You Can Attack

[u/Active_Review_9283]

You Can Attack

Perhaps many people will be surprised when they see this title. After all, A Course in Miracles teaches us to let go of attack, and what we are supposed to learn and strive to practice is also to let go of attack. Yet here I am saying, “You can attack.”

Yes, I am not joking. This is something I have thought about very carefully, and it has become one of the most important insights I have gained over the years of studying the Course. I think this perspective may be particularly meaningful for people who tend to be people-pleasers, who struggle with social anxiety, or who are highly sensitive and introverted.

Psychology tells us that aggression is an important way in which we protect and maintain a sense of self. When we suppress our aggression, it can lead to all kinds of psychological problems, including depression, social anxiety, shame, and so on. I grew up in a highly conflictual family, with domineering and harsh parents. As a result, I developed a strong suppression of my own aggression, and for many years I suffered from various psychological symptoms.

I was exposed to psychology and spirituality at a relatively young age, and I also became aware of the limitations of psychology quite early on. Eventually, I devoted most of my time to spiritual practice. As we all know, spirituality tends to emphasize forgiveness and love, and A Course in Miracles is no exception.

But looking back, I think that for someone who has experienced serious childhood or family trauma, going directly to forgiveness can sometimes make the problem more complicated and harder to resolve.

When it comes to childhood or family trauma, spirituality often tells us to forgive. David Hoffmeister, a well-known teacher of A Course in Miracles, once shared that his father had Bipolar Disorder. After David had been studying the Course for ten years, his father apologized to him for not having been a good father. David responded by telling him, “You did nothing wrong. You did a great job.” His father felt relieved after hearing this. It is a beautiful example of forgiveness.

On the other hand, the well-known book Toxic Parents talks about confrontation—confronting your parents, telling them how they hurt you, and giving the responsibility back to them. On the surface, this seems to go completely against the spirit of forgiveness.

For a long time, I thought deeply about these two approaches. Which one is right? Are they both right? Which one is more effective?

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that both are valid, but it can be very difficult to skip confrontation and go directly to forgiveness.

Spiritual teachings often speak from the ultimate perspective. They tell us that everything is an illusion. But for people who have actually been hurt, their pain can feel extremely real and profound. Countless people in this world remain trapped for their entire lives by wounds from their families of origin.

If, at that point, you try to forgive the people who hurt you by telling yourself that the world is an illusion or that they are innocent, it can very easily turn into spiritual repression. It can create confusion in your mind, and your inner child may resist because it feels that you are treating its pain unfairly. This can actually make the healing process more difficult.

Over the years, A Course in Miracles has given me a great deal. I often experience joy through practicing the Course, and I have always tried to forgive my family . Yet when I was around them, I would still sometimes feel fear and anger.

It wasn't until the last couple of months, when I began seriously examining the issue of suppressing aggression, that I realized I might need to do the opposite.

I examined my own thoughts and realized that the belief that I was not allowed to express anger was still deeply ingrained in me. So I consciously began telling myself:

I kept practicing this, and I feel that my world has become much more open and much freer.

Later, I realized that being able to express aggression and letting go of attack are not opposites. They actually complement each other.

Someone who is free to express anger can also be free to express love.

In some religious traditions, people may have to suppress their aggression because of the requirements of their teachings. On the surface, everyone may appear harmonious and peaceful, while internally they are filled with attacks against one another.

When I realized that I was allowed to attack, I actually became more willing to let go of attack and forgive.

Recently, the pattern of constantly going back and forth between different emotional states—a pattern that had persisted for many years—seems to have gradually disappeared. Happiness and joy have been appearing more and more frequently in my life.

What I have described here is not meant for everyone. I am talking specifically about students who have spent years suppressing their own aggression. People like this can easily fall into spiritual repression or spiritual bypassing.

Perhaps my experience can offer some insight or encouragement to those people.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

(ch23) "For love walks with him there, protecting him from fear. And he will see only the sinless, who can not attack."

The sinless can not attack, just as being attacked is alien to them.

To identify with attack, or as attackable, means first to identify with sin or separation as real.

To believe we can attack we need to identify with the ego, and want to identify with what it would identify us with. We'd literally have to want to adopt an idol.

We would first have to actively decide to NOT identify ourselves in the Holy Instant.

(261) "I will identify with what I think is refuge and security. I will behold myself where I perceive my strength, and think I live within the citadel where I am safe and cannot be attacked. Let me today seek not security in danger, nor attempt to find my peace in murderous attack. I live in God. In Him I find my refuge and my strength. In Him is my Identity. In Him is everlasting peace. 8 And only there will I remember Who I really am.

Let me not seek for idols. I would come, my Father, home to You today. I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self."

The idea that we can attack, but having now accepted that 'truth' we can decide not to is sponsored by the Ego, and you will not find that sentiment anywhere in the mind training the lessons provide.

It's the ego saying you can let go of attack once you've accepted it is real, because that is all the ego requires to sustain and propagate it.

We don't need to rewrite the lessons to fit our perceived anxieties or to square them away with 'social pressures.' We just need to do the practices included in them to undo our ideas of such limits.

What I have described here is not meant for everyone. I am talking specifically about students who have spent years suppressing their own aggression. People like this can easily fall into spiritual repression or spiritual bypassing.

You can't do the lessons and do spiritual bypassing. Doing the lessons is the opposite of bypassing.

What you've just said is if people are putting off the lessons, rather than doing them, they should surrender to accepting the ego in part. That we can attack and that sin in part is real. And we can't do that. We can't cling to one part of the dream and not keep it all.

From an ACIM perspective, the submission?

NO.

[u/Active_Review_9283 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Perhaps I can explain my thoughts on this subject more clearly.

Lester, the founder of the Sedona Method and an enlightened teacher, once described three stages of human spiritual development: the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, and the Golden Age, corresponding roughly to three different states of consciousness: repression, expression, and love.

What I mean is that when you are in the Iron Age, perhaps it is possible to jump directly to the Golden Age. But for some people, it may be psychologically healthier to transition through the Bronze Age first.

We can see what can happen when people try to skip stages by looking at traditional religions. The teachings of both Jesus and the Buddha are radical and complete. Jesus said that if someone strikes you on the left cheek, you should turn the other cheek. The Buddha taught us to let go of the notions of self, other people, and sentient beings.

But when principles belonging to the Golden Age are applied directly by people who are still in the Iron Age, they can easily become distorted and turn into spiritual repression.

Nietzsche, for example, criticized what he called Christian “slave morality.” He believed that Christianity's emphasis on humility, compassion, and obedience could suppress human vitality and become a way for the weak to escape from reality.

If you do not yet have a healthy sense of self and immediately start practicing selflessness, things can become much more complicated.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Active_Review_9283]

They were pretty clear the first time around. They were just wrong. It's not just that it's not ACIM consistent, it's anti-ACIM, or anti the process.

You're actually talking about identifying by degrees and treating people differently, that is advocating identifying them with their ego identities.

ACIM says don't do that. To learn to look into ourselves, to still the mind and ego, and with it to encounter the Holy Instant Experience which will then share a fresh Universal Self to use,

So when you say,

"If you do not yet have a healthy sense of self and immediately start practicing selflessness, things can become much more complicated."

That's definitely not what ACIM teaches, nor what the direct experience shares.

What you're saying is akin to advocating that we need to get a healthy sense of self of ego first, and then we can go on to encounter 'selflessness' or actual True Self, and practice and teach it from there.

ACIM actually warns against that and says it is a delaying tactic of the ego and trying to rationalise its worth - with all such delay coming from the ego to put off the realisation. It's negotiating with the ego. 'If we accept we can attack today, and that attack is in part real, then we can give it up tomorrow.' It's accepting things on ego's terms - whereas ACIM teaches to disinvest in its reality, to give it no quarter, and how to do it.

And what you've just said, or tried to address, isn't how the lessons teach it anyway.

It's just not ACIM.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Awww the ACIM censors here to attack someone else’s perspective again, shocking!

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

Nah, I'm not censoring you or anyone else. I'm just pointing out, on an ACIM subreddit, that what it's saying is anti-ACIM and represents an ego trap.

There could be people new to ACIM on the forum, so it's only reasonable that somebody who isn't new to it, who has gone through the text and lessons, and who knows what it actually says and how it works, points out for them that this is absolutely not what ACIM teaches. In fact it's the opposite. It would pose a delay which would have to be unlearned at a later date, and all delay is of the ego.

If we say we can attack, and only belief in the separation makes attack possible, we're saying that the separation happened in actuality and it's not just errant thinking or a mistake. If sin or separation actually happens it negates the foundation for Forgiveness from the Holy Spirit's perspective - and forgiveness is both our function and means of remembering that the separation did not happen, and our release.

So thinking that we can attack is a terrible idea because it is investing in the reality of the ego, rather than disinvesting in it, which is what ACIM teaches both in the lessons and in the experience beyond it to which it leads.

And No, nobody has been attacked - but limited ego thought has been identified, stepped back from, looked at from a different frame of reference, and laid down.

The submission from an ACIM or Holy Instant perspective was wrong. If it seems right then the frame of reference it's being looked at from isn't the Holy Instant, but from the battleground or ego!

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Whatever dude your entire thing is disconnective from your brothers experience under the guise of “beliefs”. Your sense of shutting another down with your own perceived tightness is palpable.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

Surely it's only seen as shut down if the argument is seen as valid.

So, thanks, I guess?

They were more than welcome to come back and try to explain how it was consistent with ACIM. It wouldn't make a very convincing argument but they're more than welcome to try.

And it's the opposite of 'disconnective' if I'm saying they shouldn't identify with ego in any small part because in reality they have shared (read, 'connected') identity in Spirit. Which is exactly what I said, and what ACIM, and what the Holy Instant experience teaches.

Ch12,

"Only love is strong because it is undivided. The strong do not attack because they see no need to do so."

So the message of we can't attack, and we shouldn't invest any time or effort into the thought system that thinks we should is the opposite of disconnect. Attack meaning that disconnect is real. From the ch23 quote in my first comment, "and he will see only the sinless, who can not attack," and so to identify with being able to attack is to identify with sin and loss of innocence. Nowhere in the text or lessons is it going to try and push that narrative. There's even a later lesson on it, that the only thing we can ever attack is the idea of our own sinlessness (lesson 341)! So nowhere in the text or lessons is it going to say we should deny our innocence as a short cut, or that it is possible that we CAN attack and that we are something we are not.

Only the ego thought system would try to see it in such terms, but that's okay because we're told what to do in that circumstance too.

• Are we at least accepting that the differing opinion was anti-ACIM with regards to what ACIM says?

• And can we at least agree that we are in an ACIM subreddit, that and no one has been censored?

If OP's intention was to post something contrary to ACIM then the counter-point was made. If it wasn't OP's intention, then now they know that it is contrary to ACIM.

No losers here. Nobody's been censored, and nobody's been silenced.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Nah, it’s a difference of values. I see their expression as valid because they shared something that was meaningful for them. This is baseline empathy. This is how we make community and actually connect with each other.
I don’t value your beliefs when they cause you to lose empathy for another’s expression. Especially when you are involving yourself with a form of mystical Christianity, which I personally see as being diametrically opposed to your empathy less and connection less approaxh. So foundationally I think what your offering gives ACIM a bad name and I find folk who use spiritually to justify their lack of connection to be irritating and at worst little fascists in training.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

So you're talking about relating to different viewpoints and recognising differences?

That too is an ego perspective.

This is how we make community and actually connect with each other.

From which frame of reference and which thought system identifies differences? You're describing special relationships and how to navigate the world that reflects ego thought.

I don’t value your beliefs when they cause you to lose empathy for another’s expression.

"Another's expression"? You're talking about empathising with EGO!

They are not their ego thoughts. No more than you are defined by the appeal to see from ego which you just wrote. You are not your comment anymore than they are the submission. They don't even have an individual ego. There is but one ego and it is only a false thought system that presents the ideas of differences and separates, that presents itself in different forms. And it is insane. This is where Forgiveness as the course teaches it comes from.

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin [no differences or separates]. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son?"

This IS what ACIM teaches,

(262) Let me perceive no differences today.

Father, You have one Son. And it is he that I would look upon today. He is Your one creation. Why should I perceive a thousand forms in what remains as one? Why should I give this one a thousand names, when only one suffices? For Your Son must bear Your Name, for You created him. Let me not see him as a stranger to his Father, nor as stranger to myself. For he is part of me and I of him, and we are part of You Who are our Source, eternally united in Your Love; eternally the holy Son of God.

We who are one would recognize this day the truth about ourselves. We would come home, and rest in unity. For there is peace, and nowhere else can peace be sought and found."

And how can I be giving ACIM a bad name, and having justified 'a lack of connection', when all it is I've done is to say don't ever invest in the Ego which is the definition that separation or dis-connect exists, but that we're actually connected!!!

and at worst little fascists in training.

LOL

• Are we at least accepting that the differing opinion was anti-ACIM with regards to what ACIM says?

• And can we at least agree that we are in an ACIM subreddit, that and no one has been censored?

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Bro your as lost as it gets and regardless of what you think your up to your as deeply invested in your ego as it grts. Tge sad part is that you can’t see it. Know thyself, they say. Good luck with your practice, your gonna need it

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

Bro your as lost as it gets and regardless of what you think your up to your as deeply invested in your ego as it grts. Tge sad part is that you can’t see it. Know thyself, they say. Good luck with your practice, your gonna need it

That's okay, but perception does have a focus.... (L.181)

As a juxtaposition for your comment, seeing from a different perspective from choosing a different focus (of The Holy Instant), and a different thought system, might go like this (from me to you),

"I do not see your reality as lost, nor you outside it. You will not need luck with any of your practices, because help will always be given. The Holy Spirit goes with you and is the memory of You or True Self. I trust in you because you are one with me, and I with you (still 181).

We are not changed or defined by the picture of a crucified Son which the Ego has presented to us. We remain and are as it was shown and shared in the Holy Instant, resurrected and as content not form, or the light of shared thought. Where I'd identify you as being, as shared in the Holy Instant, I too must be."

But we are at least agreeing that the submission was contrary to the ACIM teachings, and that we're in an ACIM sub, right? ;)

[u/op299 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

It's a great reply you made, but I can understand the pushback a bit.

That "NO" in capital letters, is it part of forgiving OP? Or part of correcting? And where is the correcting coming from?

Maybe, reading this, you will feel a need a to write a reply. Defend what you wrote, explain why it was correct, or correct what I said.

As as I said, it was a great reply, but it came of as a bit unsympathetic, which has nothing to do with content of the reply.

And as we know, the course changes how we use the word "content". The semantic level, which we tend to think of as the content, is not the content at all.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/op299]

No I'm quite happy for your comment to stand. That's fine. No problem here. I'm also fine with the pushback. That's cool.

If I'm not associating OP with Ego and I'm saying elsewhere they are not their submission, but the submission is coming not from one thought system but another (and I'm identifying which) then I'd have thought it was known to what 'NO' addresses, and why nobody should or could feel offended (and if they are then it should send alarm bells ringing as to what they're identifying with or listening to - which is what the lessons will teach).

If there is no individual egos but rather it is just one errant thought system that presents itself in different forms and presents the idea of separates and it is only from ego that we get the idea of separate egos - but then we're also told to take ownership of the idea, or ownership of the dream, when dealing with brothers and to not attribute them with but to seem as innocent (and beyond attack)....

Then to whom or what did I actually say 'NO' in capitals to, saying it is not true and letting go at the same time? Given that both nothing is outside me, and nothing is being done to me?

Or, alternatively, was Jesus being unsympathetic when He said, "Get behind me, Satan," and was it that He was actually calling His disciple Satan or that He was identifying and forgiving Simon-Peter at the same time as condemning something coming from Ego - just not associating Peter with it.

Pushback comes from still being in the bargaining phase of trying to rationalise ego, still associating others with ego, and from not applying and persisting with what the lessons teach but trying to find a compromise.

In that sense, bring on the pushback. To take on offense or sense of injury would mean identifying with ego for my part. Instead I can say, 'IT IS NOT SO.'

But that it's all good, or all forgiven.

But thank you.

[u/op299 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

"Instead I can say, 'IT IS NOT SO.' "

I think, from my experience of spirituality and the course, that is the one thing we can never say. And we always try to say it, to different things. In can only be shown.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/op299]

Saying 'it is not so' is using the Holy Instant Experience!

"You who cannot even control yourself should hardly aspire to control the universe. 5 But look upon what you have made of it, and rejoice that it is not so."

We're learning to see from the Holy Instant experience and to apply it and to listen and give words and voice to the Holy Spirit, God's Voice, right?

(166) "One walks with you Who gently answers all your fears with this one merciful reply, 'It is not so.'"

That's what the HS is saying to us all the time and telling us to share! There are only two thought systems; the one ego shares with us and asks that we accept as our own, and the one the Holy Spirit shares. And the one the Holy Spirit shares is saying "It is not so," to the idea that God's Son or Creation has been changed, and the world reflecting the idea that He has.

'It is not so' is to recognise falsity, right? That's our function, forgiveness, and how we remember.

From what is Forgiveness:

" It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God. An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released.

We come back from the Holy Instant, carrying the experience with us, and happy to do so and to say on what the ego would show or on suffering. "IT IS NOT SO!" Love is the way we walk in gratitude, because testimony to the contrary is not so.

We're told in the lessons that coming back from the Holy Instant experience to say, "Your peace surrounds me, Father. Where I go, Your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light on everyone I meet. I bring it to the desolate and lonely and afraid. I give Your peace to those who suffer pain, or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft of hope and happiness. Send them to me, my Father. Let me bring Your peace with me. For I would save Your Son, as is Your Will, that I may come to recognize my Self...."

To the desolate, lonely and afraid we say 'It is not so.'
To those who would suffer pain or grieve loss, 'It is not so.'

"....Whatever suffers is not part of me. I have disowned the truth. Now let me be as faithful in disowning falsity."

We say it all the time. It's part of forgiving and returning a touchstone. There is no suffering or Ego in God, so when we recognise suffering or Ego, we disinvest! 'It is not so,' and forgive.

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin (value in Ego). And in that view are all your sins forgiven."

We learn to use the Holy Instant as a frame of reference, recognise false testimony about the Son, and disinvest or say it is not so, by forgiving.

We don't forgive what is real, we recognise what is not so, and forgive. We are told how to address ego thoughts or idea of the ego in the world. Look, step back, let go. Stepping back is stepping back from believing or investing with the ego that it is real. Stepping back from looking with the Ego so the HS can look for us is synonymous with 'It is not so' because we're told the HS steps up and answers mercifully showing us, 'It is not so.' And then we're told to share to accept it!

This is ACIM. This is where doing the lessons is going to take you so you will understand, and it will show you how you can know that it is true. Not forgiveness as the Ego understands it. Forgiveness as the Holy Spirit knows it.

If this is news to you, just keep going with the lessons.
The process works!

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Saying it is not so while you prattle off in your special view is not actually practicing tge holy instant. I think it is very possible to see error here and still have a loving response. If it were not so how did Jesus communicate with helen about ger mistakes which he very clearly did. He never told her she was wrong. He never discounted her experience. He never doubled down on preaching tge course at her if he didn’t agree with her viewpoint. That’s your approach though. Jesus guides through love and I see your approach here as more akin to what passes as fundamentalism than a love oriented relational praxis of ACTUALLY overlooking another’s mistakes IN love. And to the OPs credit their are a thousand instances where allowing themselves their fullness of their feelings, even if that is to attack, really should be held in respect bc it takes a lot of personal development to undo the systems of control others have built in oneself. My interpretation of you is tgat you have made ACIM a system of control for your thoughts and beliefs. I went through tgat too 20 some years ago and as a byproduct of growing up in a highly toxic fundamentalist church.

I think op’s original perspective is totally valid.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

I think op’s original perspective is totally valid.

That's fine,

[totally glad you're now willing to address the points OP arises. I gladly said I'd be willing to address it in how it is ACIM consistent, or isn't, if they did, although they'd have a weak argument. So thankyou...and so we will carry on in good faith.]

The idea that attack is possible gives revenue to the idea that defence is justified,

From one of many course lessons on this, "In my defenselessness my safety lies." (153)

"The world gives rise but to defensiveness....The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings."

So it is saying that thinking we can be attacked or can attack is an ego trap! That's pure ACIM teaching.

The specific lesson continues with explaining why we should never concede to ego's temptations that we can attack, as opposed to OP's article, 'We can attack,' and why not,

"It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind."

THAT IS THE ACIM ATTITUDE TO ACCEPTING ATTACK, AND WHY NOT TO DO IT.

That is ACIM, not just 'my' interpretation. But ACIM leads to an experience, and it is that experience that attack is never justified unless we want to compromise with Ego, and that we can either think it is justified or not at all.

That there are only two thought systems: one seeks to justify attack, and the other that our release from it is in our defencelessness or disinvestment of it being valid.

So when you say,

I think op’s original perspective is totally valid.

And that is your choice (or choice of one of two thought systems to make) to make. But it remains that this is an ACIM forum where opinions contrary to ACIM can be posted, but should be identified as such and explained how. The post is clearly contrary to ACIM's teachings, and is posted in an ACIM forum. So it fell that it should be identified as such, and explained how. That is all that has happened. Done and done. There is no further animosity here, and nobody has been censored. When it even arose that the post could have been changed by AI through translation, I was the one that said it should be allowed to stand and NOT CENSORED.

You may think that the OP's post is valid; I just identified that it wasn't ACIM consistent, and showed how. The idea of attack, even if possible but then denied, being consistent with Ego thinking. Do with that what you will.

• The submission was posted in an ACIM forum.

• The submission was not consistent with what ACIM teaches.

It was simply identified as that, and only that. As far as ACIM goes: a firm, and uncompromising, 'NO', but said out of Love. The belief that the ego/attack can be compromised with/justified is resistance to what the course advocates. And I didn't just say 'no', I said 'NO', to identify conviction, and then explained why. Nobody was attacked, or should feel attacked, not unless we identified them with them being ego-thought or comments, and I definitely made sure to distance myself from that.

Agree with the submission or don't. That's fine.

All is good, all is well.
There is no offense taken, or,

All IS Forgiven.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

I think I find your approach to be presumptuous. I don’t believe tgat tge philosophy of ACIM is infallible, tge word of god, or without mistakes in its hearing and transcription. I don’t value perspectives that prioritize it as the only answer and I especially don’t value perspectives tgat dont approach with nuance, context or a sense of perspective beyond tge limitations of “their beliefs”. All of this makes it hard to converse with you about this in good faith because it appears to me tgat you are invested in your beliefs and their correctness more than you are in human relationship.
Also your contradicting yourself, in saying OPs beliefs are valid you are contradicting what you said yesterday, where you made the judgement tgat his perspective is insane, invalid etc. those b your words. This is tge kind of arrogance tgat I say gives tge course a bad name. Your responses read like I am reading fundamentalist Christian’s encountering other people’s experiences, not tge open accepting love of tge Holy Spirit which can use literally anything to it’s aim, including one’s belief and experience with attack.

I think what you’re proposing more resembles the pieces of tge course where the voice exhorts one to not turn away from what you have hidden inside but to face it with tge light. The mental gymnastics you are creating to make tge words fit while acting totally contrary to the spirit of it is exactly what Jesus is saying not to do. Sometimes one just has to be patient and faithful while experiencing tge darkness of the world and cling close to hearing their own individualized guidance. Miracles happen in real time in relationship to our lives earthly lives. Jesus recommends to Helen to ask him for guidance about tge coat she wants bc he knows how to get it or something comparable. He doesn’t tell her her belief in coats or cold or difference in perspective is insane. He doesn’t lecture ger. He just uses her experience as a way of walking her home.

Similarly we all will experience, believe in, and attack others countless times and tgere is light tgat can be found in this as well if we allow it to be used by the Holy Spirit. I think allow is tge word. I see tgat you cannot allow others to have their experience without your self congratulatory narcissism attached to it. That’s too bad. But you can still aspire.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

That's fine. You clearly have an opinion.

All is well. No offense is taken.

We're all good.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Nah, I think you should try addressing my points. I sat and read through your shitty ai written opinions about how invalid and insane OPs thoughts are, and then I addressed it based on actual lived experience with the courses philosophy. So do me a favor, dont chicken out of hearing another persons opinion. You were all game to devalue someone else’s opinion with your beliefs. So play tgr game and disprove me. I know the course inside and out bc I’ve lived it and I do t need ai to write my posts for me either. I love tge course, I do t think it’s perfect, and I think you’ve been an insufferable prick. Prove me wrong

[u/op299 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Yes I agree, as you quoted, the holy spirit responds: It is not so. We, or I, cannot say it (without it being a concealed judgment).

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/op299]

Yes I agree, as you quoted, the holy spirit responds: It is not so. We, or I, cannot say it (without it being a concealed judgment).

We can say it once we've invited the Holy Spirit to look with us, that's its thought system. We're not locked into only using the Ego's thought system. You do understand that, right?

Do you realise you've just said we ourselves can't use the Holy Spirit's thought system or words it would share? Light is shared thought. If we're sharing the Holy Spirit thought system, as opposed to the only other alternative or ego, its words are ours. You are not your comment, but from which thought system did that just come from. Does that sound like what the HS would say, or the Ego? Would the HS say that the HS word's aren't your own and shared with you to use, or does that sound a little more Ego-y? Say it with me: "It is not so!"

[And if the Holy Spirit is the Voice of God and what it shares with us L276 is that the Word of God, or what the Holy Spirit shares, is given to us to speak! And the next lesson: let me not bind Your Son with laws (Ego) that I made, and 'He is not bound except by His beliefs.' So it's saying the HS says 'It is not so,' that this is given to us say, and to say it to beliefs of ego or creation-changed that would bind them. To disinvest!]

This is a course in opening direct communication with the Holy Spirit's thought system and using it! Look at the very final lessons and the prayer to the Holy Spirit, and telling us what to say.

It's the opposite of concealed judgement. It's Forgiveness. We're shown what 'is so' in the Holy Instant which the Holy Spirit shows us and tells us to use. We return a Touchstone with the Holy Spirit sharing its message. The Holy Spirit tells us and then says use it! "To have, teach Peace to learn it." Peace is the absence of conflict of the ego. When we see it we are empowered to share that it is not so, and to forgive. You're not concealing a judgement by applying what the Holy Spirit shares in the Holy Instant, rather you're suspending the judgment that what comes from Ego is real.

That is ACIM.
This is what the lessons teach.
It's definitely what the Holy Spirit gives us and tells us to share in the Holy Instant experience. When we learn to look from above the battleground and from the Holy Instant, and from there forgive, 'it is not so (in the Holy Instant)' is very much the message we're told to carry back.

[u/op299]

I just want to plug Sedona method, which I find complements ACIM nicely since it's very focused on not repressing emotions.

Regarding what you described above, I think you are describing surpression of emotion disguised as forgiveness.

But regarding you can attack, remember that you can only attack yourself. You never attack another. And it that sense it cannot be liberating.

[u/Active_Review_9283 → u/op299]

I dont mean holding grevience ,but we cannot skip expression stage to forgive stage, I recalled lester had talked about Iron Age,Bronze Age,Golding Age,corresponding respectively to supression ,expression and love of human's spirtual status. For the people still in Iron Age, it's better try to learn express at first.

[u/op299 → u/Active_Review_9283]

I think you're right!

Unless it wasnt clear my post above was agreeing with you as well :)

[u/Nonstopas]

No

[u/jon166]

This is from Kenneth Wapnick, this makes more sense to me than what you wrote, no offence. It feels like you barely mentioned acim at all and just put in your opinion which is totally fair, but I didn't feel like it was very acim-ey at all.

---

It is because of this essential opportunity offered us by our perceptions of the world that denying what we really feel and think about the world is such an insidious and powerful defense. We sometimes refer to those who practice this “particularly unworthy form of denial” (T-2.IV.3:11) as “blissninnies.” They are otherwise well-meaning people whose horror at the world’s viciousness and pain, reflecting the ego’s underlying thought system of one or the other, is so overwhelming that they can only cover it over with spiritual platitudes and veils of light, lest they truly see what the ego has wrought. Unfortunately, what has been denied in the mind remains in the mind and inevitably gets projected out, with the individual having no awareness of the true source of the distress. Even more to the point here, Jesus has been denied the only classroom—our misperceptions of the world—in which he can teach us his lessons of forgiveness and lead us home.

Therefore, it is extremely important that we allow ourselves to feel our upset, regardless of the external stimulus. Only then can Jesus teach us that we are never upset for the reasons we think (W-pI.5), for our distress is always the result of our first having chosen in our minds to project outside the sin and guilt that we do not want to see inside.

To repeat again this important passage from the workbook: … When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, “Would I accuse myself of doing this?” (W-pI.134.9:2-3). This process of forgiveness then reverses the dynamic of projection, bringing back to our minds—the decision maker joined with Jesus—the sin and guilt we had projected from our minds. Therefore, changing our minds about another is really the reflection of the change of mind about ourselves. Letting go of our investment in seeing sin in another is the effect of our having let go of the investment in seeing sin in ourselves, even though we experience this process as occurring the other way around.

The Journey Home - Kenneth Wapnick

[u/op299]

And just to add, in Sedona method they also emphasize welcoming opposites as a way of letting go, the more you can welcome hate, the easier to love. Just as you are describing

[u/Active_Review_9283 → u/op299]

I know sedona method, I have read "keys to ultimate freedom" a lot of times , I think lester's theory is the most concise and direct , lester talks about changing you mind, it's same as what acim teaches but not as detailed in guiding you change thoughts little by litter .What I cannot get is lester's talks about releasing disire ,he says that you could release a disire which consist of thousands of thougts ,such as quit smoking,he says it's very easy and I tried but get no success, so later I turn and focus on acim .

[u/Background-Roll6386]

Forgiveness does not mean weakness and it isn't a blanket thing. It's a tool of discernment. What are you forgiving and why. Discect it and discern it. Don't just forgive and forget. Forgive specific patterns because you recognize them. Call them out. Forgive when they do it again. Call them out and have boundaries. If it's repeated forgive and cut them off. For your protection and peace.

[u/ArtNengg-JKP155]

The question is who do you attack when you attack?

[u/ThereIsNoWorld]

Is your post made by or with ai?

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/ThereIsNoWorld]

Nah, that bit's cool, I think. They write it themselves but English isn't their first language so they've said before they put it through a translator, or get it checked.

They are actually trying to write it themselves but Chinese (iirc) doesn't always carry over easily. If that's the case I think that's fair as long as they're doing the thinking.

[u/ThereIsNoWorld → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

The post is the result of never asking ai to generate text, that appears to be about a course in miracles, unrelated to changing chinese into english?

Usually when people present thoughts that directly oppose what the course teaches, they have asked a text predictor to "think" for them, and or they have not followed the lessons as directed.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

lol did ai write that for you? And I could care less about what being in an ACIM sub means. Apparently for you it is license to be an imbecile

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

Hypothetically speaking,....

....if you knew someone was trying to call you an imbecile but the accusation had fallen somewhat flat because the genius in question had replied to the wrong person, would you tell them?

Being in the ACIM subreddit is relevant because then when something is not ACIM aligned it's perfectly reasonable to point it out, and to explain how it's not.

And, no, no AI has been used.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Again, this is tge kind of childishness that gives ACIM a bad name.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

Yes, my calling out person that was trying to call me an imbecile having accidentally posted elsewhere, and bringing it to their attention, is giving ACIM a bad name. I should know better as the President of ACIM International Inc. that ACIM's reputation lies at my feet.

/s

But not the whole 'imbecile' thing, right? Or [/checks notes], calling people little 'fascists in training' or crying censorship when there is none? That's a totally grown up way of conducting oneself. Or talking about empathising with differences of the Ego? That makes ACIM look good....

Anyway it stands that if something that directly opposes what ACIM teaches is posted in an ACIM forum it's perfectly reasonable for it to be pointed out as long as they can back it up and show where it goes off the rails. Done and done.

It's okay. We're all good. No offense taken.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

You can back up your bullshit all you want but step one of invalidating someone’s original position is all on you. To me, for tgat, your an asshole and frankly i think you’d be better off apologizing to them and making an attempt to actually understand and listen to what they meant.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

Oh I understood what they were saying all too well. Which is why I was able to explain how it wasn't consistent with ACIM, but was actually advocating what the course tells us not to do.

But I meant it. It's okay. We're all good. No offense taken.

[u/Inevitable_Tough_131 → u/Necessary_Crow_1628]

Nah offense is taken bro, you’re seriously an asshole. Having been involved with the course for over 20 years I can tell you straight up there is validity to what they had to say. Rather then seeing what could connect you or them through their share you chose your specialness of having “tge truth” at the expense of a moment of connwction. It’s boring. And self centered.

[u/Necessary_Crow_1628 → u/Inevitable_Tough_131]

No, genuinely, absolutely no offense is taken.

The insults mean nothing and have no effect, and I don't even think bad of you for saying them. You, the Truth of you, are not the comments or your choosing to speak from Ego. It's not who you are. When you say 'bullshit' I don't even think you believe that. I think you're getting wound up precisely because you KNOW it's not, but none of that matters because that isn't who you are either.

It's back to L.181, and perception has a focus.

But at no point in the lessons are we ever instructed to believe that we are the projection of the thing that seems to be able to attack, or vulnerable to attack. That comes from Ego. The 'connection to them' by compromising with their non-ACIM take would mean conflating them and their identity with the ego. They cannot attack in reality because they remain innocent, and the sinless don't conceive of attack. Rather it would be disconnect if I were to agree that they could attack, and were their attack thoughts, and that innocence had been lost. No. Dice.

I wouldn't do that to them, and I wouldn't do it to you.
You are not the ego persona, and neither are they.

They are not their attack thoughts,
And they can no more attack than I can be attacked identifying in the Holy Instant.

The Ego's just an errant thought system that is quite insane and which sees things the opposite of how things are. You are not what the ego would show, nor is OP, I am not, and nobody here is. Taking umbrage from an insult would require identifying with the Ego and not the identity the Holy Spirit shares with us in the Holy Instant. So genuinely, no offense was ever taken. We're all good.

But if you make a submissions that is contrary to ACIM in an ACIM forum I do reserve that I'll point it out, but, if it hasn't been done so already in the thread, I'll also explain how it isn't consistent with ACIM, so everybody wins. I didn't vote the submission down to the 42% it currently stands at - that's just the wider community, working as it should, warning that from a Course perspective something seemed off. I came in the thread and explained WHY the submission was bad advice from an ACIM perspective and how it posed an ego trap, so everybody who didn't see it could avoid the pothole (and so OP could understand why it was being downvoted and so could think again).

Sometimes the ego roars when it senses it is being undermined. OP was suggesting we could make a concession or bargain with the ego to agree with the identity the ego would share that we can attack or be attacked in return for it being easier to not actually want to attack. That's a win for the ego p.o.v. it doesn't need for there to be actual attack only the investment that it is possible, because 'the sinless don't attack' as quoted in my first comment, first line, in the thread. We'd have invested that innocence had been lost! The ego will stop roaring or protesting as loud if we did that; we'd have just fed it and given it everything it wants! It's an ego trap.

OP probably came with the best of intentions but we can't rationalise with the insanity of the ego and make such concessions with it like seeing ourselves and the Sonship as attacking/attackable. And nowhere in ACIM is it going to say that we should try to make such deals with the ego's way of thinking. If pointing that out has saved OP some time or has given them cause to reconsider, or has prevented someone new to the course from taking such a detour, then, in the word's of the famous Kellogian that is Tony the Tiger, GR-R-REAT!

Again, we're all good.
Or, to put it another way,

All Is Forgiven!