Relationships are based on keeping private thoughts while “special love and conditional companionship” are sought, not through sharing undivided honesty, transparency, and innocence, but through the physical joining of bodies.

The ego’s private mind is terrified of showing up in radical self-honesty, emotional transparency and defenselessness with others. Yet if we don’t commit to showing-up, which means practicing these principles, then we cannot communicate authentically with others let alone our self.

As a private mind, we are dishonest with our Holy Self, which amounts to Self-betrayal. What we think, feel, say and do are in conflict. This is the terrible burden we carry when we value a private mind with personal agendas. Furthermore, if everything we experience arises from our very own mind, and “it” is in constant conflict then that chaos must be projected onto and reflected back by others, the body, and the world. And we will feel attacked.

“The Holy Spirit cannot teach through fear. And how can He communicate with you, while you believe that to communicate is to make yourself alone? It is clearly insane to believe that by communicating you will be abandoned. And yet many do believe it. For they think their minds must be kept private or they will lose them, but if their bodies are together their minds remain their own. The union of bodies thus becomes the way in which they would keep minds apart. For bodies cannot forgive. They can only do as the mind directs.” T-15.VII.11.

Our attachment to the body as “self” is the primordial gap from which all suffering emerges (see The Gap diagram). There could be no gap and therefore, no suffering if we prioritized forgiveness and honest, undefended communication over trusting what the body’s five senses appear to report.

While the body is mistaken as self, the false concept of attack (sickness, conflict, betrayal, abandonment, loss, etc.) will remain attractive. Indeed here, hidden deeply within the un-forgiven belief in attack, is the mistaken self’s attraction to death of the body.

Victim and victimizer will appear to be real. And false innocence will be highly valued. This is the ego’s idol; its version of corrupted innocence which always depends on making someone else guilty.

Victim and perpetrator are classic examples of this profound confusion. False innocence is forever bought at the cost of making someone else guilty. Yet the instant we blame another we secretly attack our self. This is literally self-condemnation. No wonder the body suffers from pain, illness, aging, and finally death. There is only one cause of death regardless of the many illusory excuses which the ego appears to fool us with, and that is the un-forgiven guilt sustained by our belief in attack. Guilt always calls for punishment by death.

Only True Innocence is without opposite because it is literally incorruptible. However, to be known within, it must be valued and extended equally for everyone including our self.

All appearances of attack from others, the body, the past, and the world are never fact. All perception of attack no matter the form or severity arises exclusively from the ego’s misguided “interpretation” only.

The Truth is unopposed Love because the one, shared and innocent Mind cannot attack. However, the split mind (ego) can make up fantasies of attack and project these onto others and the body so they appear to be the “cause” of attack. While we erroneously believe that these neutral images are the “cause” of attack we will never identify and heal the single true cause of all pain in our own mind (via forgiveness).

We betray our Holy Self whenever we choose to believe that we have been victimized. Whatever appears to unfold, Jesus tells us that all of it can be classified into one of just two groups. Understanding that everything that occurs falls within these two categories ensures that our split mind will heal. Everything is either 1) an expression of Love – or – 2) a call for Love, help, and healing. There is no in-between!

If we perceive seeming attack, betrayal or abandonment in any way other than a call for help and healing, then the ego is applying its very own “interpretation” for the singular purpose of self-attack.

“You cannot perpetuate an illusion about another without perpetuating it about yourself. ‘’ T-7.VIII.4.1

All appearances of attack are always a call for help. If we interpret them in any other way, we literally prefer to keep and maintain our own unconscious self-attack. Everything that triggers us stems from the ego’s own hallucination which depends exclusively on its compulsive obsession with sin, guilt, and fear – attack – as being real. Only a false-self with private thoughts who identifies as a body, can be triggered! The Holy Self cannot.

All the suffering that triggers us is never as it appears; out there in the body, others, the past, and the world. No! Their seeming reality and manifestation exist exclusively within the very lens that we’re choosing to look through. There are never any victims or victimizers.

When the ego is triggered it’s always because it desires to see its hidden sins in someone else. That way it attempts to offload its guilt onto them.

“It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him. You want to see them there, and not in you. That is why forgiveness of another is an illusion. Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found.” S-2.I.4:2-6

All attack is a call for Love, help, and healing. The extent to which we are triggered by another determines the degree to which it is our own (ego) projection of unconscious self-hatred. Thus, this is our own call for help! Think about this. Furthermore, by answering another’s call for help through forgiving our self for having unknowingly used them to attack us, we are healed.

All attack is a call for Love. Consequently, it is always an appeal for help and healing. Jesus asks us then, “Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help?” COA edition of A Course in Miracles, T-12.I.3:5

When we believe that we’ve been victimized then the ego has interpreted incorrectly. If I am triggered at all – it’s always because I have interpreted incorrectly! I then refuse to recognize and forgive my own projection of self-attack. While I choose to value my belief that I am a victim I refuse to recognize and answer my own “call for help and healing,” reflected in someone else.

Attack is always the ego’s interpretation, and never the Truth. In Truth, we are all one shared Identity (Mind) as the Holy Self. Therefore, when we fail to answer another’s “call for help and healing,” – we fail to answer our own. They are inextricably entwined.

“If you maintain that an appeal for help is something else, you will react to something else, and your response will be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it.”… “If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and receive it.”COA edition of A Course in Miracles, T-12.I.4:2,5:4

“There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are, except your own perceived need to attack.” COA edition of A Course in Miracles, T-12.I.4:4

“Whenever you fail to recognize a call for help, you are refusing help.” … “…for only by answering his appeal can you be helped.” COA edition of A Course in Miracles, T-12.7:1,3

Our interpretation of attack is always a choice. We simply cannot interpret the motives of others; only the ego engages in this. If we do choose to use the ego’s interpretation of attack, then we refuse to accept Reality. While we prefer to perceive attack, we inadvertently reject the miracle which heals our own unacknowledged and deeply invested belief that we are fundamentally flawed and, as a consequence, entirely unworthy.

This is the fear of Love (God), the destructive byproduct of un-forgiven and unconscious guilt. Recall that to the degree we blame our self or others reveals the extent to which we’re still valuing unconscious guilt as self-loathing. Without question, everyone who has seemingly hurt us offers us the magnificent and tender gift of self-forgiveness. How willing are we to acknowledge and receive this gift?

This is the restoration to our awareness of our own incorruptible innocence. In our forgiveness – accepting the Atonement for our self – the veil of separation and suffering is lifted, so we see and experience Reality through the innocent Eye of the Heart (Holy Self).

Recognizing our shared Innocence with everyone is the end of the ego’s death wish. Only a private mind invested in private thoughts and a separate body could possibly believe in attack. This is why we cannot afford to trust what the body’s five senses report because they are sent forth by the ego to retrieve false evidence of attack to justify separation and death. The body is killed by the ego to try to prove that fear, as separation, is more powerful than all-encompassing, unopposed Love and Life as God.

Through our eager embrace of unrelenting forgiveness, our mind is restored to wholeness – fearless Love. The memory of our incorruptible innocence is restored. Knowing our innocence, we also know everyone else’s for them. This is the state of invulnerability that Jesus invites us to attain whilst still seemingly in a body. The body becomes a reflection of the healed mind and is then made free from demonstrating attack (sickness, pain, conflict, etc.) because it shares just one divine purpose with God.

“You believe you can harbor thoughts you would not share, and that salvation lies in keeping thoughts to yourself alone. For in private thoughts, known only to yourself, you think you find a way to keep what you would have alone, and share what [you] would share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you, and with God Who surrounds all of you together.” T-15.IV.3:3-5

“Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, because you would have it so. It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while breaking communication holds value to you. Ask yourself honestly, “Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?” If the answer is no, then the Holy Spirit’s readiness to give it to you is not enough to make it yours, for you are not ready to share it with Him. And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it. For the holy instant is given and received with equal willingness, being the acceptance of the single Will that governs all thought.” T-15.IV.8.

“The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that you have none that you would keep.” T-15.IV.9:1-2

The goal of healing our split mind is vastly accelerated by Holy Relationships. We manifest this goal through the process of relinquishing our special relationships to the Holy Spirit for His purpose, together with our dedicated practice of The Seven Key Principles of Holy Relationship.

Incorruptible innocence is guiltlessness, which in simple terms returns our mind to its natural state of “fearlessness.” Without fear, only Love is present, but we cannot recall this joyous state while we still choose to believe in attack.

In conclusion, the Holy Spirit’s reinterpretation of all seeming attack is that it’s always an opportunity to heal the split mind which values and invites attack. Once we acknowledge and accept this, why would we desire to value blame (self-attack) for one minute longer?

“If you did not feel guilty you could not attack, for condemnation is the root of attack. It is the judgment of one mind by another as unworthy of love and deserving of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges perceives itself as separate from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing another, it will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself, and escape the penalty of denial. It is not an attempt to relinquish denial, but to hold on to it. For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane.” … “The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end.” T-13.in.1,2:1

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