Attack and Defense

When we look at the world, attack seems to be everywhere.

Ukraine and Russia // Gaza and Israel.

The United States bombing somewhere far away.

A shooting in a supermarket.

A bus accident on the other side of the world.

We know everything…all the time…..everywhere.

And while I look, something happens in me. I feel outrage, sadness, helplessness, and at the same time, a pull toward defense and

justification. Toward “this should not happen” and “something must be done.”

And suddenly there it is: the conflict within my own mind.

Lesson 153 of A Course in Miracles states it plainly:

“The world gives rise but to defensiveness.”

The world I perceive calls forth defense, and defense seems reasonable, logical, even morally right, but the Course goes further:

Defensiveness testifies to weakness.

Not because I am wrong or bad, but because defense always says:

I believe I am threatened, and that belief is exactly where attack and defense meet.

Here is the point we cannot avoid: <There is no world outside my own

world>.

This does not mean a war “does not exist.”

It means that the experience of a war takes place in my mind.

At this moment, I am dreaming:

war…victims..perpetrators…defenders..right and wrong.

And within that dream, something in me is fighting:

a part that wants to intervene, wants to protect or to condemn,

and a part that longs for peace.

The world does not show me this conflict to overwhelm me,

but to make it visible.

We all remember the pandemic….It did the same. Enormous waves of

fear.

Everything has become bigger, sharper, impossible to ignore,because

it can no longer remain hidden.

At this point, a practical misunderstanding often arises: defenselessness

is mistaken for passivity or physical recklessness.

There is a small story about the Buddha that illustrates this beautifully:

A man once said to him:

“You never defend yourself. You seem to think defense is never necessary.”

Then he pointed to a lion nearby and said mockingly:

“If that is true, why don’t you just walk past that lion?”

The Buddha smiled and replied calmly:

“Because I have no need to put my body in danger unnecessarily.

Not defending oneself does not mean giving up intelligence.”

In some versions he adds:

“I do not walk past the lion, but I also do not run away in fear.”

This is exactly what ACIM is pointing to.

The Course does not ask me to become defenseless in behavior, to be naïve or passive or being politically indifferent.

What it asks is something far more radical: Take responsibility for your own mind!!!!

For this moment of choosing within me. Because as long as I believe that defense brings safety, I am still thinking within the same system that

makes war seem necessary.

This is not guilt. It is honesty.

Lesson 153 also says: “Defenselessness is strength.”

This means:

I no longer believe that attack or defense will save me.

I do not need to choose sides in guilt in order to choose love in my mind.

I do not need to make someone a villain to declare myself innocent.

I do not need to fix the world in order to let my mind rest.

The world is shouting today.

So loudly that it can no longer be ignored, but perhaps it is telling me only one thing:

Look. This is what happens when you believe safety comes from defense.

And then my only work is not out there, but in here:

at the choice between attack and peace,

which presents itself in my own mind, moment by moment.

Not tomorrow.Not when the world has changed. But NOW !!

And perhaps that is exactly why everything has become so visible.

So visible simply to help me see…and choose, in every moment:

L O V E.

With love and light,

G.