Thursday, May 28, 2015
Lesson 148: Review: “My mind holds only what I think with God.” “If I defend myself I am attacked.” “Sickness is a defense against the truth.”
The Course teaches us that our defenses are our only problem, or as Jesus says- errors- that we need to recreate in our minds. When we feel defended we are exerting attack and starting the cycle of violence in our minds. When we feel defended, it is as if we are weak, we believe in our vulnerability. Sometimes at quick glance we might assume a defense is the only way to protect ourselves because we assume that attack will necessarily come. The world is filled with constant attacks so we are trying to protect ourselves.
The ego tells us our defensiveness is the best remedy to counter what we find in the world, the various attacks. But the Course teaches us that our ego is not the best at logic. When we think more clearly at the defenses from the Course’s point of view, we see that when we put up our defenses it is as if we are trying to ward off attack and that attack is necessarily coming. This is what puts energy into the Universe that we are vulnerable enough to need some prevention of attack.
What the Course teaches us instead is to face our ego’s plight with beginning the cycle of violence but rather bring God’s certainty- which is our certainty- to the situation. Our certainty ends any miscellaneous attack that could be coming our way. Our certainty is the feeling that we have and that we need nothing but God to defend us. This ends any memory of attack in our minds and in our energy. Then all we are left with is an assertion of our certainty. Further, we have no thought that attack is coming as our certainty says- nothing can hurt us because we are God’s creations. Then, we find nothing but forgiveness about the fact that it looked like we might be attacked.
We are asked again in this lesson to understand our sickness is nothing but an illusion. Since it is an illusion and has no reality, one of the ways we commonly misuse it is as a defense against the truth. Our egos try at length to make sickness get in the way of God and our return to memory of our holy state. Sickness can seem above God- like God can’t intervene or cure us because sickness is more powerful than God. We often worship sickness like it is better than God. We do all kinds of things to use sickness as a way to deny our true nature and essence. The Course teaches us, keep sickness in perspective. See that it is all just a little error in our reality. Furthermore, our remembering God as our Source is the way to a certain cure, either in our minds and/or our bodies as well.