Becoming Invulnerable

What it Means to be Invulnerable

(Most of this blog is taken from 'A Course in Miracles' Verbatim)

Follow this link for more teachings from A Course in Miracles https://nazeelahtippett.wixsite.com/noorcourses/post/becoming-invulnerable

Being invulnerable means that you have done your inner work or Soul work and are now comfortable in being your authentic self around others because part of your work has been learning to be more emotionally intelligent. In other words, you are not triggered by other’s opinions, thoughts or judgments about you. Your emotions are in tact and you live your life in confidence, knowing your true self and your true nature as part of the divine creation. “The mind that serves Spirit is invulnerable (A course in miracles).”

Do your mind serve Spirit? Do you listen and follow your intuition? Your intuition is your guide in this world. It is subtle and are often missed due to its seemingly elusiveness. It is quiet and speaks in whispers or internal thoughts most often. (It is the Holy Breath or Holy Spirit)

Intuition has a physical component as well as a spiritual one. Your subconscious mind communicates with your conscious mind all of the time. Your subconscious mind is where all of your life experiences are stored in the brain with its memories, beliefs, thoughts and emotions, in other words the physical aspect because it depends on the brain to function. The spiritual part of our brain is where intuition (spiritual aspect) uses our brain to understand our thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs from a point of awareness. It is the part that will help us develop intelligence if we listen to it and allow it to guide us in all things. This is the part of the brain where the Holy Spirit (the intuition) communicates with us, if we allow it to.

If you have learned that anger can cause negative results in your body i.e. sickness and anxiety, when something comes up that triggers unwanted emotions such as anger, you can choose to not engage in the emotion because you are aware of its emergence. This choice will give you a different experience with the situation. You’re not leaving that space where anger could have been empty but rather you are replacing it with conscious awareness. When you are consciously aware of your feelings the acknowledgment gives you the opportunity to choose how you would like to feel and abandoning the feeling you choose not to experience.

Keep in mind that the ego, the part of the brain you identify with in the world, works hard to keep you unaware because its very existence depends on your unawareness (sleep). This is why you must wake up to the truth of who you are, which is a part of eternal divine creation.

To be invulnerable is to be aware of the fact that you cannot be attacked or harmed in anyway unless you choose this experience, consciously or unconsciously. If you are asleep you are not aware of this choice and so you accept attack as your reality, which is the cause of your feelings, emotions, thoughts, beliefs and behavior.

Invulnerability in this world is strength and more importantly it is your protection from all fear of hurt, harm or danger. " Before the Separation (from God), the mind was invulnerable to fear, because fear did not exist. Both the Separation and the fear were miscreations of the mind, which have to be undone. This is what the Bible means by the “Restoration of the Temple”. It does not mean the restoration of a building, but it does mean the opening of the altar (mind) to receive the Atonement.

The vulnerable are essentially miscreators, because they misperceive Creation." When you perceive anyone and you only perceive their body you are misperceiving. I am a soul and so are you. If you don’t see me in this light you are prejudging me and will also prejudge yourself because I am a reflection of you.

I know that I cannot be destroyed or hurt in anyway because I know who I am. The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is KNOW THYSELF. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Your life is the curriculum. You must learn that you have more than an earthly origin. Being stuck on just your earthly origin will cause you to not truly know yourself. Your earthly origin has given you countless opportunities to learn that you are more than what you think you are but because of the many challenges and the sufferings you have endured as a human being you have forgotten that there is much more to you.

It is time to wake up and find yourself. The Bible instructs you to “know thyself” or be certain. Certainty is always of God. When you love someone, you have perceived him as he is, and this makes it possible for you to know him. But it is not until you recognized him that you know him. You have looked past the body and recognizes his soul and your own and this recognition makes you invulnerable to all outside influences. And so it is.

Unless there is emptiness there is no danger, and emptiness is a false creation. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable. The miracle restores the Soul to its fullness. By atoning for lack, it establishes perfect protection. The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. The truth is that there ARE no “idle thoughts”. ALL thinking produces form at some level. The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them. Their own thoughts have made them vulnerable.

“Self esteem,” in ego terms, means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality and is therefore temporarily less predatory. This “self esteem” is always vulnerable to stress, a term which really means that a condition has arisen in which the delusion of reality of the ego is threatened. This produces either ego-deflation or ego-inflation, resulting in either withdrawal or attack. The ego literally lives by comparisons. This means that equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless, because the two beliefs cannot coexist. The truly helpful are invulnerable, because they are NOT protecting their egos, so that nothing CAN hurt them.

What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt, and must give rise to joy. This makes it invulnerable to the ego, because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to disruption BECAUSE it is whole. The Apostles often misunderstood it, and always for the same reason that makes anyone misunderstand anything. Their own imperfect love made them vulnerable to projection, and out of their own fear they spoke of the wrath of God as His retaliatory weapon. They also could not speak of the crucifixion entirely without anger, because their own sense of guilt had made them angry.

The picture you see of yourselves is deprived, unloving, and very vulnerable. You cannot love this. But you can very easily escape from it, or better, leave it behind. You are not there, and that is not you. Do not see this picture in anyone, or you have accepted it as you. ALL illusions about the Sonship are dispelled together, as they were made together. Teach no-one that he is what YOU do not want to be. Your brother is the mirror in which you will see the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Sonship knows itself as whole.

Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that power can be taken from you. But this is impossible, because you are part of God, Who IS all power. A sick god must be an idol, made in the image of what its maker thinks he is. And that is exactly what the ego does perceive in a Son of God; —a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious, and very vulnerable.

You are invulnerable because you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past only through guilt. For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No-one who believes this, can understand what always means. And therefore guilt must deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal because you are eternal, and always must be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your minds, to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what has been will be punished, it’s continuity would be guaranteed.

The ego teaches you to attack yourself because you are guilty, and this must increase the guilt, for guilt is the result of attack. In the ego’s teaching, then there is no escape from guilt. For attack makes guilt real, and if it is real there is no way to overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition that it has never been. As He looks upon the guiltless Son of God, he knows this is true. And being true for you, you cannot attack yourself, for without guilt, attack is impossible. You, then, are saved because God’s Son is guiltless. And being wholly pure, you are invulnerable.

Every decision is made for the whole Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of. Those who accept Atonement are invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty, will respond to guilt, because they think it is salvation, and will not refuse to see it, and side with it. They believe that increasing guilt is self-protection. And they will fail to understand the simple fact that, what they do not want, must hurt them.

AS ONE with the ego, which ALWAYS looks upon itself, and therefore on you, as UNDER attack, and highly VULNERABLE to it. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACT OUT FANTASIES. For it is still the FANTASIES you want, and they have nothing to do with what the body does. IT does not dream of them, and they but make IT a liability, where it COULD be an asset. For fantasies have made your body your “enemy,” weak, vulnerable, and treacherous, “worthy” of the hate which you invest in it.

How has this served you? You have IDENTIFIED with this thing you hate, the instrument of vengeance, and the perceived) source of your guilt. YOU have done this

to a thing that has no meaning, proclaiming it to be the dwelling place of the Son of God, and turning it AGAINST him. This is the host of God that YOU have made. And neither God nor His most holy Son can enter an abode which harbors hate, and where you have sown the seeds of vengeance, violence, and death.

Listen to what the ego says, and see what it DIRECTS you see, and it is sure that you will see YOURSELF as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You WILL experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You WILL believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you WILL think the world you made directs your destiny. For this will be your FAITH. But never believe, because it is your faith, it makes REALITY. There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU.

On your learning depends the welfare of the world. And it is only arrogance that would DENY the power of your will. Think you the Will of God is powerless? Is this HUMILITY? You do not see what this belief has done. You see yourself as vulnerable, frail, and easily destroyed. And at the mercy of countless attackers more powerful than you. Let us look straight at how this error came about, for here lies buried the heavy anchor that seems to keep the fear of God in place, unmovable and solid as a rock. While this remains, so will it seem to be.

It is not YOU that is so vulnerable and open to attack that just a word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you not, or an event that you did not anticipate upsets your world, and hurls it into chaos. Truth is not frail. Illusions leave it perfectly unmoved and undisturbed. But specialness is NOT the truth in you. IT can be thrown off balance by ANYTHING. What rests on nothing NEVER can be stable. However large and over-blown it SEEMS to be, it still must rock and turn and whirl about with every breeze. Adornment of the body seeks to show how lovely are the witnesses for guilt. Concerns about the body demonstrate how frail and vulnerable is your life; how easily destroyed is what you love. Depression speaks of death and vanity of real concern with anything at all. Are YOU invulnerable? Then the world is harmless in your sight. Do YOU forgive? Then is the world forgiving, for you have forgiven it its trespasses. And so it looks on you with eyes that see as yours.

Are YOU a body? So is all the world perceived as treacherous, and out to kill. Are you a Spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon you? So the world is seen as stable, fully worthy of your trust; a happy place to rest in for a while, where nothing need be feared but only loved. Who is unwelcome to the kind in heart? And what could hurt the truly innocent?

Those who are afraid of using the mind to heal are right in avoiding it, because the very fact that they are afraid HAS made them vulnerable to miscreation. They are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing they might induce, and because egocentricity and fear usually occur together, may be unable to accept the real Source of the healing.

The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.)

If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. The fact that you DO listen to the voice of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings, and your behavior. Your attitudes are obviously conflicted; your feelings have a narrow range on the negative side, but are never purely joyous; and your behavior is either strained or unpredictable. Yet this IS what you want. This is what you are fighting to keep, and what you are vigilant to save. Your minds are filled with schemes to save the face of your egos, and you do not seek the Face of God.

Watch your minds carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one RIGHT use of judgment. God Himself orders your thought, because you thought was created BY Him. Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this. They also show that you believe you CAN think apart from God, and WANT to.

Guilt feelings are the PRESERVERS of time. They induce fears of FUTURE retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will remain like the past. This IS the ego’s continuity, and gives it a false sense of security through the belief that you cannot escape from it.

The mind that accepts attack CANNOT love. This is because it believes that it can DESTROY love, and therefore does not understand what love IS. If it does not understand what love IS, it CANNOT perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being; induces feelings of unreality; and results in utter confusion. Your own thinking has done this, because of its power. But your own thinking can also save you FROM this, because its power is not of your making. Your ability to DIRECT your thinking as you will IS part of its power. If you do not believe you can do this, you have DENIED the power of your thought, and thus rendered it powerless in your belief.

Why should the body be ANYTHING to you? Certainly what it is MADE of is not precious. And, just as certainly, IT has no feeling. It transmits TO YOU the feelings that you WANT. Like any communication medium, the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has NO feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver. The ego and the Holy Spirit both recognize this. And both also recognize that here, THE SENDER AND RECEIVER ARE THE SAME. The Holy Spirit TELLS you this with joy. The ego HIDES it, for it would keep you unaware of it.

To become invulnerable is to see the world from a higher perspective through your righteous mind where peace have come and you see everything that is created is good and safe.

Peace Adonai

Vigilance - to be exercised over our states of consciousness

"Observe yourself; there are times when you are busy cooking or gardening, doing little jobs, driving your car, and you seem to be focused on what you are doing. But, in reality, a part of you is wandering off elsewhere, and the thoughts and feelings that are troubling you have nothing to do with what you are doing. You are brooding over such and such a person who annoyed you or didn’t keep a promise and so on, and that can last a long time without your even realizing it. So that is where you have to learn in particular to be vigilant, so that you can intervene at any moment in the progress of your inner life. The first step toward freedom, the first step toward true power, is to get into the habit of taking a look within yourself from time to time to see how you are doing. And if you see you are descending into the dark, chaotic regions of your consciousness, respond by giving a different direction to your thoughts."

Omraam Mikhael Aïvanhov