Martha,
Thank you for listing Ken's lesson.? It's very good.
Part of Ken's talk is based on "I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts."? (W-23)
I think the reason that I can escape the world I SEE by giving up attack thoughts, is not because attack thoughts are "bad," but because attack thoughts are illusions.? Attack thoughts are illusions, because attack is impossible.
No one can attack me and I cannot attack anyone else.? All the emotional and physical pain that I have ever felt has been caused by my own mind, not by anything anyone else did to me.? I have simply given myself an "hypnotic suggestion" that if such and such happens I will feel emotional and/or physical pain.? The fact that emotional and physical pain is removed by hypnotic suggestion, shows that the body does not feel anything.? It is only the mind that thinks the body feels anything.
Therefore, to give up attack thoughts is simply to give up the illusion that attack is possible.? No one has ever hurt me and I have never hurt anyone.? That is why there is no sin, and why there is no guilt.?
As the Course says, "All that the ego is, is an idea that it is POSSIBLE that things could happen to the Son of God without his will ….? This is the MAD IDEA you have enshrined upon your altars, and which you worship." (T-21.II.6.)
This suggests that even my saying to someone, "I forgive you" is the evidence of my misperception.? As the Course says, " … no one can forgive a sin that he believes is real."? (T-27.II.2.)
A more accurate demonstration of "forgiveness" might be the phrase "No problem, nothing to forgive."? For example, someone might say to me, "I'm sorry I'm late."? True "forgiveness" might be the response, "No problem, nothing to forgive."? Since no one outside of me can cause me any pain, no one outside of me can cause me any problems.? Therefore, "No problem, nothing to forgive."
Bill
