May 27th 2014 Lesson 26
My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.
It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. They contradict each other. Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. The idea for today introduce the thought that you always attack yourself first.It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than "good" or "bad," is the only way to accomplish this. The idea for today is a step in this direction.
- Intention: Six practice periods are required in applying today's idea. A full two minutes should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minute if the discomfort is too great. Do not reduce it further.
- Practice:
The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing your eyes and reviewing the unresolved questions whose outcomes are causing you concern. The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of imposition, fear, foreboding or preoccupation. Any problem as yet unsettled that tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable subject. Today's idea should be applied as follows. First, name the situation:
I am concerned about __________.
Then go over every possible outcome that has occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:
I am afraid __________ will happen.
If you are doing the exercises properly, you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each situation you use, and quite possibly more. It is much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number. You will probably find some of the anticipated outcomes less acceptable to you. Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can. After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:
That thought is an attack upon myself.
Conclude each practice period by repeating today's idea to yourself once more.
- Application: Practice with today's idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.
Insights/comments:
- Our thoughts give meaning to our lives. What we think about we value and believe. Obviously if these thoughts are false our beliefs will also be false. Today's lesson stresses yet another aspect of our thoughts, that they decide our vulnerability or our invulnerability. To say that our attack thoughts are attacking our invulnerability implies that we are invulnerable, and are diminishing that invulnerability by having attack thoughts. Our inherent invulnerability is easy to prove given who we are--the holy children of God--even though we do not typically think of ourselves as invulnerable. The way then to protect our invulnerability is to release attack thoughts.
If we believe in attack, we must also believe that we can be attacked. The fear of attack means that we believe ourselves to be vulnerable, which implies weakness, for only the vulnerable fear attack. This is how attack thoughts weaken our inherent invulnerability. They weaken our perception of ourselves. The recognition of this weakening effect encourages us to practice returning to our invulnerability by releasing all thoughts of attack.
I and my Creator are One. 
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