Teachings of Christ Mind

Good afternoon. And welcome to everyone who is joining us on the Internet.

There is a habit that all of you have been engaged in, we’ll say since the beginning of your lifetime here, and that habit is to believe that you’re a human being. That’s part of your fundamental definition of yourself. And it’s that fundamental premise that we’re in the process of breaking down, annihilating. It colors every thought that follows that you have. As a result you begin a spiritual quest and you see yourself as a human being somehow improving himself or herself. Somehow finding the means to grow beyond being a human being, a physical presence, the product of a sperm and an egg.

And indeed, we’ve been meeting for a year and a half and reading from the Course and breaking down that fundamental idea. And yet, because it has been the premise of your sense of yourself and therefore of your life, you still see yourselves in many ways as human beings trying to overcome the human condition. And there is a tendency to use the Course as a means to overcome this human condition, when what the Course is teaching and what I have been teaching, is that you were never in a human condition because you were never a human being. You have from the beginning been nothing more and nothing less than the Presence of God expressing What God Is Being right where you are.

I’ve shared a statement before that you need to be reminded of. It is this: You are neither behind the Point of Perfection nor advancing toward it, you are at that Point and must understand yourself there from. In other words, the premise of your thoughts, the premise of your sense of yourself must be that of one who is at the Point of Perfection, who must understand himself or herself from there.

The practice is to not slip into the old framework, but to consciously and conscientiously bring your attention back, as you go through the day, to the fact that because you are the Presence of God, you are at the Point of Perfection and you must conceive of yourself from there. What does that mean? It means that when suggestions come to your mind that you need to do something to protect yourself, when the suggestion is, “Get prepared for winter colds,” that you don’t say, “Oh, yes. Time to prepare for winter colds.” You say, “Oh, how ridiculous!” You say, “That statement doesn’t apply to me, and it doesn’t apply to any of my Brothers and Sisters. I refuse to join in that definition and add to the mutuality of the agreement that indeed I’m a body, I’m a human being, and I am subject to this illness and that illness, and therefore because that’s the case, I really had better defend myself against winter colds, or whatever it might be.

When someone coughs beside you and you know that it’s not just phlegm in their throat but it seems to be a physical problem, a cold or a sore throat or whatever, your first response needs to be: That isn’t true about them. I don’t buy that as being the Truth about them. And because it’s not the Truth about them, I don’t have to protect myself against her or his belief that she’s ill or he’s ill. I don’t have to become reactive. I don’t have to wonder why she didn’t cover her mouth when she coughed. I don’t have to wonder why he came to work that day when he had the potential to expose so many to a problem. You see? You see how easily you can move back into a sense of being a human being who is always vulnerable to something, and therefore had better be on the alert to guard himself or herself against the threats of existence.

As we’ve been going through the Course, you all should have been finding a new sense of yourself developing in which the suggestion of vulnerability finds no lodging place in your mind, so that you stop being on the defense, so that you stop practicing defense. So that you stop being guarded against your world, your neighbor, your friend, your fellow employee, and what problems they might bring to you because you are vulnerable and you are subject to this, that and the other thing. It doesn’t really matter what it is. What matters is whether or not you’re buying into the idea that you’re vulnerable.

“Well, I’d better strengthen my immune system.” Listen to me! You are immune because of What You Are. And that better be the first thing that flashes through your mind before you say, “Oh! I better strengthen my immune system.” Because once you slip past the instant acknowledge of your immunity because God can’t be subject to anything unlike God, the minute you slip past the acknowledgement of your immunity, you have slipped into the mutually-agreed-upon definitions of yourself, and you will seem to be subject to that agreement. And you will govern yourself accordingly, and you will tighten up, and you will begin to protect yourself, and you will begin to use your body in ways that oppose its Intent to identify you perfectly. And so a struggle begins within you. Your insistence that you are vulnerable and must protect yourself fighting against your body intending to identify you perfectly because it has nothing else to do.

And this tension, if you will, that you, not your body, are introducing into the picture, will begin to show up in your experience, and you’ll say, “You see, I told you so.” All because of what? Because you forgot What You Were and you forgot that because of What You Are, you are immune. Not strengthened against something so completely that it can’t get you, but you are unavailable to seeming to have an experience of an illusion, of something that God didn’t create.

I’ve talked before about the way the ego works. The ego is not a presence. It’s an idea that all of you have made-up. But it isn’t a presence. It has no authority. It has no capacity to initiate anything. And so how does the ego work? The ego works, like a hypnotist, through what?

Suggestion. Yes.

It suggests that you have been exposed to the flu. You’d better become afraid. You’d better protect yourself. The idea wisps into your mind, “Something has just occurred here that has put you in danger.” That is a suggestion.

You don’t have to accept the suggestions. And as I’ve said before, when you’re watching the commercials on TV, all they are, are suggestions. They suggest to you to buy. They suggest to you to be afraid. They suggest to you that your security lies in medicine, or hair restorer, or money, or whatever. You don’t have to buy into the suggestion. You don’t have to join in with and substantiate a mutually-agreed-upon definition. And if you withdraw your agreement, if all of you begin to withdraw your agreements, the mutually-agreed-upon definition fades, together with their seeming effects.

You are right now God appearing. Nothing more and nothing less. That’s the bottom line premise of your Being, of your existing.

Because your lives are made up of nothing more than mutually-agreed-upon definitions at the present time for the most part, then you are faced with the necessity of being alert to recognize when these definitions present themselves in your mind for you to agree with and thereby confirm. Why? So that you can use that opportunity to remember the Truth and move back to the Real fundamental premise of your existence, which is that you are neither behind the Point of Perfection nor advancing toward It, you are at that Point and you must understand yourself there from. You must be willing to experience yourself there from.

You might say that you must be willing to teleport from your mutually-agreed-upon definitions to the Real, fundamental premise of your Being. And you must be alert to every opportunity you have to make that leap, that jump, as it were.

Now, as I said, the ego always works by means of suggestion, and it always presents itself, you might say, as though it were your idea. The suggestion doesn’t come to you, “You should be afraid because you’ve just been exposed to something.” It says, “Oh dear. I’m … I am afraid. Oh dear. I have been exposed to something.” And because it comes with the word “I” attached to it, you think it’s your thought, and you tend to validate what you think spontaneously.

When others project upon you their limited perception of themselves, it always comes to you as a suggestion. “You should feel guilty. You are at fault. You are being unkind. Blah, blah, blah.” It always comes as a suggestion for you to accept or reject. But you forget that you have the option to reject it on the spot. And that’s what you need to be alert to. You are not an ego, and your Brothers and Sisters are not egos either. Therefore, when they speak from an ego sense of themselves, you need to recognize that is not them who is speaking. But, just as with a drunk person, you say, “That’s the liquor speaking, that’s the liquor talking,” you need to be alert to say, “Ah, that’s the ego talking, not them.”

And when the suggestion presents itself within you as your own thought, you need to be alert enough to recognize it and say, “Oh, that’s the ego talking,” not “That’s my ego talking.” Because you don’t have an ego! That’s the ego talking.

It’s very important to make this distinction, because as long as the suggestions that the ego is making can be attached to an individuality, it seems to gain credence and authority that you buy into. But the minute you recognize that it’s the … it’s ego speaking, and that therefore it can’t be the individual, and therefore it can’t be you either, and you detach the person from the suggestion, either your own personhood or the personhood of another, then you have detached the thought, the suggestion, from that which would seem to give it validity, and you’re able to treat it more objectively. And you’re able to reject it more easily. Do you see what I’m saying? Is this making sense?

You are neither behind the Point of Perfection, nor advancing toward it; you are, and you always have been, at that Point, and you must begin to experience and understand yourself from that Point. Else you will never escape from the human condition, the false experience of being that says you must be defended all the time, and you must always be on guard for something new to defend yourself against because you aren’t at the Point of Perfection. You’re at the point of imperfection, and therefore flawed, and therefore vulnerable and therefore in need of the greatest and surest defense that you can bring to bear upon the situation.

And I’m telling you, that your greatest defense is the recognition that you don’t need a defense at all because you’re not anything less than the Presence of God manifesting Himself as Himself right where you are and That is What You Are! And is God vulnerable? And is anything that God is manifesting as Himself right there where you are vulnerable to anything? No!

Your only real defense is What You Already Truly Are right now! And from understanding yourself there, you will be able to say to the suggestions that come, “Sorry. I’m not going join with this suggestion. I’m not going to agree with this suggestion. There’s nothing about this suggestion I need to be afraid about, so I’m not going to react to this suggestion.” You are never ever defending yourself against anything actual. You’re only defending yourself against something you are afraid is real. Like a child, hiding under the covers to protect himself from ghosts. You see?

Now what I’m talking about, what I’m expressing are not a bunch of ideas that you can use to create a better protection for yourself. The ideas I’m expressing that I would invite you to abide with, express the fact that You Are That Which Is Utterly Invulnerable. And you need to claim that for yourself. You need to claim it for yourself, not as a defense, but as a conscious reminder of the Truth About You so that you don’t slip back into the habit of trying to be a better and better human being in order to grow out of being human.

In a way I’m saying you’ve got to start behaving in your mind as though you are Divine, and not just think about being Divine. So that you are using your mind in a new way, and not just repeating the old habits that are so well-ingrained that they feel absolutely natural. And because they feel absolutely natural, they are unquestionable, and you just go along in the same groove, groovin’ along, without ever calling the groove into question, or without having the opportunity to discover that there ain’t no such thing as a groove, and you’re not in it and never were. Do you see what I’m saying?

Okay. Let’s go to the book.

Again, it’s Chapter 6, first subsection, [counting] fifth paragraph. In the sparkly book, it’s page 119, first full paragraph.

Now, so far, I’ve been asking you to decide to stop thinking of yourself as being behind the Point of Perfection and to decide to stop thinking that you are advancing toward perfection, and to decide to understand yourself from and be from the Point of Perfection. That’s what I am Being. That is my decision and I’m asking you to join me in it, because in our joining together in it, it is strengthened. Conversely, in your joining me in that decision, the mutually-agreed definitions are weakened. And so, in your decision, you help the rest of the Brotherhood by weakening their conviction around the mutually-agreed-upon definitions. Your support has been withdrawn. That’s the blessing you give to everyone as well as yourself.

Continuing …

Now I want to go back here to the key word “persecuted.”

… if you impersonalize the ego, if you impersonalize a suggestion, it is impossible to feel persecuted. Again, if you impersonalize a suggestion, it will be impossible to feel persecuted. Persecution is an experience you have when you believe that a false assessment, a negative assessment, has been made of you by another individuality; someone who is consciously intent upon hurting you. That’s when the hackles go up on the back of your neck because some one is aggressively and consciously choosing to hurt you.

But an idea floating in the air, a thought floating in the air looking for someone to attach to, offering its wares to you and inviting you to invite it in and entertain it, there’s no way for you to consider that to be persecution. You can consider it to be bait. But dangling bait can’t be called persecution. And when persecution isn’t an element in the process, reaction won’t be a part of your process, and your ability to dismiss the suggestion will remain simple and available and clear. But the moment you add the element of this suggestion, this negative suggestion, coming from a person, then you feel a right to be affronted and offended by that real individual’s choice to be unkind to you. And then you will have reaction and you will have lost sight of the fact that what you’ve been presented with is nothing more than a suggestion.

And so you won’t address what needs to be addressed, which is a foundationless, sourceless suggestion, hypnotic suggestion, if you will. If you take the bait because the suggestion does say in your mindset says, “This is coming from someone who is trying to hurt me. I’ve got to protect myself against them.” Ah! You’ve lost sight of the fact that the only thing that’s come into play is a suggestion which you’ve taken hook, line and sinker. And as long as you then engage in trying to defend yourself against the person that’s become attached to the suggestion, you’re hypnotized. You’re already under the influence of what? The suggestion, the illusion, not the person that that suggestion has become attached to. Is this making sense?

Again, if you do not attach a suggestion to a person, there is no way for you to experience persecution. So you must learn to impersonalize the ego, impersonalize the suggestion.

If you will, I’m paraphrasing the last sentence that was read, if you will join me in believing the Truth of what I have just said, you will help me to teach it.

Continuing …

I would say also that if you are reacting, you are teaching that you are hypnotized. You are teaching that you are under the influence, and you are teaching others to be under the influence as well. Every time you do it, it’s like handing your brother a drink and saying, “Get drunk with me.” That’s not Love and that’s not your Function. And now that you realize that’s what you’re doing, I am assured that you will do it less and less.

Again …

Now, again, as you read these words, you can think that you’re supposed to know this in order to ward off that which is threatening you. And if you think that’s what it is, you’re under the influence again. You’re to know it because it’s the Truth. You aren’t behind the Point of Perfection. You aren’t advancing toward the Point of Perfection. You’re there, and you must assess yourself, you must conceive of yourself, you must experience yourself there from. From there you are unassailable because from there you are unopposed. And the reason you’re unopposed is that when you’re there, you’re unconflicted. You’re single-minded. And that is where the “I” of you, the essentialness of you, already is right now.

Continuing …

“It” referring to your immunity.

… temptations to misperceive, not actual affronts. Not actual persecutions. Not actual threats. Temptations to misperceive. Invitations to misperceive. Suggestive innuendos that invite you to misperceive.

Again …

Or justifications for defense. Or as justifications for becoming afraid. When you don’t abandon the Point of Perfection, when you are alert to recognize a suggestion for what it is and you impersonalize and keep impersonalized the suggestions that are presented to you, it doesn’t mean that you become unconscious of the fact that the suggestions are being made. And you don’t become ignorant of the fact that because the suggestions are being made, a Brother is experiencing a misunderstanding and correction is called for. I will keep bringing this balance back into the picture.

You are misperceiving a whole lot because of your deeply ingrained habits. And just because I know the Truth About You and just because I know the Truth About Me, doesn’t mean that I don’t see where the places of correction exist to be addressed. And then I address them, which is what I’m doing right now.

Something needs to be done about the misunderstandings. Something needs to be done about the misperceptions that others have been invited through the power of suggestion to accept and agree to. They need to be freed from their habit of going under [snaps fingers] at the drop of a hat, of becoming hypnotized from moment to moment about something new. They deserve and need the same freedom you do.

But, as I’ve been bringing out, if you remain unhypnotized, then you will not experience persecution as what is happening. And you will not be in a state of reaction. And as a result you will be able to be available to your, shall I say, your hypnotized or inebriated Brother in a way that will help break the hypnotic spell.

Continuing …

You might just as well say there is no justification for becoming sick as a result of being exposed to something that can’t make you sick because it’s not real. There’s no justification for becoming sick when you’re exposed to “germs” because you’re invulnerable. Don’t forget that you’re invulnerable. Remember it consciously. Make a practice of remembering that you’re invulnerable. Why? Because you didn’t create yourself. And What Created You is indivisible and undivided, therefore unpolarized and incapable of being the presence of anything other than singular harmony without conflict.

Again …

You know what? It doesn’t mean you will become equal with me, The Great Teacher. It doesn’t have to do with levels of teaching. We will be equal in our Awareness of What Truth Is. We will be equal in Being That Which Is Expressing The Truth. It has nothing to do with comparisons of quality of teaching. It has to do with what’s being taught. And we will become equal as teachers because we are together embodying Truth.

Continuing …

It’s you remembering that you aren’t behind the Point of Perfection, and you’re not advancing toward it, and that you must understand yourself there from, because that’s always been where you’ve been being from. And you couldn’t ever have been doing anything else.

Again …

That’s part of your being at the Point of Perfection.

It had always been Forever True, but until I believed it, it was not Forever True for me. It’s True about you, each of you, but it won’t be True for you until it is True for you.

Continuing …

If you don’t remember it for yourself, you’ll accept the suggestion and then, in so many words, you’ll go into a hypnotic trance and live out whatever the hypnotist suggested, even though it’s not really going on. And you’ll teach dreaming. And you’ll teach trance. Trance 1, trance 2, trance 3, advanced trance. [audience amusement]

Continuing …

Again …

Do you see in that sentence, that part of the sentence, “Yet I know that they cannot really betray themselves or me,” that that is the act of impersonalizing the suggestions. That statement says I did not attach the suggestion that their behavior came from them to them. I impersonalized it. I lifted the suggestion off of them, just as I had lifted it off of me. It could be rather discouraging to think that poor misguided them were the ones upon whom I must build my church. [a little audience amusement] But it’s not disheartening because, having impersonalized the suggestion, having removed them personally from the suggestion, it was easy to see, it is easy to see that they’re still what God created them to be and that they are worthy of being the ones to build my church.

Mmm. “To build my church.” Well, they are the ones to join with me in the remembrance of What They Divinely Are, so that together joined in decision we can glorify God by presenting nothing other than What God Is Being right where we are. And that’s what constitutes church. And church is not really the key word. It’s the joining together in the Conscious Being of What Is True About Us. Church, you might say, fully established is everyone finally having come Home.

And who else is there to come Home beside what appears to be a motley crew? [a little audience amusement] Which could be discouraging if I accepted the suggestion that you are a motley crew. In one way or another, you all tell me that you are. And you’re reluctant to leave your motleyness. [audience amusement]

The quivering what?

Ah, the church of the quivering flesh. Yes. Yes. [amused]

Continuing …

And the Altar is in you, and it’s the Holiness of You kept intact because God is uninterruptible. And therefore, God’s Presence in you is the intactness of your Holiness that’s uninterruptible.

Continuing …

And let’s be clear here. It doesn’t mean a second Altar that’s hidden, with evil motives and ungodlike intentions. It doesn’t mean a personal altar that you have erected in honor of yourself. It’s referring to the one and only Altar. “Any church which does not inspire love has a hidden altar.” In other words, your Divinity is hidden from you. And because it’s hidden, then it is not serving the purpose for which God intended it.

The Altar is the Holy Spirit in You. And the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your Right Mind. And Its Function is to Know Truth and not be fooled by suggestions to the contrary as to What Truth Is. And when you’re not paying attention to it, it’s hidden from you and it’s hidden from the world. And it’s … you withhold it from me, but you can’t cover it up to me because I don’t accept the suggestion that you put forth to me that we’re different and that you’re devoted in struggling but not quite there yet. Tain’t so. You’re neither behind the Point of Perfection, nor advancing toward it. I tell you right now, you’re at that Point! And that’s the way you need to start seeing yourself and experiencing yourself and being.

Continuing …

… God’s …

That’s just simple common sense. Follow me. You must follow the same path of undoing.

It’s difficult to know whether I’m leading or pushing; leading from in front of you or pushing from behind you. [audience amusement] Or slapping you smartly in the face saying, “Wake up! Wake up! You’re already here! Wake up!”

Continuing …

Those are strong words, “betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn, and finally killed.” The Principle, the Truth, is True at all levels of misperception.

You say, “My God, might I have to do that?” But let me tell you this. You say, instead of saying “I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn, and killed,” you say, “Well today I was exposed to the flu. I was confronted by an obviously frustrated policeman who hasn’t fulfilled his quota and was just picking on anybody doing the slightest thing.” What you’re actually saying is, “I forgot to remember that I’m neither behind the Point of Perfection nor advancing toward it, and that I’m invulnerable, and that I wasn’t confronted by anything that made a statement about my safety. And therefore I was not confronted by anything I need to give a second thought to or defend myself against.”

Illness and disease and suffering are suggestions that were presented to you that you became distracted by. And in the face of them, you abandoned the Clear, Conscious Experience that you are at the Point of Perfection and that What You Are is incapable of being affected positively or negatively by suggestions, by that which doesn’t have any Source.

There is no order of difficulty in miracles because miracles uncover the fact that all forms of threat are imaginary, unreal, Sourceless… PERIOD.

Continuing …

Now I want you to be clear here, too. It is possible to become intellectually and spiritually and metaphysically confused to the point where you would read this to say, “On the contrary, by enabling yourselves to hear the Holy Spirit in others who are attacking you, you can learn from their experiences.” No. By enabling yourselves to hear the Holy Spirit in others like me, the Holy Spirit in others who are letting the Holy Spirit speak for them, by listening to the Holy Spirit in Others Who Are Awake, like your own Guides, you can learn from their experiences and gain from them without experiencing them yourselves.

In other words, you don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. You don’t have to reinvent the Atonement. All you have to do is let yourself companion with One who has, so that you might learn from their experience.

The Holy Spirit never speaks through your Brother by means of his ignorance of the Truth about himself, acted out toward you as a call for Love that really means misbehaving. So don’t try to figure out what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to you by means of your Brother’s bad behavior.

Is anyone not clear about what I’ve just said? I mean it’s a … if you are, please say so and we will make it clearer. Okay.

Again …

… meaning infinite, all-inclusive …

… the Holy Spirit’s …

The moment you become clear, the moment you decide for Truth with me, you lessen the density of the dream by withdrawing from the mutually-agreed-upon definitions, and so your decision has been for everyone.

Continuing …

The suggestion is that you’re persecuted. But you’re not. You’re neither behind the Point of Perfection nor advancing toward it. You’re at that Point and that Point is the Living Presence and Movement of God Being The Only Mind There Is right where you are, Which is incapable of being split, and therefore is still Whole and doesn’t need to be fixed. Persecution is nonsense.

In other words, they’re still hypnotized. They’re still fooled into believing that they’re vulnerable and that they must protect themselves. They’ve abandoned the Conscious Experience of Being at the Point of Perfection which they can’t leave. And they are caught up in a dream of defending themselves against something that doesn’t exist.

Any perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit is a judgment made from a state of deluded conscious awareness where you’ve already taken the bait. You’re already under. You’ve already lost perspective, Divinely speaking.

Continuing …

If you will with God that none of your Brothers should suffer, are you going to go out and find a better antidote to the flu? Or are you going to address the fundamental problem that your Brother is neither behind the Point of Perfection, nor advancing toward it; that he is at this instant, no matter how he’s defining himself, at that Point. And he needs be willing to allow a shift to occur wherein he’s willing to conceive of himself from the Point of Perfection and be from the Point of Perfection in which he’s untouchable, unreachable, by any threat and in whose Presence threat cannot present itself. In whose Presence persecution is meaningless because he hasn’t taken the bait. Because he hasn’t taken the bait. And because he hasn’t taken the bait, he can see the bait for what it is. And can address the motive that caused a Brother to dangle the bait in the first place so that the Brother can withdraw the bait because he’s not interested in deluding you either.

Continuing …

… that which is nothing more than your right Mind …

Your Brothers need to hear it, just as you need to hear it right now.

Continuing …

So, how do you teach Love? You teach it by not taking the bait, not becoming inebriated or hypnotized into being in a constant state of defending yourself against ghosts.

“Oh,” you say, “but I can see the germs! They can show me the germs under the microscope. And they can show me this person’s lungs after they died and had an autopsy and they can… I can see what the germs did to the tissues. What do you mean I can’t be persecuted? What do you mean I’m not vulnerable?”

You know what? You’re gonna start having new reports in the news that demonstrate the other side. That when you stop taking the bait, when you do not play into the suggestions that come to you that you need to join the mutually-agreed-upon definitions about how germs and bodies and matter work, bodies that seem to have been affected by germs will have a spontaneous remission. What you will call physical healing will occur. And if as it were possible that someone were to die who was open to being healed so that a lung could be looked at, which had earlier been examined and been found to be in a great state of deterioration, they would find everything there to be absolutely flawless in spite of the fact that the mutually-agreed-upon definitions about how germs and matter work could be demonstrated and seen under a microscope.

It’s time for new things to happen besides sin, disease and death. And they can happen because none of you is behind the Point of Perfection, and therefore flawed and inadequate and vulnerable. And you’re not advancing toward it. And doing pretty well, if I might say so, and spiritualizing yourself wonderfully, but it might be another 1,000 lifetimes before you make it. You’re not advancing toward it either. You’re at that Point, and you must understand yourself there from, from there.

You must be willing to open yourself up to the Conscious Experience of Being There. And even if you’re not having the total Conscious Experience of Being There, you must dare to voice to yourself that you’re not available to join in mutually-agreed-upon definitions without running them by the Holy Spirit first. And that means that you must object [snaps fingers] you must object [snaps fingers] on the spot when these suggestions come to you out of your memory, or when they’re presented to you on the spot through the media or your Brothers or Sisters.

It may be fun to go to a show that a hypnotist is putting on. And it may be fun to watch the guy walk around on the stage thinking he’s a rooster cackling at the hens and crowing and strutting his stuff. [audience laugh] It may be funny, but you know he’s suffering a delusion.

Your delusions are no more real, but they seem not to be funny to you, and for the most part they seem not to be funny to anyone around you. And it’s important for you to stop taking them seriously, and objecting to them so that you might become [snaps fingers] unhypnotized, and thus demonstrate that you have joined with me in this decision, and demonstrate along with me that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.

You don’t have to hang on a cross. You don’t seem to have to die and then resurrect so that you can demonstrate for your Brothers that you are not available to see them as persecutors. And that you’re not available to see yourself as persecuted because you’ve insisted not to take the bait in the first place that their very behavior suggests to you that you should do.

Good stuff.

That’s not Paul. That’s me.

The Truth is wonderful. And the Truth is radical. The statement, “In defenselessness my safety lies,” you see, really doesn’t mean presenting no defense in the face of threat and letting threat walk all over you. Your safety lies in your unwillingness to abandon the Point of Perfection that you’re in, which is a Place in which you see nothing to be defended against, and the Place in which the apparent call for defense can be recognized as a suggestion being made by a Brother who’s ignorant of the Point of Perfection that he is in, and who is in need, not of retaliation, but of the Loving Expression of Truth in language that he or she can hear, that helps him realize that his defenselessness does not mean abandoning bad behavior that he thinks is going to defend his safety, but in not forgetting Who He Is and thinking a new definition of himself and believing it and as a result having moved into a state of delusion.

And you will be able to be a healing Presence. And you will be able to teach him how not to take the bait, how to recognize the bait, and pass on the gift to his Brothers and Sisters who are dangling bait in front of him.

Okay. I look forward to being with you next week.