VII: The Totality of the Kingdom 7-11
7. One child of God is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach another. One Teacher is in all minds and He teaches the same lesson to all. He always teaches you the inestimable worth of every Son of God, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite Love for which He speaks. Every attack is a call for His patience since His patience can translate attack into blessing. Those who attack do not know they are blessed. They attack because they believe they are deprived. Give, therefore, of your abundance, and teach your brothers theirs. Do not share their illusions of scarcity, or you will perceive yourself as lacking.
8. Attack could never promote attack unless you perceived it as a means of depriving you of something you want. Yet you cannot lose anything unless you do not value it, and therefore do not want it. This makes you feel deprived of it, and by projecting your own rejection you then believe that your brother is attacking you to tear the Kingdom of Heaven from you. This is the ultimate basis for all the ego’s projection.
9. Being the part of your mind that does not believe it is responsible for itself, and being without allegiance to God, the ego is incapable of trust. Projecting its insane belief that you have been treacherous to your Creator, it believes that your brothers, who are as incapable of this as you are, are out to take God from you. Whenever a brother attacks another, that is what he believes. Projection always sees your wishes in others. If you choose to separate yourself from God, that is what you will think others are doing to you.
10. You are the Will of God. Do not accept anything else as your will, or you are denying what you are. Deny this and you will attack, believing you have been attacked. But see the Love of God in you, and you will see it everywhere because it is everywhere. See His abundance in everyone, and you will know that you are in Him with them. They are part of you, as you are part of God. You are as lonely without understanding this as God Himself is lonely when His Sons do not know Him. The peace of God is understanding this. There is only one way out of the world’s thinking, just as there was only one way into it. Understand totally by understanding totality.
11. Perceive any part of the ego’s thought system as wholly insane, wholly delusional, and wholly undesirable, and you have correctly evaluated all of it. This correction enables you to perceive any part of creation as wholly real, wholly perfect, and wholly desirable. Wanting this only you will have this only and giving this only you will be only this. The gifts you offer to the ego are always experienced as sacrifices, but the gifts you offer to the Kingdom are gifts to you. They will always be treasured by God because they belong to His beloved Sons, who belong to Him. All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His. [1]
We are here to teach one another; we are worthy teachers to one another; and all of us have the same Holy Spirit within us which teaches us the same lesson. If we lean toward any other voice that tells us that we are not worthy and beloved Sons of God, if we heed a voice that scolds, lectures, and shames, who puts undue burdens upon us and makes our walk with God seem tedious, stressful, or heavy in any way, we are not listening to the Voice for God. For God’s Voice within each one of us is one of infinite Love. Attack does not call for attack, but for patience because Holy Spirit interprets all attack into blessing. All attack comes from feelings of being deprived – so Jesus tells us to give of our abundance and teach abundance to others. We are not to share any illusions of scarcity, limitation, or lack in others, but to remind our brothers of their abundance, to show them how to recognize the reality of their blessings.
This was a mistake that I often made thinking that I was being “nice” to people by listening to all their complaints, tsking over the perceived wrongs that they suffer at the actions of others and agreeing with them about their ill treatment. I would give them what seemed like reasonable advice on how to protect themselves from those who were mean, spiteful, jealous, and untrustworthy. But Jesus tells us that when others attack us they feel as if someone has deprived them, which cannot be true in any eternal sense of the word. We are not to agree with their wrong perception, because if we agree with their wrong perception, it would be like jumping in the raging sea of nothingness with them instead of pulling them out to the reality of certain safety and peace.
Just as agreeing with someone’s tale of woe is never the answer, so attack is never the correct response to attack of any kind. Nobody can take anything that has true value away from us unless we do not want it anymore. So when we let thoughts of attack justify attacking others in return, we think it is okay to throw away who and what we are in God and become the version of us that the ego projects upon us.
We needlessly get ourselves worked up into caricatures of the ego’s making when we identify with the ego’s untrustworthiness and forget our allegiance to God. We always feel bad about this afterwards, ashamed of our lack of warmth, love, wisdom, and graciousness, embarrassed by our temper tantrums, our selfishness, our ignorance, our spite which the ego projects upon us and project it upon others. Jesus tells us in paragraph nine that projection always sees our wishes in others. When we choose to separate ourselves from the God in us, we will blame others for doing it to us.
How does this play out in our daily lives? A personal example in my own life bears sharing. When I play along with the ego’s game plan, my mind can easily find plenty of reasons for choosing to be grumpy, ill-mannered, and ungracious. I am grumpy because James forgot to get the coffee ready last night even though this is not really his job – when I get up in the morning and the coffee is not ready to go, the ego will encourage me to pity myself – oh if I do not get the coffee ready the night before nobody else thinks of doing it, ever. Poor little me. If I fail in exhibiting good manners when I am out with my friends and talk over people, interrupt others while they are still talking, brag about my accomplishments, or make fun of other people, it is not my fault! It is because my friends do all that and to be part of their group, I must also engage in bad behavior, or they will think of me as a priss and party-pooper. If I am ungracious toward a guest it is always because they were ungracious to me, never reciprocated all my past kindnesses and so they do not deserve my graciousness because they overstay their welcome, do not pick up after themselves, or any of a host of other reasons that the ego can use to get me to throw away God’s Kingdom.
We may think that it is a strong term to say God’s Kingdom is my good cheer, goodwill, good manners, and graciousness, but these attributes make up the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is a spiritual realm where we do not only possess attributes, we are them. When we throw these attributes away because of some perceived injustice or attack in the world, we are literally throwing away God’s Kingdom within us. We are choosing to go with the ego’s story of us – pathetic little whiners, weasels, and wimps at the mercy of other pathetic little whiners, weasels, and wimps, simpletons all, rather than who and what we are in and as God’s Kingdom.
When we do not accept this about ourselves, we are denying God’s Will in our lives. God’s Will is not what we are going to wear today, eat today, or go today. God’s Will is that we are His Attributes, His Sons, His Gifts. Denying this, we will fall into the traps of ego – we will attack part of the Sonship and not realize that we are attacking all of it!
But see that we are the Love of God, and we will see it everywhere. We will see His abundance in ourselves as we see it in everyone. We will know each other as one in God. It is important for us to realize this, to understand this, for we will be lonely as God is lonely when we do not know Him in totality. Herein lies our peace for it is the peace of God. Ask Holy Spirit to awaken your mind and help you understand totally by understanding totality. This may go against all our traditional religious instruction which divides us into different belief systems, different names for God and for His Son, and casts blights and curses upon others who do not believe like us, legitimizing attack upon each other rather than the totality of God’s Kingdom.
When we understand that any part of the ego’s thought system is irrational and not the least bit desirable, we have rightly understood all of it. This helps us perceive that the opposite is also true – that when we see any small part of creation as real, perfect, and completely desirable, our minds will be open to see that this is the truth about all of creation. When we want only this, we will have only this, and when we have only this, we give only this, and when we give only this, we become only this. This is how God’s Kingdom is restored to our awareness and becomes real to us once again.
Pay homage to the ego, and it will cost us time, money, effort, and a sense of sacrifice for the ego demands sacrifice. But when we share the attributes of God, the attributes of God are restored to us. Our gifts are treasured by God because they belong to His Sonship who belong to Him. All power and glory are ours because the Kingdom is God’s, and we are part of His Kingdom.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 7 The Gifts of the Kingdom VII The totality of the kingdom 7-11. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
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