Course in Political Miracles: Lesson 16

"My safety lies not in defensiveness, but in joy."
A corollary of last week's lesson is if there is never any reason to worry, there is never any reason to become defensive.

If I perceive myself as attacked, I need to look very carefully to see if sticks and stones can break my bones, while any other kind of attack can really hurt me.

Men and women have not always been civil in the realm of politics. Sometimes they have reduced themselves to the lowest level of attack mentality. The question is: what kind of mentality do I reduce myself to if I become defensive or start defending myself?

Like worry, defensiveness works against me. If I am defensive, I am not anchored in my spirit. If I am not anchored in my spirit, I am coming from weakness. If I am coming from weakness, how much more am I likely to be attacked and how much less am I likely to be supported?

Operating in the realm of politics, if I am never attacked … so much the better. On the other hand, is there a way I can see things which keeps me out of defensiveness?

What if my joy actually remains intact despite the appearance that I am being attacked? What if in reality I can only attack myself by believing that the seeming attack of others is really about me and can hurt me? What if in truth any apparent attack is not about me at all and hurts nobody but the attacker?

With this week's lesson, I dedicate myself to learning that I never have to be defensive and that defensiveness always works against me. This week I train myself to experience my safety not in defensiveness, but in joy.

My morning meditations this week will be dedicated to imagining situations which could come up during the day to which I would react with defensiveness. With each situation that comes to mind I visualize myself consciously choosing to access my joy and feel my joy instead of lapsing into defensiveness. While visualizing myself avoiding defensiveness and holding my joy in each situation, I tell myself the statement of this week's lesson:

"My safety lies not in defensiveness, but in joy."

Then each hour during the day I stop whatever I am doing and take a few minutes to think of situations where I did or could become defensive and declare about each:

"In this situation involving (someone's name or other specifics) my safety lies not in defensiveness, but in joy."

Finally as I retire each day I review my progress, not worrying about the times I forgot to substitute my joy for defensive tendencies; and feeling very, very good about the times when instead of becoming defensive I was able to stay with my spirit in joy.



The device which more deeply prepares freedom lovers for success, A Course in Miracles , talks about our ultimate need to free ourselves from every kind of slavery:

You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.



Also available free of charge online:
Course in Relationship Miracles

Course in Political Miracles: Lesson 14

"My joy brings me everything I have ever wanted."
I have learned that my natural state of being is peace. I have also learned when I release all fear, I return to my natural state. Now I am ready to see that my natural state of being is also joyous and my joy works very strongly to bring about the achievement of my goals.

Why is this so? Why does my joy act as a magnet attracting others and opening their minds to consideration of my political ideas?

The answer is easy to find. If joy is my natural state of being, it is also everyone else's natural state. So regardless of how much someone's surface-thinking intellectual mind might be put off by my joy, his or her inner being says, "Here is someone who is showing me what I really, really, really want! Here is someone who is teaching me by example what life can be and should be."

When people's innermost being responds to me in such a positive way, it is not easy for them to lapse into fighting me in the political realm or any other realm. Their minds are suddenly too open for them to be in resistance.

So my goal is to be in-touch with my joy, to be my joy, to express my joy at all times. To this end I practice this week's lesson with joyous diligence.

Each day as I wake up this week, I will access my joy by reminding myself that my joy is always inside of me when I ask to experience it. Each morning I will ask inside one time or a hundred times, as many times as it takes, to bring forth the experience of my joy:

"Joy? Are you there? Are you there, joy? Come and show yourself!"

Joy will always bubble up from within me if I ask with persistent desire. To know that joy is my true nature and yet not ask for the experience each morning would be something like a slap in the face to anyone who has ever loved me and wanted the best for me. This I will not do. I accept my joy.

During my five minute hourly meditations throughout the day, I will take the time to revisit my joy and remind myself how my joy is working for me. I will repeat to myself statements such as:

"This joy of mine is helping me accomplish my objectives."

"My joy is opening up an interest in my ideas."

"The joy I feel keeps me safe from attack."

"My joy wins people over and gives me confidence."

Then at the end of each day I use my pre-sleep meditation to once again rejoice in my true nature and tell myself the truth as my spirit sees it:

"My joy brings me everything I have ever wanted."




The device which more deeply prepares freedom lovers for success, A Course in Miracles , talks about our ultimate need to free ourselves from every kind of slavery:

You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.



Also available free of charge online:
Course in Relationship Miracles

Freedom Manifesto

Jesus Christ states in modern day revelation: Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial, since they depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected. A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary."

The same principle holds true in politics. All political considerations are controversial and none can be universally accepted because every human being's perception is different. Yet the experience of freedom from government dictatorship is not only possible ... but necessary for the the teaching/learning exposure human beings need to reach the fullness of life.

To serve our lives politically we need not get sidetracked with a million and one issues and considerations. We need only focus on and work to achieve the one and only experience: freedom from government dictatorship.

When American colonial representatives declared their secession from British rule they stated the truth that human beings are right (have a right) to experience life, to experience liberty, and to use their free will to pursue happiness. Their statement of these basic human rights should have been the foundation of a government with one function only: response if there has been an apparent violation or threat to these rights.

Instead an American government was soon formed which allowed for elections and a legislature not specifically restricted to responding, therefore leaving open the door to future government dictatorship over the lives of those who have harmed or threatened no one. So although the American government started as one of the most human free will governments in history it slowly became more and more a device for political dictatorship.

Flash forward a couple centuries and Americans who are in touch with their deeper heart and soul (as opposed to their ego's intellectualism) feel cravings for their rightful freedom.

Can elections with their monumental dishonesty, corruption, attack, conflict and dictatorship by a majority of voters (or by those who have hoodwinked a majority of voters) be eliminated? Maybe that's a future goal for mankind. But at present too many people want to believe their vote counts for something. Can a legislature with its ability to create ego-made laws with their unforeseen results of  pain, suffering, and sabotage be phased out? Possible goal for future mankind. But for now the true nature of "legislature evil" is barely recognized at all.

So what can be done?

It is imperative that we focus only on the one political fundamental: freedom from government dictatorship. We cannot continue spewing our energy in a hundred different wasteful directions by focusing on a hundred different issues and considerations.

We must become zealous educators for freedom, pointing out to everyone that human beings have free will for a reason, so they can discover their way to the fullness of life either by making wise choices or by making poor choices creating lessons to learn.

We must constantly point out that the dominion of some people over the free will of others who have harmed or threatened no one is inhuman, totally damaging to humanity.

We must weaken and eventually destroy the mistaken belief that sometimes government dictatorship serves a good purpose, because government dictatorship always leads to some people suffering actual pain and difficulty while everyone lives in a polluted atmosphere of endless conflict.

How to address individual issues? Those with a dictatorship mindset know they can always have easy wins if they forever invent new political proposals and misdirect our focus toward the surface appearances of these proposals and away from the reality of whether the proposals enhance freedom or institute government dictatorship.

With every proposal that is brought up we must ask one and only one question: "Does this involve government dictatorship over someone who has harmed or threatened no one?

If the answer is "yes," then we must point out to people that the proposal's dictatorial nature is far more damaging to the human condition than whatever problem the proposed government action is imagined to "solve."

Is this a waste of time given the current surface appearances of the political landscape? Ask a farmer if a harvest can be expected without planting seeds.

Human beings have free will and are meant to experience freedom. Which means someday freedom will reign victorious. If we keep focusing on and pointing out the inhumanity of government dictatorship we will feel the joy of sensing the future ... freedom's inevitable victory.




The device which even more deeply prepares freedom lovers for success, A Course in Miracles , talks about our ultimate need to free ourselves from every kind of slavery:

You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.



Also available free of charge online:

Course in Relationship Miracles

Fundamental Strategy to Defeat Government Dictatorship

"You must buy health insurance ... or else!" Are you willing to admit this is government dictatorship?

"You must use politically correct speech ... or else!" Do you see the dictatorship?

"Government gets some of your earnings ... or else!" (No matter that your earnings will pay for programs which violate your deeply held beliefs.) Dictatorship for everyone's good, right?

"Politicians and bureaucrats have created hundreds of thousands of man-made, ego-made rules which you will follow ... or else!" Do you really enjoy all this government dictatorship?

The illusion that America is a free country may well be history's greatest fantasy. America is a dictatorship. People who like America's government dictatorship continually cry "democracy" to sell us the illusion we are free, but dictatorship by any other name is still dictatorship.

"But it's good dictatorship because all these laws and rules are of the people, by the people, for the people."

This is fantasy. How can some people dictating what other people should buy, dictating what kind of speech is allowed, dictating how a portion of another's earnings will be distributed ... how can that be of the people, by the people, or for the people who are being forced against their will?

"But it's dictatorship for their own good."

More fantasy. We can convince ourselves we know what is likely good for another person, but we can never truly know what lessons and life experiences the other person really needs. To assume we know better than others what is good for them is the height of arrogance.

So how do we extricate Americans from all this fantasy?

By calling a spade a spade. American culture is saturated with propaganda publicizing the theme "democracy vs. dictatorship" in an attempt to pretend the two are different because one is clothed differently. This propaganda can only be offset by hundreds of millions of instances of the truth being stated, democracy is dictatorship.

Remember Hans Christian Andersen's tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes," in which people are afraid to say the emperor is naked because if they did so then they themselves would be seen as stupid or incompetent? Finally an innocent child yells, "But he isn't wearing anything at all."

Americans seem to have a morbid vested interest in believing the illusion. The only kind of dictatorship they are willing to see is absolute rule by one person, so they justify the deception by saying: "America would never allow absolute rule by one person, so could never be a dictatorship. Doesn't America look good clothed in democracy!?"

The way to break the spell of an illusion is to yell the truth for everyone to hear. "Look beyond the illusion! A dictatorship by politicians is still a dictatorship. A dictatorship by a majority of voters is still a dictatorship. A dictatorship of the proletariat is still a dictatorship."

The fantasy that America is a free country is deeply believed. So to break through the illusion those who see truly have to yell loudly and clearly every time the dictatorship shows itself.

It will not work to be anti-government in all respects because the vast majority of people sense a legitimate use for government: to respond if someone has violated someone else. Dictatorship is when the government itself violates the free will of people who have violated no one.

Whether we believe Jesus Christ gives modern day revelation or not, we can still see the logic of these words from A Course in Miracles: "Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of all cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another."

So every time our friends or neighbors start saying "there ought to be a law," or start talking about this or that government program which violates the free will of innocent people for "for their own good" or "for the good of society," let us not hesitate to be like Hans Christian Andersen's little child and announce in speech or writing: "dictatorship!"

If people in conversation keep hearing the word, "dictatorship!", if surfers of social media keep seeing the word, "dictatorship!", if those who scan articles and letters and political feedback keep reading the word, "dictatorship!"... finally ... with enough repetition ... Americans will come to admit the reality beneath the illusion.





The device which even more deeply prepares freedom lovers for success, A Course in Miracles , talks about our ultimate need to free ourselves from every kind of slavery:

You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.



Also available free of charge online:
Course in Relationship Miracles