Those Who Accept the Atonement Know Invulnerability

“Those who accept the Atonement are invulnerable. (T-14.III.10)”

Often we think that vulnerability is to be desired, that it makes us more loving people, more willing to share. But is there not fear in this? We don’t have to feel vulnerability to be loving. This quotation actually indicates just the opposite. We will, of course, be more loving to ourselves and others when we have accepted the Atonement for ourselves, and in this, Jesus says, we will be invulnerable. What a promise!

What does it mean to be invulnerable? It know that nothing can harm us. In the cosmology of ACIM, it says that we are living in an insane and illusory world in which the attacks of others do not harm us because they are not true. This sense of invulnerability will protect us from the slings and arrows that only seem to hurt us. In actuality, these slings and arrows do nothing.

Helpful and Harmless

“God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful.  This is impossible without being wholly harmless, because the two beliefs must coexist.  The truly helpful are invulnerable, because they are not protecting their egos and so nothing can hurt them.  (T71)”

Affirmation:  “The truly helpful are invulnerable.”

Reflections:

1 – We Can Learn to Be Helpful and Harmless

May we learn to be both helpful and harmless.  This passage recommends that harmlessness is an attribute of those who are following its way of peace and love.  We will not attack when in our right mind, though we sometimes slip up.  We know that anger is unjustified, even though we may still feel it from time to time.

2 – Conflict

When we are unnaturally tired, it is my interpretation that we are struggling with some conflict that Jesus would willingly take from us.  Ask the Holy Spirit how He would have us react.  If we are struggling to “do something” for a brother or sister, and it just doesn’t feel right (though it would be a loving act), perhaps now is not the right time.  Perhaps we need to reassess and ask how we might really help.  Sometimes doing nothing at all, at the present moment, is the right response, the harmless response.

3 – Invulnerability for Us

When we are bent on helping our brothers and sisters, we will not knowingly do them harm.  Not only do they benefit, but so do we.  This helpfulness renders us invulnerable to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to quote Shakespeare.  What this means is that we are invulnerable to pain from our egoic selves.  We are leaving our egos behind as we embark on the pathway set forth by A Course in Miracles.

4 – Laudable Goals

So:  helpful and harmless.  What goals these are!  And how blessed we are when, even in our imperfection, we reach those goals in our daily lives.

Prayer:

Dear Father,

May I not lose my temper.  May I remain helpful and harmless to my brothers and sisters.  

When I have remained helpful and harmless, then I am invulnerable to hurts as well.  This is a great desire of mine.  Thank you for helping me to be both helpful and harmless.

Amen.  

Invulnerable Mind

“The mind that serves spirit is invulnerable.  (T11)”

Affirmation:  “May my mind serve spirit today.”

Reflections:

1 – Do You Feel Vulnerable?

Many of us feel vulnerable.  But there is a way out.  When we dedicate our minds to the service of spirit, we will know ourselves to be invulnerable.  This is one of the few places in A Course in Miracles that “spirit” is not capitalized and therefore meant to be the Holy Spirit.  I interpret this to mean that to focus on “spirit” (not capitalized) would inject controversy into our study.  By the same token, the word “soul” is not brought up in any significant way in ACIM; there are too many theological overtones to the word “soul,” and Jesus says that theology can delay.  We need the universal experience that ACIM seeks to bring about.  We do not need to let theology delay, for a universal theology is impossible.  (These are paraphrases from ACIM.)

2 – Invulnerability

What a grand experience this is, even when seen only in snatches.  We will recognize invulnerability only at certain junctures, when we are especially open to love.  When we pray that our minds will serve spirit only, we are well on our way.

3 – A Great Gift

The recognition of invulnerability is a great gift.  We can walk unafraid throughout our world, certain that we are protected.  We may find pain, but we will not know suffering in that pain.  And Jesus has promised in A Course in Miracles that we do not have to learn through pain.  This is an open mind, serving spirit, that lets us walk freely through the sometimes conflict-ridden world that we know.

4 – The Holy Spirit

When I say “spirit,” I am not specifically writing of the Holy Spirit, but it is through Him that we live best.  Our minds cannot comprehend Who the Holy Spirit really is, but we can pray that we will understand from a mystical standpoint.  We can “know” things, beyond the shadow of a doubt, internally–things that we would not ever be able to verbalize.  So part of our prayers today could well me an entreaty to have us come to comprehend something more of Who we mean by the Holy Spirit.  And, in the meantime, we can speculate that it is He that will tell us, being, as He is, our Guide.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would be invulnerable, because I would let my mind be totally subject to Your peace.  When I am not stressed, I do not get angry–another way of saying that my ego is not in control.

I would try to invite the Christ-consciousness by being sure that I am following the guidance that You give to me.  I would sustain a better way to live.

Thank You.

Amen.