My greatest enemy

It is said My sinlessness protects me from all harm. (ACIM Lesson 337) And I discovered recently that if I didn’t believe I could sin - if I had no reason to believe I would be punished - then I would never have anything to fear. And without fear there would only be love, for that is the essential choice I am always making: fear or love, the only two emotions.

So what is it I fear? What punishment do I think I deserve? What makes me heavy? I am fearful of being found out, that all my darkest thoughts will be revealed. And now, when I see this, I see the insanity of such a fear: they are only thoughts, and completely harmless if not believed. My fear stems from my belief in them. And, as I discovered the other day, I am still very fearful of ‘doing it wrong’, like I could know what that means. I am so scared of failing.

And what I do when I think I’ve done something ‘wrong’, think I’ve failed, is to punish myself: I berate, I bring on the guilt trips, I live in a universe of ‘what ifs’, I beat myself up in any way I can – even physically in extreme cases! I’m a funny one. I do the punishing in order to beat anyone else to the job. I am judge, jury and executioner of this one, and by being this I think no-one else can hurt me. And why would they need to when I’m so capable of doing it myself? So when I see my sinlessness I am protected from my greatest enemy: myself.

And when I see myself as the enemy, as the sinner, I project this outwards. And who is there to receive the full brunt of this projection? E. Beautiful, loving, innocent E. All this self-hatred is dished onto her and she becomes the guilty one, the sinner. How can love flow in this environment? How can there be anything but fear and its manifestation: guilt? Self-perpetuation is the method of my existence.

So now I weigh up all the evidence and find myself to be innocent. The only sin was believing that I could. I can never know that I’ve ever done anything wrong; I can only know that all is as it should be. And if I can see my sinlessness clearly, there will be nothing left to fear.

My sinlessness does protect me from all harm.