Monday, May 14, 2007

Lesson 135:

If I defend myself I am attacked…

This lesson brings home to us where we must operate from if we are identified with being a body, in a world of bodies, surviving and trying to be happy here... It brings to mind the subversive, undermining quality inherent in self-initiated plans, which, pretty much are a requirement for survival, if one believes this world real…

You know, I didn’t even hear the part in the lesson about ‘self-initiated plans and that planning was a defense against the truth and trusting the Holy Spirit, the first couple of times I did the lessons. I was way too caught-up in what it was saying about the body identification, since I was aware that body identification was where I was doing business from in my so-called life at the time. The simple logic is clear: if I am, or feel I need to defend myself, whether it is my body or my position or even opinion, I must be identifying myself as weak and in need of protection. I must feel fairly insecure within my ’self’ if I’m always in constant defense… The next natural connection is how this applied to relationships. The body’s entire defense system; smarts, status, looks, etc. are for the purpose of having relationships one can feel one control-by-self-design, and to keep its parameters protected.

Needless to say, at some point, I came to realize that ‘i’ (self-concept-self) was only having imaginary relationships with imaginary figures and an imaginary ‘self’. Unsatisfying.

So much of what passes for ‘connection’ conversation; even entire ‘special relationships’ in this world is based in this defense posture. We pose as confident figures to be reckoned with, while secretly we feel vulnerable and weak and vigilant to maintain seeming control. We impose our ‘self-importance’ onto all situations and conversations, seeing only the dynamics that will support or threaten, all in defense keeping hidden the dark, secret self, beneath. We are all the ‘hero’ of the dream we dream… The miracle brings to mind another way of perceiving everything. While seemingly still constructed as before, yet unified purpose, it offers a single meaning. One which forgives by recognizing the false for what it is. We see that the truth of who we are reflected upon the dream instead…

Back to this thing about self-imitated plans… Here’s how it went for me. I really could not help but notice that my best laid plans never really worked out the way I hoped…It seems one can’t really control all the aspects and possibilities that could figure in to the outcome…

I was one who felt safe in structure; give me the rules, how to get the job done and what results I could expect, if I agreed that it would further perpetuate my self-concept, I could deal, work hard, succeed… I ask only that the structure need deliver on its promises, what I decided it promised… No need to trust ~ I had a contract, if only in my mind… What happened for me was that, when faced with the futility of gaining security, certainty and happiness through this structure-system was a complete bust, I saw it for what it was instead, merely a dream about a world of which I was but a part. I dropped my defenses, with white flag in hand, I ask for the other way…

Through the miracle, I began to experience myself as the dreamer of this dream. I also began to see that all its scenes and scenarios were written in the past; couched in precepts that simply weren’t relevant to the present experience of love that forgiveness offered me. Part of the undoing of my thought system included looking at how making plans (that’s any desired outcome in mind) immediately put me under the guidance of the voice for which the plan was made. And I would be swept-up in the future-izing momentum of my plan. That rendered me temporarily unavailable to hear the Voice for God within my mind…

Here’s the twisted part. It seemed I’d be beholden to play it (self-initiated plan) out till my plans failed. Or (gratefully), until I would come to some out of time instant of awareness that I was the dreamer of the dream and I could dream the dream of trust in God’s plan, instead.

As my experience with allowing the Holy Spirit to guide increased, and forgiveness began to reflect a different world, I began to experience trust. I didn’t know that I had never felt trust before. As a matter of fact I would have argued a case for it… but everything in illusion is conditional and limited.

It was not until I began to experience the peace of God that comes to the mind when it is truly still an instant, that the awareness of trust began to give meaning to my life and my function here.

OF COURSE, it’s all being handled for the best possible good, for each seeming individual, at the stage of belief in the time-space cosmos, they have placed themselves, at any given moment or circumstance!

Only Mind vast enough to see the entire picture, every fine nuance, the past, future and the wholeness beyond the fragments, uniting them in One Moment, NOW… which is the return to eternity… Could be in charge, Yes!? Dud, that’s not me.

Somewhere in my mind I had taken on the mantra “Everything goes my way”, and now I was beginning to see why… What it meant wasn’t what I originally had it wired-up as, part of ‘creating my own reality’ doctrine, which is forgiven as one recognizes First Cause: Creation is of God and that which is not of Him exists not at all.

The ‘my’ of my mantra was no longer speaking for the self of concepts, but was revealing itself as the Self~ the true identity in God. … When the temptation to defend arises, it is now seen as a forgiveness lesson, easily learned, for the yummy award of certainty that accompanies trust in God’s plan for salvation…

From today’s lesson:”... And in the light and joy of simple trust, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release…If I defend myself I am attacked. But in defenselessness I will be strong, and I will learn what my defenses hide… Nothing but that. We present our self to our Creator as we really are”.

Thank you for joining me in this memory of defenselessness and trust… everything does go our way, for ours is the way God appointed it to be…

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