From Life is a Mirror
How do great spiritual leaders think? They appear to have a permanent peace that cannot be shattered by the whims of the world. It is clear that their thinking is beyond the world's norm... I believe that great spiritual leaders think with an otherworldly Wisdom; Wisdom is without defensiveness.
Most of us think defensively, enabling us to hide from thoughts we do not like, which cause us fear, guilt and shame. Thinking defensively is self-deceptive. The primary person from whom we are hiding these unwelcome thoughts is our self. This deception increases our feelings of fear, guilt and unworthiness.
"A Course In Miracles" teaches about defensive or ego-based thinking. As I studied, I came to recognize how deeply such defenses were limiting my spiritual growth. The "Course" directly addressed this. I began to see that the "Course" was providing me with a tool to challenge my defensive thinking. When I challenged defensive thinking with the help of an otherworldly Wisdom, I discovered that the defensive thought was powerless over me.
Projection is a commonly used defense. When we project, we attribute to someone else a quality in our self that we do not like, denying that this quality is our own. When we see this quality in another, we judge him or her for that characteristic. What we often fail to see is that thoughts begin and end in the mind that is thinking. The judgment of anyone is then recognized as self-condemnation. It is the quality in our self that we have judged, denied, repressed and then split off. We see it in someone else but the hatred of this quality in him or her is our self-hate.
This is how the lie of defensive thinking hurts us. It reinforces self-hate. We do not want to encourage self-hate. We do not see that our judgment of someone else, for what we deny in our self, leaves us not liking who we are. We often do not see this because defensive thinking is self-deceptive. It convinces us that we do not "own" the quality we are judging. I promise you we do.
Simply stated, psychologically what we deny and repress, we project. I call this the "down and out rule". Denial and repression are defense mechanisms. Both of these defenses involve forgetting. Denial tends to be a mild form of forgetting and repression is deeper. What we repress is often harder to retrieve. We don't want to know what we deny or repress, so we push "down" those unacceptable thoughts and toss them "out" where they have no connection to us. The easiest way to assure that we do recall the denial, is to (psychologically) give the thought(s) away by projecting them. It's like throwing garbage out; you put what you don't want to see in the covered trash (repression) and then you give the trash to the trash collectors (projection).
"A Course In Miracles" teaches that defenses reinforces what we are attempting to protect ourselves from. All thinking reinforces the belief of the thinker. When we think defensively, we reinforce the beliefs that we have been attempting to deny, repress and project. Thus, we are stuck in a cycle of defensive thinking. This cycle increases our self-hatred. Using defenses is not bad, evil or sinful. It is just a mistake. We all use defenses. We use them in an attempt to ease our fears, when in actuality, they increase our fears by reinforcing the thought that we are trying to get rid of. Defensive thinking is an attempt to feel safe and to love our self; an attempt that backfires however, leaving us stuck in a bad cycle. The cycle can be broken.
To break the cycle, we practice surrendering and forgiveness, by asking our Higher Power to show us how He sees our self-deception. Wisdom will always be gentle as He helps us to expose this deception. Once exposed, the lie loses power over us. We learn how to reclaim our projections with spiritual support - with the Wisdom and defenselessness of a great spiritual thinker. When we think with the help of a Wisdom greater than our own, we don't judge. If the judgment stops, then so does the fear, guilt and hate. Without the judgment, fear and guilt, the desire to be self-deceptive disappears. Once we can be honest with our self, knowing that our Higher Power still has great love for and faith in us, then the self-condemnation is gone. That, to me, is freedom!
We ask Wisdom to help us accept this quality that we have projected as part of us. Wisdom's perception is otherworldly. When the judgment is interpreted by Wisdom, we are free of it. Really free of it! I have found that the freedom lasts, because I am no longer pretending and deceiving myself. I can hold onto the hand of Wisdom and say, "Help me see this self-deception through your eyes". Wisdom does not judge, so I have an opportunity to view my defensive thinking with defenselessness.
Defensive thinking or self-deception can be anything that annoys, angers or upsets you. It is often a destructive pattern in your life that you cannot seem to prevent. What we defend against are usually the things we are afraid to look at. If we were not afraid of them we would not hide them from our conscious awareness. Be gentle as you look... ask for Spiritual help so that the fear abates. We defend our selves from the part of us that we believe to be unworthy of love, brutal, ugly, weak and pathetic. We don't want to see that as a part of our whole self.
The irony of looking at my self-deception is that once I am honest with myself and ask for spiritual help, I recognize that what I feared is a tiny little paper tiger, not the ferocious beast I thought it would be. "A Course In Miracles" explains that an exposed defense is a tiny wisp of nothing; my personal experience verifies that this is the case. Exploring our defensive thinking frees us from its traps.
As we explore our unconscious and become more honest with ourselves, our defensive thinking has less of a grip on our lives. We begin to experience the freedom of allowing Wisdom to think for us more often. The draw of this freedom is compelling. Once we recognize that we keep ourselves from peace by thinking with defenses, we can change our thinking and stop the sabotage of our spiritual growth. This is a process. It takes some patience and some time. It requires kindness and laughter. Thinking with defenses is a deeply ingrained bad habit and breaking a habit takes some devotion.
We do not know how God thinks. Most of us do not know how great spiritual leaders think. We do have the power to request spiritual help. We can ask our Spiritual guide how to think with Wisdom. We then have to surrender and allow ourselves to be taught. It is this sincere asking that Wisdom welcomes with open arms. I believe that great spiritual thinkers are without defensiveness; they surrender to Wisdom 100% of the time. They are free. Such freedom is a worthy pursuit for all of us.
Catherine Ricchetti is the author of "Life Is A Mirror: Defense Mechanisms and their Spiritual Consequences". She has been a student of"A Course in Miracles" since 1994.