The Secret to True Safety

True safety resides in our willingness to offer only empathy and compassion to our brothers and sisters. When we love even our enemies – when we are even willing to love our enemies – then we no longer have enemies. Love is our protection.

Love is the secret to true safety. And Love holds everything.

Love is the protection of the other as well. If we refuse to indulge conflict – if we decline both attack and defense – then conflict no longer exists, and the other is as safe as we are, even if they don’t believe it.

Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to the recognition of the Christ in you . . . Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes a 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 (W-pI.153.6:1-2, 4).

Given the option of nonviolence, people often ask: “does this mean I should let people walk all over me?”

It’s a fair question. But it only makes sense from the vantage point of the body, and the separated self that is supposedly indelibly associated with that body. In other words, it only makes sense if what we are can be walked on. If it can’t, then it doesn’t matter what happens to the body.

Which – surprise surprise – is exactly the point A Course in Miracles makes in its framing of Jesus’s crucifixion.

The message the crucifixion was intended to reach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assult in persecution, because you cannot be persecuted. If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely (T-6.I.4:6-7).

Turn the other cheek indeed.

I elected, for your sake and mine, to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter. As the world judges these things, but not as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn and finally killed (T-6.I.9:1-2).

I want to be clear here. If somebody punches you, walk away. If somebody moves to hurt your child, protect your child. If you need help getting away from violence, ask for help. Ask me. I will help you. Refusing to suffer means refusing to let others be a cause of suffering – it is a gift we give, not a privilege we protect.

A Course in Miracles is a response to an identity crisis. It is a correction to the erroneous perception that we are bodies in a world. The deal is, we work together to minimize harm and maximize happiness in order to remember what we are in truth.

In my experience of studying and practicing ACIM, nonviolence is the quickest means by which to remember that we are not bodies and there is no world and thus to properly contextualize this dream and no longer be troubled by it.

Nonviolence starts with not hurting others. Yet we have to notice how much of “hurting others” occurs outside our awareness. It’s easy to realize that when we shout at somebody or cheat on somebody that it’s bad. It’s easy to say “I”m sorry.”

What is hard is realizing the way in which our deepest thoughts and biases are themselves violent, and that because of them – and because we are not investigating them – they feed the communal nightmare by which school shootings, Jesus grifters, factory farms and conspiracy-thinking gain traction and momentum.

I am suggesting there are levels of being where you realize not only that you are doing this to yourself (e.g. T-27.VIII.10:1) but you are also doing [insert heinous act here] to others.

We do not want to see this about ourselves – we do not want to wade through an endless fog of confusion to reach fetid swamps anger, hatred and fear.

And yet.

When we do this – when we reach the juncture where we are utterly repulsed by our own self – then suddenly (as if all along we were attended by a loving friend) we will discover that we can no longer hate anybody. The worst of all of us is inside us. We see that we are the problem, and then (as if all along we were attended by one who has already walked this walk), we feel only compassion for our brothers and sisters – especially the ones, near and far, who threaten us the most.

This is Love, and this Love will direct us in very specific ways (e.g., T-1.1:4:2-3).

I say this a lot because it is a core principle of our spiritual practice as students of A Course in Miracles: there is only love and the cry for love. And the response to both is the same: love.

I speak here only to my own experience. I am a friend saying “this worked for me,” not an expert saying “this is the law and the prophets.” Be kind to yourself, for you merit kindness, and don’t be afraid to face your ghosts and demons, and their facsimiles in the world. They are nothing before the light of what you are in truth.

The Twenty-First Principle of A Course in Miracles

Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others (T-1.I.21:1-2).

Again, the emphasis here is that miracles are natural rather than supernatural. They are not spectacles. They are shifts in our understanding of perception that make us and others happier. This happiness is self-replicating. To be miracle-minded is to accept the Love that God extends throughout Creation, which acceptance naturally extends that Love to all our brothers and sisters. It is the function of Love to extend itself without limit, and it is our function to learn how to no longer be limited.

A miracle is the moment when we translate perception in a way that allows us to see the world, our self, and others correctly – which is to say, in a way that is loving and not fearful. But “loving” does not mean favorable or preferential; rather, it means neutral. Forgiveness is not pardoning somebody for a bad thing they did. Rather, it is not seeing good or bad at all. To see this way is to perceive the other not as a someone in need of correction that we can supply but rather as a friend whose errors are naturally corrected by God in the context of Creation. We need do nothing but not abandon our brother or sister. Indeed, if we understand Creation correctly, then we know that abandonment is not possible.

Thus, when we “forgive” according to A Course in Miracles, we recognize the inherent unity and innocence of all beings, and let go of the illusion of separation (including separate interests). This letting go naturally undoes our personal experiences of guilt and fear. When we forgive, we remember – and agree to not forget again – that our true identity is not defined by ego and its limited perception but by the Holy Spirit, who cannot be limited.

Thus, the miracle effectively opens us to the Love and oneness that are our inheritance as creations of God. This is what the Holy Spirit teaches us, each and every time it translates perception to reveal a world in which we are healers and helpers.

Our brothers and sisters – broadly defined to include maple trees, blue whales and neutrinos – are essential to miracles. We cannot remember our innocence alone, and we cannot remember the innocence of others if we do not remember that God created us innocent. Miracles insist on our interconnectedness in Creation, and they also teach us that this unity is a function of our Creator, who cannot know us as other than unified.

Thus, this principle encourages us to recognize the ego can do nothing but perpetuate the illusion of separation, and therefore calls us to accept only the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of experience. This acceptance is a miracle, because it does not depend on our own judgment and does not feed our grievances. Rather, it sees us the way God sees us, and does not see us the way God could never see us.

You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the Presence of the Creator of perfection. The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals (T-1.II.3:3-4).

In this way, A Course in Miracles – in both our study and practice, in both theory and application – restores to our shared awareness the truth that our identity is found in unconditional love and self-acceptance. This naturally leads to a deeper and more sustainable peace, one that we can extend to all the world, which naturally extends the range of our shared awakening.

A Course in Miracles Lesson 196

It can be but myself I crucify.

This is a more acute phrasing of the standard ACIM teaching that the secret to salvation is that we are doing this – causing suffering by accepting the ego’s interpretation of self and world – to ourselves (T-27.VIII.10:1). The great lie of projection is that we can avoid the effects of that which is projected. But the willingness to dissociate at all begins and ends with a self in pain.

Projection may hide the suffering but it cannot heal the suffering.

The alternative – the other way to which Bill Thetford so helpfully referred, effectively inaugurating A Course in Miracles – relies on letting go of the insane (and thus unhelpful) idea that “to attack a brother saves yourself” (W-pI.196.1:3). This new way of being involves laying aside the defense of projection, and seeking instead “another way.”

When we decide to challenge the effectiveness of projection – when we make a practice of refusing to indulge its false promise of escapism – then we let go of the ego’s lies. We stop believing them, and we stop sharing them. Truth naturally arises to take the place of distortion and confusion. The truth needs no interpretation. The acceptance of truth – and the quiet, sustainable peace and joy that are the natural effects of this acceptance – are the work of an instant when we consent to get out of the way.

It is not time we need for this. It is but willingness. For what would seem to need a thousand years can easily be done in just one instant by the grace of God (W-pI.196.4:3-5).

What, then, is crucifixion? We are not literally talking about being nailed to a cross, strangling to death in the hot sun outside Jerusalem. Or Boston or Berlin. To what is the Course referring?

In the context of this lesson, crucifixion refers to our insistence on believing – against all the evidence of our senses, against all the logic of our mind – the mistaken idea that salvation lies in holding another responsible for what we are doing. It is our own interpretation of the appearance and experience of the outer world that bring us suffering. It is not something our brothers and sisters are doing, no matter how that might appear to be the case in the ego’s version of reality.

When we do not accept responsibility, but instead project it – and thus percieve a world in which others (parents, priests, teachers, religious zealots, even climate change) are responsible for our suffering, then we are effectively crucifying ourselves. We are depriving ourselves of our own capacity for salvation, which lies in choosing to accept the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world rather than ego’s.

The ego blames others, and pretends that in doing so we are exonerated. But the Holy Spirit teaches us that there is no cause for blame anywhere in the system, thus freeing us to examine our thought system without fear, discarding what does not work, and keeping what does.

In this way, we are able to penetrate the ego’s empty logic and ask if the God of Love could allow a world to exist in which suffering and sacrifice are the norm? What but fear and hate could make such a world? And when we can say, no, that’s not how God thinks and it’s not how God creates, then we can begin to see that it’s our projection that make up that world.

And we can begin to imagine – and bring forth – an alternative that A Course in Miracles calls a happy dream.

The problem is not that we blame others, in the end. The problem is that we do not see that we blame others. We deny our culpability, which is to be crucified.

Why do we do this?

Beneath the blame and denial lies the simple fact that we fear God. That is what we don’t want to look at, and that is why we have to work our way through the many psychological layers – letting go of assigning cause to the exterior, accepting responsibility for what we are doing, and then gazing directly at our fear of God.

If it can be but you you crucify, you did not hurt the world, and need not fear its vengeance and pursuit. Nor need you hide in terror from the deadly fear of God projection hides behind . . . You have sought to be both weak and strong, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them (W-pI.196.9:2-3, 7-8).

When we cannot see that we are the one we fear, then our mind splits, and we dwell forever in the horror and chaos of separation. We think it is the other we have to defend against, and so God – because He has allowed this grim situation to occur, indeed, has enabled it in creation – becomes an object of fear as well.

There is – there is always – another way.

All we have to do is accept that the appearance of the external horror show is our own doing, and that it can be undone in an instant, simply by asking the Voice for God to think for us, to interpret for us, and to guide the rhythm of our living accordingly.

This is not easy! Yet the lesson assures us that we are do not have to work it out alone.

There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever. When the fear of God is gone, there are no obstacles that still remain between you and the holy peace of God (W-pI.196.12:1-2).

That is a sweet promise! And it can inform our practice today, allowing us to tap deep reservoirs of willingness as we confront the external world not as the cause of our suffering, but as a outside picture of an interior condition for which we are responsible.

Just as suffering arises in us, so to does our salvation (W-pI.196.12:6). And that is a comforting thought, if we are ready to be comforted.

←Lesson 195
Lesson 197→

Rethinking our Function: ACIM Lesson 186

A Course in Miracles revolves around the idea that salvation – ours and the world’s – is found in our ability to recognize and embrace our true identity as extensions of God in Creation, which identity is far beyond the ego’s limited perception.

On this view, the statement “salvation of the world depends on me” becomes a declaration of our function. Our personal salvation is inextricably yoked to our responsibility to save the world. Salvation is not personal but collective. It extends beyond the domain of body-identification. And it calls for humility and acceptance.

Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It is not our idea. The means are given to us by which it will be perfectly accomplished. All that we are asked to do is accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are not worthy (W-pI.186.2:1-5).

Thus, the Course is emphasizing that healing and redemption begin with us – they take form with us, they are enacted in and by us – but they are not separate from the salvational work of all our brothers and sisters. The collective state of the world is a reflection of our inner peace, ours and everyone else’s. As we allow ourselves to be healed by the Holy Spirit, surrendering ego-driven thoughts and judgments, the world’s healing is simultaneously accomplished.

It is fair to say that salvation – which, again, is healing, which is simply the recognition of wholeness – depends on our capacity to recognize and give attention only to the Holy Spirit. At first this is difficult and onerous, but in time we learn it is the source of calm productivity.

If God’s Voice assures that you that salvation needs your part, and the whole depends on you, be sure that it is so . . . the humble are free to hear the Voice which tells them what they are, and what to do (W-pI.186.6:4, 6).

The temptation is to feel belittled. Can salvation truly depend on, you know, giving up grievances? Being a kinder, gentler father and brother? A less-dramatic co-worker? Serving others rather than demanding or expecting that they serve us?

What about the bright lights of spirit? What about ascended masters? What about the razzle-dazzle of this or that guru or teacher?

All those without exception are the fever dreams of ego, the false self with which we identify, whose argument that we are vulnerable sinners has become second nature. Yet even this will be undone, simply because it is not real. Separation is an illusion! This is all the Holy Spirit really teaches us. And as we learn it, we learn how to create the way God in Heaven creates.

. . . your truly given function stands out clear and wholly unambiguous. There is no doubt of its validity. It comes from One Who knows no error and His Voice is certain of Its messages. They will not change, nor be in conflict (W-pI.186.11:1-4).

This is the clarity that accepting our function provides for us. We remember our true identity as eternal and loving, wholly united with Creator and Creation, and capable only of Love. Forgiveness becomes our practice as naturally as holding grievances once did.

Forgiveness allows us to let go of ego-based beliefs and judgments and allow recognition of our oneness in and with God to become the whole light of awareness. When we forgive, we cultivate a state of mind that is aligned with love, peace, and truth. The inseperability of God’s Will and our will becomes our strength.

Acceptance and obedience are similar. We tend to reject obedience; we may not be the driver of the bus but nobody is going to tell us where to sit. Yet obeying God is the very means by which our joy is completed, because it reflects our total unconditional acceptance of God’s goodness.

His gentle Voice is calling from the known to the unknowing. He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already (W-pI.186.13:1-2).

Ego’s voice is characterized by fear, judgment, and separation. The Holy Spirit, who is the Voice for God to which this lesson refers, speaks the language of love, unity, and peace. By becoming aware of the ego’s thought system and choosing to align instead with the Voice for God, we naturally perform miracles – shifts in perception by which the salvation of the world is accomplished.

The Twentieth Principle of A Course in Miracles

Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle (T-1.I.20:1-2).

The confusion that A Course in Miracles is given to correct is our identification with the body rather than spirit, and the various arguments and rationales that we consciously and unconsciously adopt in defense of this position.

Miracles restore to awareness our actual identity. Spirit represents what we are in truth, which cannot be contained in a body. A Course in Miracles does not deny the body or its experiences, it simply invites us to reconsider our conviction that we are the body. It recontextualizes the body away from our familiar understanding, thus allowing us to experience the self in a new way.

This principle effectively invites us to shift our focus from the physical and temporal realm of the body to the spiritual and eternal, which is the level of mind, and to remember that it is the latter level that reflects our actual identity and true nature.

The phrase “altar of truth” is used symbolically here. We are conditioned to think of altars as physical objects, sites capable of channeling divine or spiritual energy and meaning. A Course in Miracles reverses that emphasis. Love and peace are found in non-material domains; healing occurs as we allow the miracle to correct our misperception of body and spirit, and essentially realign them with the truth as God created it. In this sense, the altar is everywhere and all things. It is a way of being, rather than a place in which to be.

It is important to remember that A Course in Miracles is not advocating for conflict between body and spirit. Spirit does not change; the body does. Spirit cannot die; the body must. Perceiving a conflict between these two domains is a confusion both sponsored and egged on by ego. Our work is not fight the body or privilege the spirit; it is simply to give attention as directed by the Holy Spirit, Who is ever devoted to clarifying our perception of reality. There are lessons to learn, confusions to undo, and even problems to solve. None of that is a crisis, so long as we remember it is all given to help us remember – by teaching one another – what we are in truth.

Thus, the fundmenatal clarification – that we are not bodies and there is no world – happens in a body in the world. Again, this is not a problem! It is, rather, a solution. As the Course makes clear, everything that appears to occur to us in the world is a lesson given to help us remember our true home and self (e.g., W-pI.193.h).

Miracles are a means by which the memory of truth dawns in the mind which yet sleeps and remains unaware of what is true. Healing is the process by which the mind that believes it is a body, remembers that it cannot be a body, and thus is free to create as God creates.

The Nineteenth Principle of A Course in Miracles

Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time (T-1.I.19:1-3).

Miracles unify all minds who yet believe they are separate and personal in God Who created all minds as one. In essence, the miracle reminds us who and what we are in truth, undoing the illusion of separation and personal interest upon which all suffering rests.

Miracles are moments of healed perception: they are moments when love, not fear, guides our understanding and interpretation of the data our bodily senses gather. The miracle’s occurrence reminds us of our connection to God and to Creation; they remind us we are not bodies.

In a sense, the miracle gently recontextualizes the body not as the center of experience but as an aspect of it, like how a starry night depends not on one star but on many altogether.

Miracles rely on cooperation, rather than competition. They rely on coordination rather than conflict. They rely on communication. The so-called Sonship, which is the collective identity of all God’s creation – all living beings are our brothers and sisters – is the site of cooperation. It is the site in which we learn to choose cooperation over conflict, in order that we might remember our shared divinity.

Miracles are evidence that we are listening to the Holy Spirit, Who is God’s Teacher, and are committed to action based in love rather than fear. It is not about the end of the body but about the body’s translation into helpfulness. Miracles are about service, not competition. In service to one another, we remember who and what we are in truth.

This principle also suggests that miracles reflect eternal, rather than temporal laws. It is the body which experiences time – time as a flow, time as a means of measuring experience, time as the cause of entropy et cetera. To the body, temporal time is reality. But to spirit, the only laws are the laws of Creation, which are the laws of love, and time is subject to them, not the other way around.

. . . you can only give. And this is love, for this alone is natural under the laws of God. In the holy instant the laws of God prevail, and only they have meaning. The laws of the world cease to hold any meaning at all (T-15.VI.5:6-9).

Love, because it transcends bodies, also transcends time. Cooperation – because it is a reflection of eternal laws – can also transcend time. Or rather, as a miracle, it can shorten time, and even render time unnecessary.

Thus, miracles occur in the context of separation. We experience miracles in these bodies in this world. A dire conflict dissolves in laughter, generations of systemic violence are healed, we wink at a crying child and they smile. The miracle always heals us here and now.

But.

The miracle heals us in this way because it is not subject either to the world’s laws nor to the ego’s interpretation of perception. It is outside of all that and, however briefly, it teaches us that what we are in truth is also outside of all that. In this way, the miracles teaches us that we are free – free to create as God creates and free to be happy in gentle and sustainable ways.

In our recognition of our freedom, we naturally lean yet further into cooperation and collaboration, extending both the frequency and the range of miracle-minded thinking. Thus, miracles are also generative of the very joy and peace that they evoke in us. They always include the other.