When we think of attack, it usually brings to mind images of war or some sort of physical assault. In A Course in Miracles (Searchable ACIM Audio), attack means much more than causing bodily harm. We’ve all been the victim of less obvious attacks where we come away feeling all alone, angry and victimized by others; and in return, we victimize them by retaliating. All attack is considered a call for love because the person is experiencing a condition of the idea of separation. We never attack another unless we already agreed (chose) to believe ourselves separate and different.
Something that is part of the teachings in the Course, but not widely understood as a core teaching, is that anyone who is suffering, in pain, sick, ill, upset, feeling alone, desperate, has problems, needs, lack, etc., is experiencing the belief in separation. What they don’t need is someone to attack them and increase their feeling of separation and guilt. This does not heal and only serves to further the ego errors for both the victim and victimizer. The catch is the victimizer (attacker) is also experiencing the separation because they would not attack another if they understood it to be themselves (not separate). Victim and victimizer are the two sides of the same coin of error.
We don’t join with brothers until we remove all traces of attack from the mind. Attack is the behavior from choosing with the ego to keep guilt projected on another, versus looking within, and it denies the Truth. Withdrawal from attack and correcting our own mind, no matter what, is the key to freedom. If we really want to grasp the Course by practicing forgiveness, we have to learn to catch ourselves in the ego trick of using the Course for attack. It’s very covert (hidden and not obvious) until you realize how it works and that it follows the very principles the Course is training the mind to give up as ego judgments.
Course Students
As Course students, we can be some of the most awful victimizers and very unkind towards others under the guise of knowing the Course teachings. We forget that our primary focus is on paying attention to how we feel about what we are perceiving in another. We never attack, and are never upset, for the reasons we think.
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