Welcome to Active Meditation,
A Course in Miracles,
Lesson 170.
There is no cruelty in God.
There is no cruelty in me.
No one attacks without intent to hurt.
There are no exceptions.
When you think that you attack in self-defense,
You mean that you believe to be cruel is protection.
When you think that you attack in self-defense,
You mean that you believe you are safe because of cruelty.
When you think that you attack in self-defense,
You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom.
When you think that you attack in self-defense,
You mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better,
Something safer,
Something more secure from dangerous invasion,
Something more secure from fear.
How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack.
For here is fear produced,
Fed with blood to make the fear grow and swell and rage.
Thus,
Fear is protected,
Not escaped.
Today we learn a lesson which can save you from more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine.
The lesson is this.
You make what you defend against.
By your own defense against it,
You make it real and inescapable.
Lay down your arms and only then do you perceive it false.
It seems to be the enemy without that you attack.
Yet your defense sets up an enemy within,
An alien thought at war with you,
Depriving you of peace,
Splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable.
Love now has an enemy.
Love now has an opposite.
However,
The alien now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are.
If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way,
You will perceive the premises on which the idea stands.
First,
It is obvious ideas must leave their source,
For it is you who make attack.
It is you who must have first conceived of it.
You attack outside yourself.
You separate your mind from the one who is to be attacked,
With perfect faith that the split you have made is real.
Next,
Are the attributes of love bestowed upon its enemy.
Fear thus becomes your safety.
Fear becomes the protector of your peace,
The protector to which you turn for solace and escape from your doubts about your strength,
And hope of rest in a dreamless quiet.
As love is cut off from what belongs to it and it alone,
Love becomes endowed with attributes of fear,
For love would ask you to lay down all defense as merely foolish,
And your arms indeed would crumble into dust,
For dust they are.
With love as enemy,
Cruelty must become a god,
And gods demand that those who worship them obey their dictates and refuse to question them.
Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even sane.
It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane,
While they are always merciful and just.
Today we look upon this cruel god dispassionately.
We note that though their lips are smeared with blood and fire seems to flame from them,
They are just made of stone.
They can do nothing.
We need not defy their power.
They have no power.
Those who see in them their safety have no guardian.
They have no strength to call upon in danger.
They have no mighty warrior to fight for them.
This moment can be terrible,
But it can also be the time of your release from abject slavery.
You make a choice,
Standing before this idol,
Seeing them exactly as they are.
Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone?
Or will you make another idol to replace it?
For the god of cruelty takes many forms,
And another can always be found.
Do not think that fear is the escape from fear.
Let us remember what this course has stressed about the obstacles to peace.
The final obstacle,
The hardest to believe,
Is nothing.
The final obstacle appears to be a solid block,
Impenetrable,
Fearful,
And beyond surmounting.
Say to yourself,
Say in your mind,
I make what I defend against.
By my own defense against it,
I make it real and inescapable.
So I lay down my arms,
And then I perceive it false.
Ponder on this.
I make what I defend against.
By my own defense against it,
I make it real and inescapable.
So I lay down my arms,
And then I perceive it false.
The final obstacle is the fear of God Himself.
Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as God.
For fear is love by those who worship it,
And love appears to be invested now with cruelty.
Where does the totally insane belief in God's vengeance come from?
Love has not confused its attributes with those of fear.
Yet,
Must the worshipers of fear perceive their own confusion in fear's enemy?
The worshipers of fear perceive cruelty now as a part of love.
What becomes more fearful than the heart of love itself?
The blood appears to be upon their lips.
The fire comes from them.
They are terrible above all else.
They are cruel beyond conception,
And they strike down all who acknowledge them to be their God.
The choice you make today is certain.
You look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone you made,
And you call it God no longer.
You have reached this place before,
But you have chosen that this cruel God remain with you in still another form.
And so,
The fear of God returned with you.
This time,
You leave the cruel God of fear there,
And you return to a new world,
Unburdened by fear's weight,
Beheld not in fear's sightless eyes,
But in the vision that your choice restored to you.
Now,
Do your eyes belong to Christ,
And Christ looks through them.
Now,
Your voice belongs to God and echoes His.
Now,
Your heart remains at peace forever.
You have chosen God in place of idols,
And your attributes,
Given by your Creator,
Are restored to you,
At last.
The call for God is heard and answered.
Now,
Fear has made way for love,
As God Himself replaces cruelty.
Say,
In your mind,
Father,
We are like you.
No cruelty abides in us,
For there is none in you.
Your peace is ours.
We bless the world with what we have received from you alone.
We choose again.
We make our choice for all our sisters and brothers.
Knowing that they are one with us,
We bring to our brothers and sisters your salvation,
As we have received it,
And we bring it now.
We give thanks for those who render us complete.
In them,
We see your glory.
In them,
We find our peace.
Holy are we,
Because your holiness has set us free.
We give thanks.
Amen.
There is no cruelty in God,
And there is no cruelty in me.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
