legal definitions and its codes,

All the world's ethics,

And its leaders,

And its gods,

All serve but to preserve the sense of threat.

For no one walks the world in armature,

But must have terror striking at their heart.

Defense is frightening.

It stems from fear,

Increasing fear as each defense is made.

You think defense offers safety,

Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified.

Is it not strange you do not cause to ask as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks tighter?

Is it not strange you do not cause to ask what you defend and how and against what?

Now say to yourself,

Say in your mind,

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

Let's consider first what you defend.

It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted.

It must be something made easy prey,

Unable to protect itself and needing your defense.

What but the body has such frailty?

That constant care and watchful deep concern are needful to protect its little life.

What but the body falters and must fail to serve your higher self as worthy host?

Yet,

It is not the body that can fear,

Nor can the body be a thing of fear.

Your body has no needs but those which you assign to it.

Your body needs no complicated structures of defense.

Your body needs no health-inducing medicine.

Your body needs no care and no concern at all.

You do not need to defend your body's life or give it gifts to make it beautiful,

Or put up walls to make it safe.

And you but say your home is open to the thief of time,

Corruptible and crumbling,

And so unsafe it must be guarded with your very life.

Is not this picture fearful?

May you be at peace with such a concept of your home,

Yet,

What endowed the body with the right to serve you thus?

Accept your own belief.

It is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it,

And set the body's value far beyond a little pile of dust and water.

Who would make defense of something recognized as this?

The body is in need of no defense.

This cannot be too often emphasized.

Your body will be strong and healthy if your mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fill,

By assigning it to purposes beyond its scope,

And to exalted aims it cannot accomplish.

Such attempts,

Ridiculous,

Yet deeply cherished,

Are the sources for the many mad attacks you make upon it,

For the body seems to fail your hopes,

Your needs,

Your values,

And your dreams.

The self that needs protection is not real.

The body,

Valueless and hardly worth the least defense,

Needs merely be perceived as quite apart from you,

And your body becomes a healthy,

Serviceable instrument,

Through which the mind can operate until the body's usefulness is over.

Who would want to keep a body when its usefulness is done?

Defend the body and you have attacked your mind,

For you have seen in your body the faults,

The weaknesses,

The limits,

And the lacks from which you think the body must be saved.

You will not see the mind as separate from bodily condition,

And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind,

As limited and fragile,

And apart from other minds,

And separate from its source.

These are the thoughts in need of healing,

And your body will respond with health when these thoughts have been corrected,

When these thoughts are replaced with truth.

This is the body's only real defense,

Yet is this where you look for its defense?

You offer your body protection of a kind from which it gains no benefit at all,

But merely adds to your distress of mind.

You do not heal,

But merely take away the hope of healing,

For you fail to see where the hope must lie if it be meaningful.

A healed mind does not plan.

A healed mind carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not its own.

A healed mind waits until it has been taught what should be done,

And then proceeds to do it.

A healed mind does not depend upon itself for anything except its adequacy to fulfill the plans assigned to it.

Say to yourself,

Say,

In your mind,

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

A healed mind is secure in certainty that obstacles cannot impede its progress to accomplish any goal that serves the greater plan,

Established for the good of everyone.

A healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan,

Although it cannot know the outcome which is best.

A healed mind cannot know the means by which the plan is achieved.

A healed mind cannot know how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve.

Your mind must misuse your body in its plans.

That it cannot know.

But when the mind has accepted this as true,

Then the mind is healed and lets the body go.

Enslavement of the body to the plans the unhealed mind sets up to save itself must make the body sick.

The body is not free to be the means of helping in a plan which far exceeds its own protection.

A plan which needs the body's service for a little while.

In this capacity is health assured.

For everything the mind employs for this will function flawlessly and with the strength that has been given it,

And cannot fail.

It is perhaps not easy to perceive that self-initiated plans are but defenses,

With the purpose all of these plans were made to realize.

These self-initiated plans are the means by which a frightened mind would undertake its own protection at the cost of truth.

This is not difficult to realize in some forms which these self-deceptions take.

Where the denial of reality is very obvious,

Yet planning is not often recognized as a defense.

The mind,

Engaged in planning for itself,

Is occupied in setting up control of future happenings.

The mind does not think that it will be provided for unless it makes its own provision.

Time becomes a future emphasis to be controlled by learning and experience obtained from past events and previous beliefs.

Your mind overlooks the present,

For it rests on the idea the past has taught enough to let your mind direct its own future course.

The mind that plans is thus refusing to allow for change.

What it has learned before becomes the basis for its future goals.

Your mind's past experience directs its choice of what will happen,

And it does not see that here and now is everything it needs to guarantee a future quite unlike the past,

Without a continuity of any old ideas and sick beliefs.

Anticipation plays no part at all,

For present confidence directs the way.

Again,

Say to yourself,

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

Defenses are the plans you undertake to make against the truth.

Their aim is to select what you approve and disregard,

What you consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality.

Yet,

What remains is meaningless indeed,

For it is your reality that is the threat which your defenses would attack,

Obscure,

And take apart,

And crucify.

What could you not accept if you but knew that everything that happens,

All events,

Past,

Present,

And to come,

Are gently planned by one whose only purpose is your good?

Perhaps you have misunderstood God's plan,

For God would never offer pain to you.

But your defenses did not let you see God's loving blessing.

Shine in every step you ever took.

While you made plans for death,

God led you gently to eternal life.

Your present trust in God is the defense that promises a future undisturbed,

Without a trace of sorrow,

That promises a future with joy,

That constantly increases.

As this life becomes a holy instant,

Set in time,

But eating only immortality.

Let no defenses but your present trust in God direct the future,

And this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses would conceal.

Without defenses,

You become a light which heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own,

And this light will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness.

According to the ancient plan begun when time was born,

Your followers will join their light with yours,

And it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy.

And gladly will our brothers and sisters lay aside their cumbersome defenses,

Which availed them nothing and could only terrify.

We will anticipate that time,

Today,

With present confidence,

For this is part of what was planned for us.

We will be sure that everything we need is given us for our accomplishment of this,

Today.

We make no plans for how it will be done,

But realize that our defenselessness is all that is required for the truth to dawn upon our minds with certainty.

For fifteen minutes twice today,

We rest from senseless planning,

And from every thought that blocks the truth from entering our mind.

Today,

We will receive,

Instead of plan,

That we may give instead of organize,

And we are given truly,

As we say to our self,

Say in our mind,

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

In defenselessness,

I will be strong,

And I will learn what my defenses hide.

Nothing but that.

If there are plans to make,

You will be told of them.

They may not be the plans you thought were needed.

They may not be the answers to the problems which you thought confronted you,

But they are answers to another kind of question,

Which remains unanswered,

Yet in need of answering,

Until the answer comes to you at last.

Let's practice.

Say to yourself,

Repeat after me,

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

In defenselessness,

I will be strong.

In defenselessness,

I will learn what my defenses hide.

Now,

Be attentive.

If there are plans to make,

You will be told of them.

Listen.

If there are plans to make,

You will be told of them.

If there are plans to make,

You will be told of them.

All your defenses have been aimed at not receiving what you will receive today,

In the light and joy of simple trust.

You will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release.

Heaven has nothing.

It is hell that makes extravagant demands for sacrifice.

You give up nothing in these times today when undefended.

You present yourself to your Creator as you really are.

God has remembered you.

Today,

We will remember God.

For this is Easter time in your salvation.

And you rise again from what was seeming death and hopelessness.

Now is the light of hope reborn in you.

For now you come without defense to learn the part for you within the plan of God.

But little plans or magical beliefs can still have value when you have received your function from the voice for God.

Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most,

For you cannot conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning.

Learn today,

And all the world will take this giant stride and celebrate your Easter time with you.

Throughout the day,

As foolish little things appear to raise defensiveness in you and tempt you to engage in weaving plans,

Remind yourself this is a special day for learning and acknowledge it with this.

Repeat after me,

This is my Easter time and I would keep it holy.

I will not defend myself because the child of God leads no defense against the truth of reality.

I'll end around this.

This?

This is my Easter time and I would keep it holy.

I will not defend myself because the child of God leads no defense against the truth of reality.

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

In defenselessness,

I will be strong.

In defenselessness,

I will learn what my defense is like.

If I defend myself,

I am attacked.

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

Reviews

Thank you for showing once again the road to salvaton

As always marvelous