Innocence is its own defense.
-Ben Franklin
I wrote a big long spiel yesterday about a fall I had recently. I deleted it because of the "poor me" nature to it but what I wanted to say, that might actually have some value, is that I learned a little something about my defenses from that fall.
Defences? The fall showed me that I was defending the valueless against attackers that I created in my mind. This resulted in some less than positive consequences.
Most of us know that the more we tense up and resist a fall, the more likely we are to get physically injured. That is why babies and intoxicated individuals seldom get seriously injured in minor accidents or falls. Defense is synonymous with resistance. While I was falling I was clinging to protect my camera...to defend it against the impact of the ground. I made the ground the enemy. I may have saved the camera but I, not the ground, did a number on one finger as a result. I was fighting to defend my body too against the impact and "I" seriously hurt my arm as a result. Again I made nature the enemy when it was my resistance that was.
What we may not know, is that defending our identity or sense of personal story is another form of resistance that leads to a different type of injury. Yesterday's story was an attempt to defend my pride and my identity against personal and social opinion and I slipped away from knowing who I truly was when I did that. I made the Self the enemy. I was clinging to what I thought I knew, creating a monster out of the universe when the monster was simply my expectations. I did not see the truth: that if I defend myself, I am attacked. (ACIM, w-135) Attacked by what? Myself.
Say what, crazy lady?
When we defend anything...we are operating from fear based illusion. Ego creates a vicious cycle of fear that we will be attacked, creating defense, more fear, more defenses etc. Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. (ACIM. W-135:3:1-2). We believe that we are very vulnerable to attack and attack is all around us. We must, we tell ourselves, be prepared to protect and defend against such attack. So we are always on guard, ready, waiting for the fall so we can resist and fight back. We seldom pause to ask ourselves this very important question:
What are we defending and from whom or what?
We lock our car doors as we leave the parking lot for the safety of the store. We double lock our house doors at night. Some of us even have weapons tucked away in our bedside drawers, just in case. We protect our family with the right amount of life insurance. We pay taxes to ensure there is enough border protection between us and the country beside us and that our resources are kept away from all the "thems" of the world. We spend more time, more money, more energy on protection and defense than we do on creating healthier happier and more peaceful communities, and lives. Does that make sense to you?
It doesn't to me...especially when I see that each defence ends up hurting us in the long run.
What are we defending?
We are defending things that are valueless and that will perish anyway: things of form, bodies, identities. We defend our material belongings, sometimes with weapons that will destroy life. Hmmm. We defend our bodies believing them to be vulnerable and weak, at the mercy of life forces, when the only thing they are at the mercy of is our unhealed minds. And we defend our identities...who we think we are...even at gunpoint. We cling to this idea that we are a certain religion, political affiliation, nationality, gender, social status, belief system that needs to be defended against all the other separate entities out there. We may "lay down our lives for the cause." When the cause is nothing more than ego smoke.
From whom or what?
We can tell ourselves we are defending against "our enemy"...but who is the enemy? If we are all One...who can the enemy be? The Self? God? Every time we attack someone else in the guise of defense...we are attacking ourselves. Why can we not get that?
Defenses are of the ego and the ego's enemy is the Self. It will do what it can to deceive us and pull us away from the truth of knowing who we are. So it creates and perpetuates fear so that we spend our energy defending and attacking. That keeps us from the Truth.
What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present, and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? (ACIM W-135: 18:1)
The good news is, that if we catch ourselves defending...we can know that the defenses have something ...not valuable to defend...but valuable to hide. What was hidden during my resistance to the fall was this simple truth: I am not a camera owner or photographer. I am not this body. I am not this identity. I am so much more. It took a few nasty bruises to get that into my head.
Beyond each defense is the truth. Let's put down our arms and see it. We need no defense against the truth of our reality.
All is well in my world.
(ACIM workbook ...Lesson 135)
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