My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.
This is another crucial lesson and, as I just indicated, takes our learning (and practice) one step further. If I have attack thoughts, I must believe I am vulnerable. If I believe I am vulnerable, I cannot be Christ because He is invulnerable. If, as Jesus will repeatedly remind me, “I am as God created me,”* and if my reality is spirit, I must be one with everything and everyone. Therefore, there is literally nothing and no one “out there” who could hurt me. However, as long as I believe I can be hurt – whether in my own body or through someone else’s – I am attesting to my vulnerability. Moreover, in saying I am vulnerable I am also saying that I am right in my self-evaluation and the Holy Spirit is wrong.
(1:1-3) It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. You see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really attack.
The very fact that I am here is proving to me that I can really attack, because I could only have gotten here by attacking God first. And I “know” I have attacked first because I perceive attack all around me. The dynamic of projection helps me to understand how this phenomenon of perception of attack occurs: projection makes perception – what I perceive outside is the projection of what I have made real inside, a point we shall pick up again:
(1:4-6) And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. It is this law that will ultimately save you, but you are misusing it now. You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.
As we have seen several times in these early lessons, the inner and outer are one and the same. The thought of attacking and the thought of being attacked come from the same thought system. We project out our ego thoughts, and then believe they are going to hurt us in return. As Jesus teaches in the text, in the context of our needing to project (“get rid of”) conflict (“what we do not want”):
“…the idea that you can get rid of something you do not want by giving it away. Giving it is how you keep it. The belief that by seeing it outside you have excluded it from within is a complete distortion of the power of extension. That is why those who project are vigilant for their own safety. They are afraid that their projections will return and hurt them. Believing they have blotted their projections from their own minds, they also believe their projections are trying to creep back in (T-7.VIII.3:6-11).”
It is also true, as we have seen, that the Love of God we allow to come through us in forgiveness will come back to us as well – it is that Love we shall perceive all around us; either expressions of it or calls for it.
The laws of projection and extension operate similarly, but with different contents. That is why, early in the text, Jesus speaks of projection as the “inappropriate use of extension” (T-2.I.1:7) – it was the same law of the mind, simply “misused,” leading to miscreation instead of creation. This law will ultimately save us in another sense as well, because it reflects that everything is an illusion. What seems to be outside is an illusion because what seems to be inside – the ego thought system – is an illusion. Recognizing this is the ego’s undoing.
(2:1-2) Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable.
This is what proves that you are right and Jesus is wrong. Jesus asks: “Why are you so upset? All of this is a dream.” And we say to him: “What do you mean all of this is a dream? Look at how I have been attacked! Look at how I suffer and all the pain I am feeling! Look at what other people are feeling – we are all vulnerable! Please do not tell me this is a dream.” That is how we prove our perceptions are correct. Our pain – whether in others or in ourselves – is final proof that God is dead and we exist in His stead.
(2:3-5) Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. They contradict each other.
If I perceive attack thoughts in you, it is only because I have first made them real for myself, which I have done out of the wish to make my separation from God – the original attack – real as well. It is only after that decision to establish attack as real that my ego’s plan calls for me to project them out, thereby rendering me vulnerable to my perceived attack from others. It is clear that these attack thoughts – again, reflective of the separation from God and hence from everyone else – “cannot be accepted together” with our invulnerability as God created us. This is yet another way of saying that God and the ego are mutually exclusive. The dynamic of dissociation is what enables us to maintain these contradictory beliefs in our minds, as the text explains in these two passages:
“The ego and the spirit do not know each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating (T-4.VI.4:1-2).”
“Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief which cannot coexist are both maintained. If they are brought together, their joint acceptance becomes impossible. But if one is kept in darkness from the other, their separation seems to keep them both alive and equal in their reality. Their joining thus becomes the source of fear, for if they meet, acceptance must be withdrawn from one of them. You cannot have them both, for each denies the other. Apart, this fact is lost from sight, for each in a separate place can be endowed with firm belief (T-14.VII.4:3-8 ).”
(3:1) The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself first.
To repeat, if I perceive you attacking me and then react as if that were true, it is only because I attacked first. This has nothing to do with behavior, for the attack exists only in my mind. Today’s idea is reflected well in an incisive passage in the text: “If he speaks not of Christ to you, you spoke not of Christ to him” (T-11.V.18:6). Projection is the ruling principle governing the activity of the mind, since it determines how we perceive the world around us. Remember, perception is interpretation: how we see, not what we see.
It cannot be said too often that in order to properly understand passages such as these, the student must realize that Jesus is never talking about what people are doing behaviorally, but only about our perception of what others are doing. When you feel you have been attacked by another, you have interpreted their behavior. This does not mean you do not see attack thoughts in other people – Jesus sees attack thoughts in all his students. It is in our judgments that the attack thoughts are made real. Thus we read in the manual for teachers:
“Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appears as facts (M-17.4:1-2).”
(3:2-5) If attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you in your own eyes. Thus they have attacked your perception of yourself. And because you believe in them, you can no longer believe in yourself. A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are.
Having weakened ourselves in our own eyes (our vulnerability), we have once again proven we are right and the Holy Spirit is wrong; we are sons of the ego instead of Sons of God. We no longer believe we are the Christ, of which the Holy Spirit in our right minds is the reminder. We have replaced the truth of who we are with a false image – a special, unique, and individualized self. Again, it is our use of dissociation that allows us to maintain two contradictory images of ourselves: the truth of knowledge we have chosen to forget, and the illusion of attack we choose to remember. These passages cogently describe this dynamic and its undoing through the Holy Spirit:
“Unless you first know something you cannot dissociate it. Knowledge must precede dissociation, so that dissociation is nothing more than a decision to forget…. Offer the Holy Spirit only your willingness to remember, for He retains the knowledge of God and of yourself for you, waiting for your acceptance…. His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him when you are willing to remember Him and know your own reality again…. To remember is merely to restore to your mind what is already there. You do not make what you remember; you merely accept again what is already there, but was rejected….
When you attack, you are denying yourself…. Your denial of reality precludes the acceptance of God’s gift, because you have accepted something else in its place…. This is always an attack on truth, and truth is God…. All attack is Self attack… [and] is thus the way in which your identification is lost, because when you attack, you must have forgotten what you are. And if your reality is God’s, when you attack you are not remembering Him (T-10.II.1:1-2; 2:3,5; 3:1-2; 4:1,3-4; 5:1,4-5).”
(4) Practice with today’s idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.
The focus of our exercises is solely on our thoughts, the source of the problem and its solution. Indeed, everything is thought, acceptance of which is the aim of the workbook’s mind training. These thoughts are not of a physical organ, the brain, but of the mind, coming from identifying either with the ego or Jesus. From these two thoughts or thought systems – guilt or innocence – arise a world and our perception of the world. If you feel yourself attacked, you have chosen the ego as your teacher and therefore believe you are vulnerable and deserve attack. This has nothing to do with behavior; it has to do only with the way you perceive the behavior. On the other hand, if we remember our invulnerability as God’s perfect creation, our perception of the world changes accordingly. A passage near the end of the text succinctly expresses the principle that projection makes perception:
“The lessons to be learned are only two. Each has its outcome in a different world. And each world follows surely from its source. The certain outcome of the lesson that God’s Son is guilty is the world you see. It is a world of terror and despair. Nor is there hope of happiness in it…. Yet this is not the only outcome which your learning can produce…. The outcome of the lesson that God’s Son is guiltless is a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you (T-31.I.7:1-6,9; 8:1-2).”
The rest of the lesson presents an exercise and instructions with which we are quite familiar by now. The focus, as always, is on our thoughts and feelings that seem to upset us, looking at them as dispassionately as possible, and with more than cursory attention. It is this thoughtful non-evaluation that allows us to understand that these upsets all share the same underlying purpose of keeping us from the Thought of Love, which our thoughts attempt to conceal. In other words, all forms of upset reflect the hidden content of attacking ourselves by denying Who we are as God’s one Son.
(5-7) Six practice periods are required in applying today’s idea. A full two minutes should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minute if the discomfort is too great. Do not reduce it further.
The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing your eyes and reviewing the unresolved questions whose outcomes are causing you concern. The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of imposition, fear, foreboding or preoccupation. Any problem as yet unsettled that tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable subject. You will not be able to use very many for any one practice period, because a longer time than usual should be spent with each one. Today’s idea should be applied as follows:
First, name the situation:
I am concerned about ___________.
Then go over every possible outcome that has occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:
I am afraid ___________ will happen.
This exercise reflects the ego’s axiomatic principle: guilt demands punishment, an outcome we justifiably fear. Our concerns of what will happen – “the unresolved questions whose outcome are causing you concern” – inevitable lead to fear of what will happen. We thus have no choice but to erect defenses against these objects of our fear, predicted by our guilt. We shall return later on to this important theme of defense.
(8-9) If you are doing the exercises properly, you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each situation you use, and quite possibly more. It is much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number. As the list of anticipated outcomes for each situation continues, you will probably find some of them, especially those that occur to you toward the end, less acceptable to you. Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can.
After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:
That thought is an attack upon myself.
Conclude each practice period by repeating today’s idea to yourself once more.
This, of course, is the point. We bring the darkness of our illusions to the light of Jesus’ truth. The problem is not with the outcome we expect, but with the underlying decision to attack ourselves by denying God. After these first twenty-five lessons, you can see how – step by step, lesson by lesson – Jesus is slowly and gently guiding us to the specific experience of the more abstract teachings in the text.
* There are more than 140 occurrences of this concept throughout A Course in Miracles.
