Musings: Only the Mind is Real
“Only the mind is real because only the mind can be shared.” (T-6. V.A. 3:2-3).
The body is neutral. Think of it as a mindless puppet and you are the one who pulls the strings. The puppet only responds to the decisions of the mind. The body has no thoughts, feelings or experiences of its own. It does what its master tells it to do. It is a symbol of what the mind dreams we are—a separated individual with a will of our own.
“The body is the symbol of what you think you are. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist.” (T-6.V.A.2:2-3).
If you want to try to prove that you are a body—that you are right and God is wrong, that separation is reality and perfect oneness is a lie—then you (the one pulling the strings) will want to make it seem that the body has power of its own and it can tell you who you are and how you feel. What better way to do that than for the mind to direct the body to feel pleasure and pain? This is all part of the ego’s plan to keep you mindless. Now it seems like life is in the body and not in the mind of the one pulling the strings.
“The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life.” (T.6.V.A.1:4).
The real question you should ask yourself is what rules the mind? Who is it that is pulling the strings of the puppet? Is it the ego that wants separation, individuality, and specialness to be reality? If it is then the body/puppet must be made to appear to be alive because it seems to prove that separation is real. Under the ego’s direction the puppet will attack (judge) other puppets, and feel pleasure and pain. It will be different from others of its kind. This is the ego’s world, based in the tiny mad idea of separation, ruled by separate interests, all coming from the mind.
There is another way but you first must get back to the mind and recover your power as a decision making mind. You are the chooser of what rules your mind and therefore what directs the body. If you like being a person in a dream in a world of separate interests then you are probably not going to want to do this.
The shift from the body to the mind is what transformation is all about. It requires willingness to abandon the ego as your teacher in order to learn from a teacher who is outside the dream. In A Course in Miracles that teacher is Jesus, because he is a symbol of perfect, ego-less, love. You could use any other symbol that works for you.
It is impossible for you to make this transformation from fear to love, body to mind without help. All the talents, skills, abilities that you have developed over the years have been useful only for navigating the ego’s dream of separation. These same skills cannot be used to shift your identity from the body back to the mind. Again, the ego’s purpose is to keep you from ever knowing you are a decision making mind. After all, if you knew you would choose against it.
Be forewarned. When the ego gets wind of this it will become one of its two predominant moods: suspicious or vicious. It will threaten you with sacrifice and loss as it sees its days of specialness are numbered. Awakened mind, Suzanne Segal, author of Collision with the Infinite, A Life Beyond the Personal Self, expressed the fear this way:
Life in a state of freedom from the ego “bears no resemblance to the stark emptiness that fear might paint it to be. People who tell me they don’t want to give up the personal because they believe they would be giving up love or joy or deep feeling don’t understand that the personal never existed. Nothing is given up. Love that appears to be personal is based on an ego-constructed sense of being separate.”
At no one instant does the body exist at all. It is always past or future. In this very instant it can’t be found. Life is now and is in the mind. Hurry home.
A question to ponder: Why would it matter how long the body lives?
Musings: “Your way will be different!”
“Your way will be different. … A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you.”
A holy relationship! This is the means A Course in Miracles has given us for returning to the home we never really left, that quiet center of rest where we need do nothing.
Have you paid close attention to Jesus’ instructions for saving time and saving the world while saving ourselves by waking up together? Here is the pearl worth any price, the keys to the kingdom, the goose that lays golden eggs, and the fountain of youth, and more.
If you have overlooked the possibilities I feel compelled to present them in a way that I hope will gain your interest, open your mind, and have you come away with a whole new appreciation for your brother and the opportunity he is giving you and you him, to awaken together. There is no sacrifice in this, although you may be thinking it.
I want to help you to understand, feel and appreciate what a relationship is honestly for so that you can recognize the holiness of all relationships, without exception. I guarantee you it has nothing to do with what the ego plans for your relationships.
Some of this may be very difficult to hear because the sense of being a separate individual is threatened. When you truly join with your brother there will be no awareness of the body. It is left behind. That is called a holy instant and that is where a holy relationship resides. It is not here, in a body, in a world, although you will still appear to be here.
The ego cannot imagine you without a body. It is specialness that has you hold on to the body as if it is you. Wanting to remain separate is what the ego wants. It is terrified of Oneness, which is of the mind, because it is the ego’s demise.
The ego, individuality, and specialness are limits that you have placed on love. You chose to do that and you will eventually choose to turn away from those limitations when you understand the cost.
Those costs will be pointed out to you here. What you don’t like or don’t want to hear will tell you who is reading, listening, and perceiving these words. The ego wants and promotes separate interests. It wants everything on its terms. It doesn’t want change. Notice when it arises. It is very useful information.
I am hopeful that I can illuminate the holy relationship so that you will find it desirable rather than something to run from. Perhaps it will be helpful to think whole when you read holy instead of conjuring up images of halos and doe-eyed faces.
Holiness (wholeness) is not something that can be possessed so the ego has a problem with it. The ego exists by possession of others to fulfill its needs and wants. Without others it can not exist. The ego is not going to like this.
You on the other hand will love it! Now I am talking to your right mind that wants something different than what the ego wants. You may not know what it is, but you know what it is not. It is not possession, bargaining, manipulation, control. It is not doubt, fear, and guilt.
You want another way and you are willing to become a learner of that way. You are the chooser, not a body with a brain. The chooser resides between the right mind and the wrong mind; the part of the mind that chooses holiness and the part of the mind that chooses the body. It’s up to you.
The Lie
We are all living a lie here. Our very existence as separate bodies with a life and will of our own is a lie, and we re-enact this lie with “others” on a daily basis. It is here in our special relationships that we will heal the cosmic lie of being separate from our Creator, Oneness, Love and Eternal Life.
Why do we stay with the lie of our separateness and the few special relationships that seem to give us some comfort? It is to protect the ego’s thought system of separation. The ego asserts separation is real, I am real, and don’t you forget it!
The purpose of our special (and not holy) relationships is to keep us mindless, fixated in the lie. There is a “me” and there is a “you” and let us take our comfort here in separation and never look for another way. It’s a strange sort of comfort, but it keeps our belief in individuality safe.
For more on what is the holy relationship: click here
Musings: All Would Be Love
“…you believe that without the ego all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.”
(T. 15. V. 1: 6-7)
If we would lay aside our need to be somebody—all ideas about our self and all ideas we hold about the person before us—we would find that we are peacefully joined beyond either of those identities.
What is real is shared and what is unreal can’t be. Only the mind can be shared and it is common to all without exception. It is the personal—the body, private thoughts, the psychological self with all its needs and wants—that is unreal and therefore can’t be shared.
Awakening is from the personal. The unwillingness to enter a shared experience is the only hindrance to the realization of our Self which resides in the mind. (This is why the ego does not want us to learn that we are a mind.)
The shift from identification with the body to the awareness of the self as mind is a choice. We all will eventually make it, but usually not until we experience the pain and suffering our personal needs, wants and special interests bring upon ourselves and others. At this point we may begin to ask ourselves if there might not be a better way of relating that does not involve our specialness.
I have made it my practice to learn from Jesus that my brother and I share the same mind. It is a choice I make every morning before I begin the busy doings of the day. Remembering my goal, my part in every encounter is simply to recognize when the ego asserts its special interests and be willing to offer them to Jesus in exchange for something of greater value. I am the learner and I have a teacher.
In this process I find there is no strain to get approval, acceptance, or recognition from my brother. The listening is open and gentle when I realize the relationship is not in my hands and I do not have to make anything happen. There is no fixing, correcting, dazzling, enthralling, outsmarting, captivating, or manipulating. In allowing the presence of love beyond either body to hold the relationship I experience ease and acceptance of myself and my brother.
Jesus has never failed to show me that my brother is a much better witness to our shared reality of holiness than he is to my ego’s demands that my specialness be indulged.
The mind is truly miraculous when it is not contaminated by the ego. Spiritual practice is learning how to use the mind effectively to choose against the ego. Once we learn that we have a mind and that our only option in this world is to choose between the ego’s tyrannical rule or Jesus’ kind and gentle teaching of forgiveness we can become the happy learners of the truth of the following statement:
“…you believe that without the ego all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.” T. 15. V. 1: 6-7
Musings: A Simple Daily Practice
Lesson 5 and Lesson 34 are two excellent lessons in A Course in Miracles that would be really helpful to remember and practice daily. Apply these any time that you do not feel loving toward all your relationships and yourself.
Ask yourself frequently how you feel throughout the day.
Being self aware means watching yourself from outside the dream instead of being completely absorbed in it. When you are watching you are awake in the dream meaning you are bringing awareness to it. When you are completely involved in the dream you are sleepwalking.
When you feel anything other than peace, say:
“I am never upset for the reason I think.” Lesson 5
There is no need to analyze. There is no need to talk with someone else about how you feel. It is your business, your work, and the point at which a shift in identity from the body to the mind occurs. You are a mind, not a body.
The ego would have you think you are upset because of something that happened outside* you. Saying “I am never upset for the reason I think” means you are willing to question and let go of your investment in the ego’s perception of why you are upset. It is always wrong.
Remember unless you notice when you are upset and then look at how you are using the world, the body and your relationships to justify the upset, you can’t take this step of admitting you are wrong. The fact is that you decided to abandon the peace of God first and now you are looking for a way to keep this decision hidden. If you were experiencing the peace of God nothing could upset you. What better way to avoid responsibility than to blame someone or something outside you. This is how the ego keeps the guilt in your mind over separating from God. It projects it and sees it in the bodies around you (including your own).
“I could see peace instead of this”. Lesson 34
When you are not invested in your idea about why you are upset you can sincerely say “I could see peace instead of this.”
Returning to peace is not some super extraordinary mystical thing. Peace is always just beyond the ego’s interpretation of things. A decision against the ego is a decision for the Holy Spirit. It is one or the other. This is the only decision we ever need make.
*What is considered to be outside you? The body and the world. Both are projections of the thought of separation in the mind. Included in the body are thoughts, feelings, the brain, and the all sensory apparatus which report to the brain for interpretation. The mind, according to the Course, is not our brain. It is the place inside us where we choose to believe in separation, or forgiveness.
Musings: Making Our Weak Commitment Strong
“AN UNTRAINED MIND CAN ACCOMPLISH NOTHING.”
The ideas shared in lessons 181 to 200 of A Course in Miracles are designed to help us in “firming up our willingness to make our weak commitment strong.” In other words, we know we want to change our minds, but we are dealing with the entrenched thought system of the ego which is set as the default mechanism for our thinking and decision making.The ego rules when we are not certain of our goal and the means to accomplish it.
Each of these lessons will lead us home, but first they will expose our mistaken choice for the ego so it can be seen and gone beyond. What remains unseen is still there, functioning beneath the surface of our awareness, where it remains only to be projected outside the mind.
Lesson 181- I trust my brothers who are one with me.
This lesson is not about trusting other bodies to do what is honorable, fair and good. Your brother is not his body or its behavior, although the ego, whose triumph over God is the body, would love you to think so. This lesson is referring to the sinlessness of the Christ mind which we all are and which is always worthy of trust. The ego, whose mantra is “one or the other”/”kill or be killed”, can never be trusted.
Students of A Course in Miracles, trying to do the spiritual thing, will often take a lesson like this—I trust my brothers who are one with me—and try to trust the body and its behavior even though it is ruled by the tyranny of the ego.
It is entirely possible, in fact it must be practiced vigilantly, to trust the One Self that we are while not denying the harmfulness of the ego’s decisions which are always based upon self interest. The distinction lies in understanding that the lessons in the Course, are about the content of your mind, and the content you believe to be in your brother’s mind, and not the forms that we seem to take, along with the form’s behavior. The basis for practicing forgiveness is understanding the difference.
A Course in Miracles is written to the mind that has the power to choose. There is a choice to be made and only you can make it. Only the time you choose to make it is up to you. Eventually everyone will make it because it is the only real choice. The alternatives are not up to you either. (See the Introduction to A Course in Miracles below).
The power to choose is meaningless unless you know what you are choosing between. The alternatives can be expressed in different ways: dreaming or waking; fear or love; illusion or truth; death or life. The choice is always the same: to place your mind under the true Authority or the tyranny of the ego.
The purpose of every lesson is to make the alternatives clear to you so you can make the better choice.
Introduction to A Course in Miracles
“This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
“Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
Musings: Who Is Looking?
What would you be willing to give to absolutely know, without a shadow of a doubt, that a happy outcome to all things is sure? That there is nothing to fear? That there is no need to feel loss, pain, or suffering? That there is no death? This knowledge is your inheritance. It has already been given you.
All that stands in the way of knowledge are illusions, believed to be true. The problem, as the quote from the great sage Nisargadatta points out, is solely mental—in the mind. There are no real problems.
“It is all the mind can do—
Discover the unreal as unreal.
The problem is only mental.
Abandon false ideas, that is all.
There is no need of true ideas.
There aren’t any.” –Nisargadatta Maharaj
The miracle shows you that illusions are illusions; that the false is false; that the unreal is unreal. This all you need learn to let all fear fall away.
Seeing the false as false may not sound very glamorous if your idea of awakening is that it happens to “some one”. I mean, seeing illusions as illusions! Come on! What’s fun about that?
Seeing illusions as illusions cannot be done by a body at all. That’s what’s amazing about that!
The shift from seeing through the body’s eyes to seeing through the impersonal eye of one Self is a miracle. It is a leap from physical identity to mind (not to be confused with intellect) within Mind. It requires vision and vision is a gift. A body cannot give it because the body does not possess it. Vision is given. Would you first attempt to give yourself a miracle and then ask for one?
“God is my strength. Vision is His gift.” Lesson 42
The miracle is a shift out of the body identity and into the one Mind. It is a shift in looking through a different set of eyes: not physical eyes but spiritual eyes. It is a different way of seeing. The who in who is looking is no longer personal. It is not a someone.
While the body’s eyes can only see illusions, spirit can only see what is. The body’s sensory apparatus was made exclusively to validate the existence of the illusory person.
(Note to you, the reader: I am writing about something here that can only be recognized and known. That must be understood. Perhaps, you can be set up for vision to dawn. I am not sure. So this instrument seems to be doing this, in service to that. The process goes something like this. Thoughts come. There is silence. An image comes. There is emptiness. There is a mind in service to That Mind and then there is Mind Only and Silence presides over everything. There is no lyn. She materializes when there is a story.)
Most of us think we are earnest spiritual seekers until we realize it means letting go of our stories about ourselves right up to this very one we are in right now. The story and the lyn character are the illusion, the dream of separation. That’s what we need to look at in a different way, through different eyes. We need to learn how to look at the dream from an impersonal point of perception.
You can’t have both the dream and waking up. Most want both. Your problem is that you like some parts of the dream and not other parts. A dream is a dream. Choices within the dream are meaningless because they lead no where. Dreaming or waking? That’s the only choice. Which will it be? You cannot be forced. It is the one choice you have in this world. All other choices are choices for the unreal.
“Where are dreams but in a mind asleep?” ACIM
The “undoing of what never was” (personhood, individuality, separation, specialness) is personally insulting to an ego. After all it tells us who we are, what’s important, where to go and what to do. And now it is being called into question. What’s goin on?
If you will look earnestly you will find you are frequently working and reworking the story of yourself: that self-made (synthetic) individual that you have accepted to be what you are. Over and over you piece together a story of a life in a body in order to convince yourself and others that your personhood is real….that you exist!
“Nothing that can be visualized or imagined is real.”
Prior to the undoing, relationships can’t be anything but self-serving. We use others to maintain the story about ourselves, whatever that may be. After undoing there is no “other” to love or to hate. Love is inclusive; it is not “two who have become one”. It is “not-two”, period. There never were two.
As you become happier about learning what you really are you lose interest in the dream figure and all the related stories that feed it and keep it alive. Personhood starts to dissolve, to recede, and the freedom that becomes apparent following its dissolution bring companions of joy, peace and impersonal and indiscriminate Love. The belief that it is a sacrifice to let personhood fall away is based upon the assumption that the separated self actually existed in the first place.
What happens to the dream figure, when we cease making it? It is recognized to be the empty vessel that it is. Neutral. There is nothing in it. There is no body home! We never were located in the body in the first place. The separation never occurred.
What remains is genuine stillness. Nothing is left of “me”; stillness is. Now we understand the meaning to Jesus’s directive to “Be Still and Know.” Be still from the constant assertions of making a self. When that ceases there is “no thing” separating What Is from What Is.
Note: I know this sounds like the ravings on a Dr. Bronner’s label. This is the dilemma of trying to put into words what can’t be spoken of.
“To be your self is to be no self at all.”
What of the character that continues to appear in the dream? Has it any use at all?
All gifts are given through the mind that is immersed in Mind, known as the “Christ Mind”. It has vision, the alternative to judgement and separation. Christ’s vision is a gift given to all, without exception. It reflects the indiscriminate love of our Creator. Healing, forgiveness, and blessing (they all mean the same thing) extend without any awareness of someone doing something. This is a constant outpouring of love. Meanwhile the body carries on with the details of living in the world without angst or effort.
“Nothing of lasting value can happen to someone who knows exactly what they want.” Nisargadatta
The most perfect Stradivarius violin needs a player for it to make beautiful sound. Likewise, the body instrument in the hands of The Maestro functions flawlessly. Used by the ego it will gather information for its stories. Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.. The instrument itself is empty and filled with Silence. Its potential is fulfilled only when it is played by One Who knows what it is for and how to play it. When The Maestro plays there is a different world to see. Fear cannot be found. It is no where present.
A problem arises only when there appears to be a doer: some (separate) one who can take credit or blame. It is this that we attempt to do when we believe we have a life and a will of our own. A Course in Miracles refers to this as the authority problem.
Musings: The Myth of “Personhood”
The problem with being human is that everything seems to be personal when it is not.
Suffering is the result of the personal self interpreting things in terms of itself: if it benefits “me”, it’s good; if it doesn’t benefit “me” it’s bad.
To the non-locatable Self, nothing is wrong; everything is as it is– no problem. Thoughts are just thoughts. Feelings are just feelings. Sensations are just sensations. They don’t belong to anyone. They are simply present without the interpreting mechanisms of the separate self. Just as the sky would not complain about clouds that appear in it, the Self cannot personalize nor object to what is still part of itself.
Miracles gradually shift our awareness from the body, that locatable, personal sense of a “me”, to spirit, that impersonal awareness that is Self. It is a gradual process so as not to arouse too much fear in the ego, causing it to turn suspicious and vicious. We are told early on in the text of A Course in Miracles that we will not be “hurled into reality.”
“Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal.” – Miracle principle 17.
The belief that it is a sacrifice to give up the personal is based upon the belief that the personal actually exists. In fact, personhood is a mind-constructed fabrication of a separate self in relationship with other separate selves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing is given up; there is only an illusion of giving up. The personal self never existed.
In writing about this I hope that some of the resistance to engaging in the lessons of the Course will be recognized, understood, and not made a big deal of. Perhaps you might even welcome the shift from the personal reference point to an all-encompassing awareness of what is. Instead of either pathologizing this shift or making it a special experience that belongs to a “someone” you may see this as natural, effortless, and available equally to everyone. This could be very helpful.
Relationships for a non-personal purpose are particularly confounding to the ego to which everything is “useful” for the purpose of validating the existence of personhood. “Me”, “I”, and “mine” make total sense to it. From the point of view of a separate self, love is the fulfillment of a longing to merge with another separate self.
Intimacy is the natural state of all relationships when the sense of a personal self is no longer believed. The non-locatable, impersonal Self recognizes itself everywhere in everything. Every encounter is a meeting with one Self directly, without any of the interference of personal interpretation. This is intimacy. It is devoid of the specialness that a personal point of view gives to everything.
To discover that joy and love are not personal and never did belong to someone is an extraordinarily liberating awareness. There is nothing to be gotten from anyone. Everything we could ever hope to find is already available. Clinging to our self-constructed sense of separateness that perceives through the body’s senses is all that keeps us from freedom. We cling because, in believing what we have made of ourselves, we also believe it would be a huge sacrifice to give it up. Again, nothing is given up. It is all smoke and mirrors.
Usually a question arises about being able to function without having a personal point of reference. The ego tells us that we will run amuck without its “guidance”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Life continues just as before only awareness of life is not through the sense organs of the body including the brain which interprets everything in a personal way.
Awareness is non-locatable and impersonal. It is. Everything gets done, only without the sense of a personal doer. The understanding that there never has been a personal doer does not suddenly interfere with functioning; it liberates functioning. The body proceeds without personal involvement. It is an enormous relief from the burden of credit and blame that the ego placed upon everything.
For most of us the falling away of the false personal self is a gradual process. Each lesson of A Course in Miracles, applied to situations in our life, will chip away at our belief in a separate self without arousing too much fear in the ego. Of course, sometimes it happens that the ego does become suspicious then vicious, counseling us to abandon the lessons and their skillful undoing entirely. It is my hope that those who come to Becoming Learners Together (now School for A Course in Miracles) will come to understand that there is nothing to fear in awakening from the dream of separateness.
If you only knew the power of the miracle to free you you would want to offer them. You can learn how. Right here. They can be applied to whatever your circumstances are, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what your history is. The only requirement is to want to learn another way of perceiving. Think of it as a science project if that is your interest. “Humans find another means of perceiving that shows there is another world!!!!”
Or think of it as the greatest love story ever told. “Woman finds her beloved and He gives her the universe.”
Is not the end of seeking and the finding of a treasure beyond your most pleasurable and satisfying imaginings a worthwhile endeavor?
Is not finding the never ending supply of love that can be given without measure a worthy function?
This is an invitation to learn how to work miracles. The only qualification is the willingness to see that your interests are not separate from another.
“Miracles are a way of earning release from fear.” Miracle principle # 28
“Miracles are examples of right thinking, aligning your perceptions with truth as God created it.” Miracle principle #36
Musings: The Decision Maker
That night Deepak Chopra was speaking to 2400 people in Calgary on non-violence. His goal was “to have at least 100 million people join him in a vow of non-violence in thought, speech and action”.
This is a worthwhile goal and I support it. But let’s be clear what that would mean for each of us if we really were to join him.
“The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure and for pride”. Text, p.105.
The relationship between attack and who uses the body is the significant part of that statement. The ego uses the body for attack. There is another possibility.
There are two possible commanders of the body. You are not the body. You are the one that chooses the commander. That “you” is in the mind and to make it a little more palpable we’ll give that “you” a name. I’ve heard many names but none has really appealed to me. For now we will refer to it as The Decision Maker. If you come up with one that works better for you, be my guest.
The Decision Maker is your self just prior to the insane choice you made for the ego and its symbol—the body. You still are the decision maker. Instead of being the one run by the needs of the body you are the one who decides if you want to continue in that way.
Just to flesh this out a little more so you understand the choice, the ego is:
a false sense of self
the you that you think you are
the one that likes being an individual, self-centered, separate
the one who sees the world in terms of what it means for you
the little self– the one who is needy and afraid of just about everyone and everything
The false self (ego) uses the body for pleasure, pride, and for attack.
If the ego were not using your body attack, pleasure and pride would not be useful or appealing.
The other option is to put the body in the hands of The Teacher. The Teacher uses your body for another purpose, but you need to become a learner first. This is a good time to point out that “Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you.” Text, p. 381.
Who/what is using your body?
Without changing the voice in command of the body, violence will continue. This is very important to understand because not seeing it is what it means to be caught in the dream of perception. You don’t think there is an alternative.
This is a decision that each of us eventually will make. All other attempts to bring peace to the world will fail.
More than likely if you are hearing this you are beginning to feel the disillusionment of being identified with the figure (body) in the dream. It’s not so hot being you anymore. You may even be a little bored with your self concept.
In letting go of our attachment to it there is nothing to defend.
When we stop defending we cannot be attacked. ( The famous relevant lesson in the Course is “If I defend myself I am attacked.”)
We only appear to be attacked because we are defending something that isn’t real. That is the meaning of:
“Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God”.
When we know God’s peace, we also know it envelops the world. The problem was only one of a false sense of self.