ACIM Lesson 153 Contemplation

" In My Defenselessness My Safety Lies". Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.

Transcript

Welcome to Active Meditation.

Lesson 153.

My defenselessness,

My safety lies.

You,

Who feel threatened by this changing world.

You,

Who feel threatened by the world's twists of fortune and its bitter jests.

You,

Who feel threatened by the world's brief relationships and by all the gifts the world merely lends to take away again.

Attend this lesson well.

Provides no safety.

It is rooted in attack and all its gifts seeming safety are illusory deceptions.

The world attacks and then attacks again.

No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.

Gives rise but to defensiveness for a threat brings anger.

Anger makes attack seem reasonable.

Anger makes attack seem honestly provoked.

Anger makes attack seem righteous in the name of self-defense.

Defensiveness is a double threat.

Defensiveness 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 the mind fast wherein another circle bound it and another circle in that until escape no longer can be hoped for.

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.

Attack.

Defense.

Defense.

Attack.

There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment of the mind.

Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which your ego would exact.

In the mind's defenses lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems to be but an idle dream beyond the possible.

The sense of threat that the world encourages is so much deeper and so far beyond the frenzy and the intensity of which you can conceive that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought.

You are the slave to this sense of threat.

You know not what you do in fear of it.

You do not understand how much you have been made to sacrifice when you feel the iron grip of this sense of threat 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 has 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,

More dreams by which the illusions of his safety comfort him.

Defenselessness is strength.

Defenselessness testifies to recognition of the Christ in you.

The Course in Miracles text maintains that choice is always made between Christ's strength and your own weakness.

Defenselessness can never be attacked because it recognizes strength so great that attack is folly or that attack is a silly game tired children might play when they become too sleepy to remember what they want.

Defensiveness is weakness.

Defenselessness 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?

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.

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.

We would not let our happiness slip by because we mistook the figures in the dream for the Son of God,

Because we mistook the dream's tiny instant for eternity.

Today we look past dreams.

Today we recognize that we need no defense.

We need no defense because we are created unassailable.

We are created without a thought,

Without a wish,

Or a dream in which attack has any meaning.

Now we cannot fear,

For we have left all fearful thoughts behind.

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,

Let's be still a moment.

In silence,

Think how holy is your purpose.

Think how secure you rest,

Untouchable,

Within the light of your higher self.

God's ministers have chosen that the truth be with them.

Who is holier than God's ministers?

Who could be sure that their happiness is fully guaranteed?

Who could be more mightily protected?

What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen of God,

By God's election and their own as well?

It is the function of God's ministers to help their brothers and sisters choose as they have chosen.

God has elected all,

But few have come to realize God's will is but their own.

While you fail to teach what you have learned,

Salvation waits,

And darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment.

While you fail to teach,

You will not learn that light has come to you and that your escape has already been accomplished.

You will not see the light until you offer it to all your brothers and sisters,

And as they take the light from your hands,

So will you recognize the light 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.

God's game instructs happiness because there is no loser.

Everyone who plays must win,

And in their winning is the gain to everyone,

In short.

The game of fear is gladly laid aside when children come to see the benefits that salvation brings.

You who have played that you are lost to hope.

You who have played that you are abandoned by your father.

You who have played that you are left alone in terror,

Alone in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt.

Be happy now that the game is over.

Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt,

In which we 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.

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 so that everyone may learn the tale they read of their terrifying destiny,

The defeat of all their hopes,

Their pitiful defense against a vengeance they cannot escape,

So that they may learn all this is but their own deluded fantasy.

God's ministers have come to waken them from the dark dreams this story has evoked.

In their confused,

Bewildered memory of this distorted tale,

God's children can smile at last on learning that all this 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.

Let's practice today's thought.

Say to yourself,

Say in your mind,

In my defenselessness,

My safety lies.

Five minutes now becomes the least we give in preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal we have.

Ten minutes would be better.

Fifteen,

Better still.

As distractions cease 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 give less at night.

In gratitude,

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 or even less will be the most that we can offer as the hour strikes,

And sometimes we will forget altogether.

At other times,

The business of the world will close in on us,

And we will be unable to withdraw a little while and turn our thoughts to God.

When we can,

We will observe our trust as ministers of God,

In hourly remembrance of our mission and God's love.

We will quietly sit by and wait on God and listen to his voice and learn what he would have us do the hour that is yet to come,

All the while thanking God for all the gifts he gave us in the hour gone by.

Now sit quietly,

Wait on God,

Listen for God's voice,

To learn what God would have you do.

I'll be silent.

Spend a few moments in gratitude,

Thanking God for all the gifts given you.

In time,

With practice,

You will never cease to think of God 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 God a moment,

Even though your time is spent in offering salvation to the world.

Do you think God will not make this possible for you who choose to carry out his plan for the salvation of the world and your salvation?

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 the strength of Christ abides in us,

We will remind ourselves that God remains beside us through the day and never leaves our weakness unsupported by his strength.

We call upon God's strength each time we feel that the threat of our defenses undermine our certainty of purpose.

We will pause a moment as God tells us,

I am here,

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,

The strength,

And the peace that shine from God's ministers to all their brothers and sisters come from God.

These are God's gifts to you.

Defenselessness is all you need to give God in return.

You lay aside what was never real to look on Christ and see his sinlessness.

In my defenselessness,

My safety lies.

Nothing real can be threatened.

Unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.