Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Lesson 216: Review: “It can be but myself I crucify.”
This lesson reminds us that it is simply ourselves that we put on the chopping block. Our attack is always toward ourselves regardless of who we think we are attacking. We certainly may carry the fantasy that our attack thoughts are going somewhere out there- wherever is not near us. And we may believe with a passion that we are not even affected by it. Usually when we want to attack it is because we have perceived ourselves as attacked first.
Then we feel angry and wounded so we want to counter this attack with something that will make the other person or thing that attacked us to feel the same amount of hurt we believe we feel from the initial attack toward us. This is a terrible thing when we get into the habit of attacking back. When we want to attack back it is because we are not able to connect with our own inner sense of forgiveness- for everyone (including ourselves).
When we are in an attack rage and we want to damage the initiator of our own experienced attack this is an illusion because the attack never just goes out into the world and leaves us untouched. This is an insane belief that is simply false. The attack affects us first. No matter how convinced we may feel inside that our sending attack out into the world to affect only that other thing or person- this is simply all wrong.
The attack necessarily is felt within ourselves even if we think we are sending it elsewhere. It has no where else to go but to us. The Course says that there is no one else out there. The only being there is is me. And everything else I think I see is simply a reflection of my thinking projected outward. Other people are just an extension of my mind. This is why we have to take seriously that we are definitely getting hurt by our own attack because we are the only person that exists truly. All people live within a field of energy and so we all feel what we feel as well as what everyone feels because the energy field as a whole gets affected.
What we must, must, must do is forgive. When we believe we have been attacked, what Jesus teaches us to do here is to stop the return attack that we may feel urged to send out. What will help us in the long run is to get out of the attack cycle completely. We want to not further perpetuate this insanity of trying to make everyone feel as badly as we think we feel. What we want to do instead is forgive them- the attacker. It’s not just that we stop attacking. We may not feel resolved and light within yet. We need to check into our inner heart and ask- do we feel like we are hurting still? It may be hard to get a sense of peace and a willingness about forgiving the person we think hurt us. This may seem like an impossible task- forgiveness.
First we may need to share with someone a heartfelt communication around what happened that caused us to feel hurt. Sometimes if we tell the other person first why what he or she did that hurt us and then we can give information about how the person could have communicated with us differently that wouldn’t hurt us. Sometimes this is what allows us to get to a place of forgiving the other person both because you get to be heard and also so you all have a game plan about how to prevent this from happening again when you are interacting. Then all can feel more at ease because much of our need will have been met.
From there if we still don’t feel a sense of forgiveness toward the person then we can pray to God to ask for support and ease in the task.