Lesson 330

I will not hurt myself again today.

 

I am going to do something a little different today and look at what each line is saying in this Lesson. Sometimes we do that in our gatherings in studying the message of the Lesson. I find that all Lessons are better understood when we take the time to focus on each line and even each word. It slows us down and causes us to reflect deeply on the overall message. The message here is to be aware of how we are hurting ourselves all the time when we attack, hold grievances, focus on our specialness, on our pleasures and what we think we need. We suffer when we want something and we suffer when we get it because then we fear losing it. Jesus reminds us, we are not the victim of anything in this world, but we actually choose our suffering because it attests to our belief that we exist as a separate, individual identity while not being responsible for our pain. Thus, to invite pain into our lives, which may seem to be under the guise of pleasure, is a way to establish we exist and our reality is that of a body. We set up defenses against aging, disease, decay and death. Jesus reminds us, "Truth cannot deal with errors that you want." (T.3.IV.7.2)(ACIM OE T.3.VI.48 -> "God and the Souls He created remain in surety, and therefore know that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal with unwilling error because it does not will to be blocked out.") We want these things to prove we are right about who we are. It is time to release these beliefs that do not affirm our reality.

"Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function." (W.330.1.1) Jesus starts with the idea that we not hurt ourselves again today. He follows this with the reminder that the only way to escape the pain of our lives is to accept forgiveness as our only function. To refuse to forgive is one way we hurt ourselves, as forgiveness is only for ourselves. In Lesson 328, Jesus said, by choosing our own independent will we bring about sickness, suffering, loss and death, and our independent will is one of always wanting to gain at someone's expense. By bringing our unloving thoughts to the light of truth, we will see our brothers as guiltless. This is salvation's simple formula, because when we see our brother as innocent, we will know our own innocence and thus our own divine nature that has never left God.
 
"Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain?" (W.330.1.2) This raises the question of how do I attack my mind? Every time I attack someone, defend myself, make a judgment, make myself better or more righteous, hold anger in my mind, hold grievances, hurt anyone, blame anyone, or obsess about my fears and expectations, I am attacking my own mind. The Course is clear that anything I do to my brother I am doing to myself. If I hurt you in any way, I am hurting myself. If I expect or demand anything from you, I am seeing myself as lacking. If we saw our attacks on our brothers as reflections of the guilt in our own minds, and through these attacks we now believe we deserve punishment in return, would we want to continue to attack? Our attack thoughts bring forth images of pain, which is everything we experience as bodies in this world.

"The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream." (T.27.VIII.10.1-6)(ACIM OE T.27.IX.86).

"Why should we teach them [our minds] they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs? " (W.330.1.3) Jesus reminds us again in Lesson 329, we are already one with God. We can't change our reality as His Son, but we are unaware of who we really are. We have chosen to forget. Our minds are as powerful as God's. What we have done is made a choice for the ego and interposed a second will as powerful as God's. God can't overpower our will. His gift to us is our freedom to do as we choose. We are the ones who made our bodies to suffer and die to prove we really aren't the unlimited, powerful eternal beings God says we are. Who is right? God or the ego?

Jesus tells us, the only source of happiness is to know our own true will. When we attack, we feel guilty, and guilt demands a punishment we believe we deserve, and thus we fear the future. The ego has set up a cycle of sin, guilt and fear. In this loop, we are never free. We never experience the present moment. We feel powerless and victimized by the seeming reality of the human condition. We feel at the mercy of the world, but it all starts with our own minds. We are the only ones who can choose to break this cycle. Jesus is inviting us to do just that, by realizing we are not the characters in this dream who seem to suffer and die. We are, in fact, the dreamer of the dream. We can take responsibility for everything that seems to happen to us, recognizing it all starts in our own minds. Now we have a choice. We choose to see with the ego or with the Holy Spirit. We allow the ego to interpret events for us or we turn to the Holy Spirit for His interpretation. When we release our mistaken perceptions given us by the ego, and give them over to the Holy Spirit, our minds are healed. The world has not hurt us. All of our suffering comes only from our own wrong choice in the mind.

"The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own." (W.330.1.4) Our minds are made willing through forgiveness. Every time we resist the temptation to defend ourselves, every time we resist the temptation to attack, every time we show willingness to release grievances, every time we are willing to extend love, and when we are willing to surrender our way and ask for help, we make our minds ready and willing to accept the gifts God is holding out to us. We can't take hold of these gifts while we still justify our anger, see ourselves as victims and continue to hold our judgments.

Every time we bring our images of pain, which we blame on the conditions of our lives, back to the mind where another choice can be made, the mind is restored and we are united with the Will of God. It is all about willingness. Notice how much we resist. Notice how we relish our resentments and even nurture them, and notice how we hurt ourselves in doing so. Studies have shown that people initially experience revenge as sweet. It ignites the same pleasure sensors in our brains as does eating chocolate, but this is only temporary, because with it comes more self-attack and more guilt. Thus, we live in the insanity of hurting ourselves on a daily basis. We are doing it all to ourselves by actively keeping ourselves from the peace and joy that is our inheritance!

"The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer." (W.330.1.5) Only in this dream do we believe we have sinned and suffer the consequences. When we accept forgiveness into the mind, we demonstrate that we are not powerless and that there is another way of perceiving. We suffer when we attack. When we accept forgiveness in our mind and experience our own innocence, we connect with the Self behind the image of this seeming body and personality, and our suffering is released. This is the way out of the ego cycle of sin, guilt and attack. The door is open and Jesus is inviting us to make this choice. The means are offered us in every person and situation we encounter in the classroom of our lives, which always provides us with the choice to condemn or forgive. Now we are using time for its intended purpose and now our relationships and the world have new meaning.

"Let us choose today that He [the Self that God created] be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us." (W.330.1.6) While we believe we deserve to be hurt because of what we have done, Jesus keeps reminding us, we can escape this dream by making another choice. We don't always want to forgive because we are very invested in our way of seeing. The temptation to attack is very strong in us. We want to gain at the expense of others. While it looks like we have gained at the expense of our brothers, all we get is more pain and more suffering. We think we can buy our innocence by putting our guilt on others and thus making ourselves feel more righteous or superior. This is our perceived payoff.

Thus, our motivation to forgive must be strengthened through application. The motivation becomes stronger when, through forgiveness, we feel redeemed. Our happiness and our peace are established when our attack thoughts are released. When we choose to forgive, we are choosing the miracle. We are choosing to see with the eyes of Christ. We are choosing to accept Atonement (the Correction) for ourselves. We are choosing to know the truth of who we are. We are choosing to know ourselves as the powerful, eternal beings we are and thus we "escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us." (W.330.1.6)

"Father, Your Son can not be hurt." (W.330.2.1) The 'me' who seemingly can be hurt is simply the identity I know as Sarah, a body, and a concept and personality of who I think I am. What can't be hurt is the eternal Self I have blocked with the images I have made of myself and the mistaken thoughts about myself. The truth is, we can awaken to the reality of our Self as pure love and one with all that is, forever changeless. Until that time, we need to recognize that by our own decision we are limiting ourselves and hurting ourselves. Now we can take responsibility for this decision. Through forgiveness, we open up to the truth of who we are, and it is a process. We will not be hurled into Heaven.

"And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You. We would return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were." (W.330.2.2-3)

Healing requires a willingness to be very honest with ourselves about our hurts and allow whatever feelings there are surrounding them to be brought to awareness, acknowledged fully, and investigated, without distracting from them, indulging them or running away from them. As long as the charge is still there, there is something to release. It is not enough to manage the feelings that hurt us. We are good at that. What is important is to acknowledge what we are feeling and investigate the thoughts we are holding and the beliefs and values that accompany them. Thus, we surrender more deeply with each opportunity that triggers reactions in us. I acknowledge that I don't know what is best for me. I don't know what anything is for, and I don't know what God's Will for me looks like in this situation. Thus, I see that my attachment to outcomes makes me blind to what is possible, which is always the miracle.

A Course in Miracles

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