The Illusion of the Verbal Attack

I've been a student of ACIM (A Course in Miracles) for the better part of almost ten years now.  In all honesty, I have felt I was not a very good student at all as there was a concept I mostly understood in part but still was so mired in my own illusions that I could not comprehend the concept well enough to engage in practical application in real life.  So, the Universe in it's infinite wisdom sent me several practice tests over almost 10 years in order that I might finally get the lesson.  For whatever reason, today, it makes sense.  The lesson comes back to me this very evening after opening my big blue book to page 495, Chapter 23 THE WAR AGAINST YOURSELF, Section III. Salvation without Compromise.  The concept and lesson is summarized as follows - based on my understanding which some of my more astute ACIM student friends may wish to add or suggest correction at will if my understanding is off.  Know that this particular lesson, when I first read it, made me shut the book and have it collect dust for a year.  I laugh now...but it was too painful for me to understand when I first read this section.  So, my understanding after learning is as follows:

1.  Guilt, shame and pain stem from wounds a person holds.  These wounds cut a person off from feeling love (their own, God's or anyone else's).  When cut off from love, some people will attack others and viciously just to get love and if they don't get love specifically on their conditions, the attacks will increase and increase until all are so weary from battle that no one knows what to do anymore.

2.  When a person attacks you from this place, they are not evil, they are not sinners and they are not horrible people.  What they are is wounded and in so much pain that they would create whatever damage to others they had to in order to get love in any form they may extract or derive from you.  Sometimes the attention or energy whether positive or negative is viewed as love or fulfills their need in their state of illusion on the subject.

3.  When this kind of attack befalls you, realize the source of a person's behavior and that their attack upon you is initiated not really to hurt you but to suffer the pain you will inflict upon them in retaliation.  They want what they have deemed themselves unworthy to hold and so they must attack to get you to reinforce their fear that they are not worthy of love...they are cut off from Source, from God and they are guilty, shameful and hurting so terribly.  This is the most common cry for help and for love.

4.  Retaliation creates conflict for you and as the battle rages on, you lose more and more of yourself until you begin to understand the true source of the conflict.  In that moment when you hear the cry for love...that moment that you hear the cry for help, there is another action that you can take to free this soul from pain and battle with you and free yourself from the conflict.

5.  Restore them to their rightful place in your mind as a child of the Creator, no lesser than you nor anyone else.  Understand them and acknowledge them as a child of the Creator and that you love them as such.  The giving of your love comes through learning to forgive the pain they cannot help but try to inflict.  When you realize the pain is intended to hurt them and not really you, there is no harm done to you.  In this, forgiveness and love is a simple matter.

6.  Whether the battle rages on from their side or not is of no significance as you have answered the call for help.  The conflict will then be resolved for you and you are free to leave the battle field.  You are not obligated to succumb to their demands.  The call to you is only for love and forgiveness.  Give that and give it fully.

Nothing in this concept says that you are obligated to throw down your arms and defense to become a human sacrifice and stand there taking the beating.  What the concept is trying to teach you is that there is no verbal beating.  This isn't about you and it is about the cry for help.  Reacting to the cry with more pain inflicting actions and words is not answering the cry for help or love.  It keeps the pain reinforced.  It keeps you mired in the conflict if not physically then energetically.  If you wish to be free, love and forgive despite the error in the thinking of the other and then leave the battlefield.  The battlefield is an illusion.

It is not up to you to command that the soul in pain see the illusion and the error of their ways. It is truly error on their parts that designed the attack, conditioned the love you would give and would seemingly punish you for not giving.  That is not the case at all.  You are called to love and forgive, to understand, to realize the source to diffuse the impact on YOU.  There is no impact in this regard unless you choose also to see the illusion.  The attack is unreal when you understand the source of the attack.  Your challenge when you run into these people is neither to suffer nor become a human sacrifice.  Your challenge is to see the illusion and rise above the battle to where it cannot hurt you or can hurt you no longer.  Understanding is how it is done, detachment from egotistical control is the cost, love is what sets the stage for your freedom and forgiveness is they key that unlocks the gate.

I'm grateful I returned to this painful lesson.  Aspects of it I understood for a very long time but now I see so much that I didn't before see.  I almost had it right so many times but failed to see the illusion through my own.  I'm so grateful tonight as I write.  This lesson has had so many moving pieces and parts for me for many years and now, I understand.  Without time and lots of consideration and even practice, this lesson can easily be rejected as insane ranting.  I thought so too at first.  But now I see its infinite wisdom from so many facets.  Its truly beautiful and the freedom it brings is beyond words.  ~Blessings of love and higher understanding dear ones.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo is a beautiful random internet find)