¹ You who were created by Love like Itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. It is the decision to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to death.

² Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your awareness. It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself.

³ Shut off from your Self, Who remains aware of His likeness to His Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For he who holds grievances denies he was created by Love, and his Creator has become fearful to him in his dream of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God?

⁴ It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image as it is certain that God created them like Himself and defined them as part of Him. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are as it is certain that those who forgive will remember. Would you not be willing to relinquish your grievances if you believed all this were so?

⁵ Perhaps you do not think you can let all your grievances go. That, however, is simply a question of motivation. Today we will try to find out how you would feel without them. If you succeed even by ever so little, there will never be a problem in motivation ever again.

⁶ Begin today's extended practice period by searching your mind for those against whom you hold what you regard as major grievances. Some of these will be quite easy to find. Then think of the seemingly minor grievances you hold against those you like and even think you love. It will quickly become apparent that there is no one against whom you do not cherish grievances of some sort. This has left you alone in all the universe in your perception of yourself.

⁷ Determine now to see all these people as friends. Say to them all collectively, thinking of each one in turn as you do so:

⁸ I would see you as my friend that I may remember you are part of me and come to know myself.

⁹ Spend the remainder of the practice period trying to think of yourself as completely at peace with everyone and everything, safe in a world which protects you and loves you and which you love in return. Try to feel safety surrounding you, hovering over you, and holding you up. Try to believe, however briefly, that nothing can harm you in any way. At the end of the practice period tell yourself:

¹⁰ Love holds no grievances. When I let all my grievances go, I will know I am perfectly safe.

¹¹ The short practice periods should include a quick application of today's idea in this form, whenever any thought of grievance arises against anyone, physically present or not:

¹² Love holds no grievances. Let me not betray my Self.

¹³ In addition, repeat the idea several times an hour in this form:

¹⁴ Love holds no grievances. I would wake to my Self by laying all my grievances aside and wakening in Him.

Course in Miracles

Original Edition

TEXT

Chapter 6

Attack and Fear



IV. The Relinquishment

of Attack

par 39-44

³⁹ We have used many words as synonymous which are not ordinarily regarded as the same. We began with having and being and more recently have used others. Hearing and being are examples, to which we can also add teaching and being, learning and being and, above all, projecting and being. This is because, as we have said before, every idea begins in the mind of the thinker and extends outward. Therefore, what extends from the mind is still in it, and from what it extends it knows itself. That is its natural talent. The word "knows" is correct here, even though the ego does not know and is not concerned with being at all.

⁴⁰ The Holy Spirit still holds knowledge safe through His impartial perception. By attacking nothing, He presents no barrier at all to the communication of God. Thus, being is never threatened. Your Godlike mind can never be defiled. The ego never was and never will be part of it, but through the ego you can hear and teach and learn what is not true. From this, which you have made, you have taught yourselves to believe that you are not what you are. You cannot teach what you have not learned, and what you teach you strengthen in yourselves because you are sharing it. Every lesson you teach you are learning.

⁴¹ That is why you must teach only one lesson. If you are to be conflict-free yourselves, you must learn only from the Holy Spirit and teach only by Him. You are only love, but when you denied this you made what you are something you must learn. We said before that the message of the crucifixion was, "Teach only love, for that is what you are." This is the one lesson which is perfectly unified because it is the only lesson which is one. Only by teaching it can you learn it. "As you teach, so will you learn." If that is true, and it is true indeed, you must never forget that what you teach is teaching you. What you project you believe.

⁴² The only real safety lies in projecting only the Holy Spirit because, as you see His gentleness in others, your own mind perceives itself as totally harmless. Once it can accept this fully, it does not see the need to protect itself. The protection of God then dawns upon it, assuring it that it is perfectly safe forever. The perfectly safe are wholly benign. They bless because they know they are blessed. Without anxiety the mind is wholly kind and because it projects beneficence, it is beneficent.

⁴³ Safety is the complete relinquishment of attack. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form, and you have learned it, and it will hurt you. Yet your learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it by not teaching it. Since you cannot not teach, your salvation lies in teaching the exact opposite of everything the ego believes. This is how you will learn the truth that will set you free and keep you so, as others learn it of you. The only way to have peace is to teach peace. By learning it through projection, it becomes a part of what you know because you cannot teach what you have dissociated.

⁴⁴ Only thus can you win back the knowledge that you threw away. An idea which you share, you must have. It awakens in you through the conviction of teaching. Remember that, if teaching is being and learning is being, then teaching is learning. Everything you teach, you are learning. Teach only love, and learn that love is yours and you are love.

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