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This morning we will talk about Lesson 330 from the workbook, "I will not hurt myself
again today." I'm not going to actually talk about the lesson itself; I'm really just going
to focus on the title and what the title means and how that could be helpful to us as we
go through our day. You know, the bottom line with A Course in Miracles is that it doesn't
matter how well you understand its theory, how well you could spout its metaphysics.
What really matters is how you live it, and how you live it day in and day out and all
the practical situations that everybody experiences; our experiences with our own body, living
with bodies of others, working with bodies, looking at bodies on the news, dealing with
all the kinds of situations that all normal people are confronted with, and the idea is
to do it differently. And this lesson points out and, in fact, the whole Course really
in a sense can be seen as commentary on this, that we are not aware how we hurt ourselves.
And we're not talking about hurt ourselves—you know, cutting a finger when we're slicing
a bagel or burning ourselves when we touch a hot stove or something. It's really talking
about how we hurt ourselves by choosing the teacher of hurt. Because the teacher of hurt
is the ego of course, and it believes that it hurt God so we would not be hurt. In other
words, that it was hurting us to stay part of His perfect Oneness, and so in order to
establish our separation from perfect Oneness and be an individual, and be unique, and be
special, and be autonomous God had to be hurt and, of course, there's a word for that and
that is "sin;" that we sinned against our Creator and our Source by separating from
Him. And then, of course, that what closely follows from that is our guilt: I feel terribly
guilty because of what I've done. At pure selfishness and self-interest, I sacrificed
God, I crucified His Son so I could exist, and then I made up a world the opposite of
Heaven, of God's world, in which I exist as a clear individual, as a body separate and
distinct from all other bodies. It is impossible then not to feel guilty and to have—and this
guilt is woven into our DNA; it's part of the very fabric of our existence, just as
love is (to just use the same term), love is the fabric of our being. The Course contrasts
"being" and "existence;" spirit is the state of being and existence is the state of the
ego. That rather than have the very fabric of our being be love, the very fabric of our
existence is guilt, and it's impossible to be in this world as a body without feeling
guilt. This is how we hurt ourselves because guilt demands punishment. So we're told in
Chapter 27 that of all the many causes of our suffering we never thought guilt was among
them. Guilt is the cause of our suffering, and even more to the point it's the mind's
decision for guilt that's the cause of our suffering, because since guilt is non-existent
how could what doesn't exist cause any pain? It's our belief that we are guilty; that's
the cause of our pain, whether we're talking about physical pain or psychological pain
or, of course, both. So to say, "I will not hurt myself again today" is to be aware of
how much I do hurt myself. And what does this mean on a practical level? Well, if the cause
of my guilt is my belief I separated from my Source and that belief gets reflected in
my life here in the world then I—then the source of my guilt here in this world, which
is the shadow of my ontological guilt, is that I'm separating from other people. And
how do I separate from other people? I judge them; I use them as a means to service my
own neediness. That's what the Course calls special love, and then I become dependent
on them. Or I use them to serve my neediness of getting rid of my guilt, so I hate them;
that's what the Course talks about special hate and special love. Special hate are all
the objects of our grievances, of our anger, of our unhappy thoughts that we attribute
to what other people do to us, and special love being when the world and people in the
world give us what we think we want. But in or—in both of these conditions (special love
and special hate) we're seeing other people as different from us; that's the hurt. That's
the source of our pain. Separation or the belief in separation is the source of our
pain because that's what leads to our guilt. Once we're clear about that, then to say,
"I will not hurt myself again today" means I will not choose my ego—the teacher of hurt—and
listen to its guidance that tells me I am better off when I attack other people, when
I judge other people, when I can get good and angry at other people and then get everybody
else to agree with me, when I say my interests are separate and apart from someone else's;
I have what I have taken. I want your innocence and I take it by making you feel guilty, and
attack you and judge you and again, get other people to agree with me. So to say Lesson
130 and mean it, "I will not hurt myself again today," is a promise I make to myself
from the moment I wake up to the time I go to bed at night, that I will choose the Teacher
of Love, not the teacher of hurt, that I will choose the Teacher of healing, not the teacher
of pain. And that means I must recognize that my judgments of other people, seeing them
as different from me, seeing their interests as a part from me is the source of my unhappiness,
of my depression, of my anxiety, of my general unhappiness and senses of malaise. And to
truly feel the peace of God, which means I want that peace of God, means I must be willing
to give up my judgment. So that's what it means to ask the Holy Spirit or Jesus for
help, and I go to them with my judgments and have them remind me that that is not what
I want because it hurts me, and today I choose not to hurt myself again.