There's an important line from the ancient Greeks.
It's usually attributed to Philo, but sometimes to Plato. and actually, I've done a workshop on it,
which says "Be kind, for everyone you meet
is fighting a hard battle."
And that's our theme for this afternoon.
Be kind, for everyone you meet
is fighting a hard battle.
And that idea certainly could be taken right out of A Course in Miracles.
The key there -- actually, there are two key terms
in that statement. One is kindness, of course -- to be kind.
And the other is EVERYONE.
EVERYONE is fighting a hard battle.
The beginning of Lesson 182
"I will be still an instant and go home,"
is all about how we're all fighting the same hard battle
of being in a world that is not our home,
of feeling an alien in a body
and in a physical universe
that somewhere inside of us in our right minds
we know is not our home.
Our real home is Heaven.
And in this world, our real home is in the right mind
that contains with it the principle of the Atonement
that tells us the separation never happened
and therefore, the projection of that separation thought
never happened, either, i.e., the world.
So throughout the Course, we're told repeatedly that everyone
needs our forgiveness; everyone is in the same miserable boat.
In the teachers' manual near the beginning, we're told
that the characteristic...the chief characteristic of a teacher of God
that makes him or her a teacher of God is that they do not see another's interests
as separate from their own.
Because we all share the same interests, the same need.
We have the same end in mind, we have the same purpose that we share.
And that is to somehow recognize that we go home together,
or not at all;
that we're all in the same miserable ego boat.
Together.
We separated as one and we will return as one.
That's what the Course calls the Second Coming.
But before we do that collectively,
we need to do that individually.
That's what the manual means by saying
that there's only one teacher needed to save the world.
Because there's only one Son.
And each of us must do it as a seeming individual
with a seemingly separated mind,
recognizing that we are all the same, and to exclude one person
from the Sonship by virtue of my anger
or my displeasure with them or my specialness
special love or special hate
means I exclude the whole Sonship, including myself,
including Jesus, including anyone else that I judge to be ego free.
We're all the same.
We all have the same ego, the same Holy Spirit
and the same power to choose between them.
Everyone we meet is fighting a hard battle;
therefore, we should be kind.
Why do you want to attack someone who has already attacked himself?
And he's attacked himself simply by dint of believing he or she is here.
And if I'm unkind to you, I must be unkind to me because we're all one.
Ideas leave not their source. Projection makes perception.
Both of these are kind of kissing cousins.
Ideas leave not their source.
The thought of separation has never left its source in the mind,
which means there's no world out there.
But when I think there's a separated thought that's real
in my mind, I project it out and that's what I will perceive,
believing that projection works.
I can get rid of the unkindness towards myself,
which is where guilt is born,
that I've been unkind to myself and unkind to my Creator and Source.
That basic unkindness then is in my mind
and I believe I can project it out.
And because I think I can project it out,
I believe I perceive it in others,
and I make them unkind.
and I call it sin.
And therefore, they do not deserve my kindness
because they are inherently unkind.
And I forget that I have made them unkind.
I'm not responsible for the choices for the ego that other people make,
but I am responsible for wanting them to make it
and I am certainly am responsible for perceiving the ego
in them instead of seeing the right mind,
instead of seeing the ego as a defense against the right mind.
So I should be kind to everyone,
what the Course says often, every living thing,
I should be kind to everyone and everything
because everyone is in the same miserable ego boat
of believing we have sinned against our Source,
are overridden with guilt, and therefore, the only way we can
escape from that guilt is to project it out
and see it all around us but no longer in ourselves.
So the way that I learn that I am forgiven is to be forgiving.
The way I learn to realize that we are all the same
is to be kind to everyone without exception.
That's why there is no order of difficulty in miracles.
Kindness in this context is the miracle.
And everyone deserves kindness because everyone is in pain.
Everyone is fighting the same hard battle
of trying to survive in an alien world
that we have made up but then have forgotten that we've done it.
We're all in that same, again, terrible situation
that the opening of Lesson 182 describes.
In fact, Jesus says "No one knows but what I speak of."
We all know. We all are aware of how alien we are.
And so we all need that loving kindness of forgiveness
that tells us this was just a mistake. It was just a bad dream.
So please be kind for everyone you meet
is fighting a hard battle.
Your hard battle.
Our hard battle.
And we leave this hard battle together, or not at all.