"Resist not Evil."

You make what you defend against, and by
Your own defense against it is it real
And inescapable. Lay down your arms,
And only then do you perceive it false.

Reality opposes nothing. What merely is, needs no defense, and offers none. Only illusions need defense, because of weakness. And how can it be difficult to walk the way of truth, when only weakness interferes? YOU are the strong ones in this seeming conflict. And you need no defense. Everything that needs defense you do not want. For anything that needs defense will WEAKEN you.

Consider what the ego wants defenses FOR. Always to justify what goes against the truth, flies in the face of reason, and makes no sense. Can this BE justified? What can this be, except an invitation to insanity, to save you from the truth?

God rests with you in quiet, undefended and wholly undefending. For in this quiet state alone is strength and power. Here can no weakness enter, for here is no attack, and therefore no illusions. Love rests in certainty. Only uncertainty can be defensive. And all uncertainty is doubt about YOURSELF.

Nothing Real Can be Threatened!

The perfectly safe ARE wholly benign. They bless because they know they ARE blessed. Without anxiety, the mind is wholly kind, and because it PROJECTS beneficence, it IS beneficent. Safety is the COMPLETE RELINQUISHMENT OF ATTACK. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form, and YOU HAVE LEARNED IT AND IT WILL HURT YOU. But your learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it BY NOT TEACHING IT. Since you cannot NOT teach, your salvation lies in teaching exactly the opposite of everything the ego believes. This is how YOU will learn the truth that will make you free, and keep you so as others learn it of YOU.

Exerpts from L e s s o n 2 3
“I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.”

The idea for today contains the only way out of fear that will succeed. Nothing else will work; everything else is meaningless. But this way cannot fail. Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed.

If the cause of the world you see is attack thoughts, you must learn that it is these thoughts which you do not want. There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically.

Attack is ALWAYS physical. When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY. This is the ego’s INTERPRETATION of the body. You do not have to ATTACK physically to accept this interpretation; you ARE accepting it simply by the belief that attack can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. If you did NOT believe this, the IDEA of attack would have no appeal to you.

"LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego’s interpretation, not God’s."

L e s s o n 135
“If I defend myself I am attacked.”

Who would defend himself unless he thought he was attacked, that the attack is real, and that his own defense can save himself? And herein lies the folly of defense; it gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real.

“This is my Easter time. And I would keep
It holy. I will not defend myself,
Because the Son of God needs no defense
Against the truth of his Reality.”