ACIM T-4. I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 9, 10. God is not the author of fear. You are.
ACIM Chapter 4, I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 9,10
I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 9
9 God is not the author of fear. You are. You have chosen to create unlike Him, and have therefore made fear for yourself. You are not at peace because you are not fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty function that you are not meeting. Your ego has chosen to be afraid instead of meeting it. When you awaken you will not be able to understand this, because it is literally incredible. Do not believe the incredible now. Any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable. The word “inevitable” is fearful to the ego, but joyous to the spirit. God is inevitable, and you cannot avoid Him any more than He can avoid you.
Fear Falls Away
It is very good news, indeed, that God is not the author of fear. We made fear in place of the peace that is ours when we are awake. Just consider for a moment that fear is a choice, and more incredibly, it is a choice for something that is not even real. To stop experiencing fear, I only need to stop believing in fear. While I sit here in this meditation, it all makes perfect sense, and I can envision life without fear. In fact, if I doubt the possibility, I only have to remember the story of Jan Frazier, who experienced fear falling away.
Jan suffered great fear all her life. I relate to her because guilt and fear (inseparable buddies) have also been close allies to me all my life. In her book, When Fear Falls Away, A Sudden Awakening, she questions if fear is inevitable. She considers, just for a moment that there might be another way. When she wakes up the next day, she discovers that fear is gone, never to return.
Just Imagine!
Imagine! Imagine what it would be like to never worry about your children’s safety or health. To never worry about money or your own health. Or to be afraid of the dentist, heights, driving in the rain, or bad weather. Imagine your worst fears and your little everyday fears. Pay attention to the worries and anxious moments today to get a real feel for how much of your life is colored by fear.
Are you afraid to speak in public? Are you afraid to die? Or are you afraid, instead, to live? Are you afraid you will not have enough time to get everything done? Do you worry your garden won’t grow or the insects will eat away at your tomatoes? Fear shows up in different ways. Are you angry about something? Anger is just another expression of fear.
Are you angry at the driver who pulled out in front of you, or the clerk who was rude or slow, or just indifferent? Are you angry at a child who behaves badly or a partner who is careless of your feelings? All these are fear just showing up in a way you prefer over feeling afraid. Take the pulse of fear in your day. Is it beating the rhythm of your life?
A Different Approach
Now think about this. You made that up. Everything that happened is a projection of your belief in fear. Every response of fear is a choice to continue to believe in fear. Do you see the endless, awful cycle? The only way to end that cycle is to choose not to believe in fear. Thus far, I have not had a sudden awakening from fear, so I am using my slower but tried and true method of letting go of the belief in fear. When a fear story shows up, I remember that I am the author of that story, and I have a choice; I can accept my fearful response as inevitable, or I can ask to see it differently.
I use different approaches to this. I used to be really phobic about dentists and would put off going and use Xanax to calm myself when I had to go. A few years ago, I realized that not everyone is afraid of the dentist, so it must be possible for me to not be afraid, too. I stopped making up stories about why I was afraid and instead became open to healing. I started watching my thoughts about the dentist and asking that my mind be healed. When I sat in the dentist’s chair, I rested my mind in God. I asked Jesus to hold my hand. I did whatever I felt I needed to do to keep my mind open to healing.
Fear Is Not Real
Now I have no fear of the dentist. I don’t freeze up at the thought of going for a visit. I don’t feel my gut clench when I walk into the office and smell that medicinal odor that is typical of dental offices. A while back, I went for what I thought was just a checkup, only to be surprised by the dentist saying he needed to do some work on a tooth and that it might be uncomfortable. I was also surprised that I was calm about it.
The important thing about my dentist story is that it proves that fear is not real. If fear were real, there would be nothing I could do about it. I could mask it with tranquilizers. Or I could use the force of my will to push through it. But if it were real, then I could not stop it from being there. And yet I did stop it. I did the same thing for flying, and it worked the same way.
Where I have the biggest problem is the little everyday anxieties. I overslept and got a late start, and now I worry I will not finish this writing in time to make my first appointment of the morning. Then I remind myself that I asked Jesus to manipulate time for me as he offered to do. I used to worry so much about the time thing that it ruled my life. Now it is a thought I use to undo the belief in time just as I am undoing the belief in fear.
Sometimes It Seems Very Real
When I worry about my child being sick or in excruciating pain, when I worry it will never end, it is harder for me not to believe in fear. My fear seems like a mountain looming over me, threatening to crush me with its solid mass. How could it not be real when it feels so real? It is hard for me to believe that I am making it up, yet I surely am. I tell you about my son being in pain, and you are not afraid. You may sympathize with my fear, but you are not afraid. If it were real and, thus, unavoidable, everyone would feel it.
It would be like me saying that there is a mountain in front of me, so I can’t go any further. But my friend is saying that there is no mountain in front of her, so she will continue her journey. If the mountain is real, it is there for both of us. If it is not there for both of us, it is not real. I can make a choice to see only what it is real, not by force of will but by a decision for healing.
Fear Is a Choice
Fear is a choice, and it is a choice for nothing because it is not real. But my belief in it is a nothing that brings great suffering and keeps me from my true Self, and from joy and peace. I will continue to ask for the Atonement and to accept the healing it brings until transfer of learning is complete, and fear is gone.
It seems like it will take more than this lifetime, but transfer of learning can fool you. One moment you have a million little fears, and then suddenly, there is no fear. That is because the million little fears are just an illusion. There is actually only one belief, and when it is gone, all its little manifestations go with it. I am willing, God. Please help my unwillingness.
10 I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 10
10 The ego is afraid of the spirit’s joy because once you have experienced it you will withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it. Leave it behind! Do not listen to it and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, Who is as incapable of deception as is the spirit He created. Release yourself and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourself to others, and do not accept such a picture of them yourself.
Jesus says that once we experience spirit’s joy, we will lose all interest in the ego and our investment in fear. Certainly, this seems to be true for people who have done this; Byron Katie, Jan Frazier, Eckhart Tolle, Cate Grieves, Regina Dawn Akers, David Hoffmeister, and many others. I can’t know exactly how it feels to them, but judging from their writing and their interviews, this seems to be true.
God Is Now My Goal, Not Fear
Jesus also says that the reason our investment in fear is so great now is that it is a witness to separation, and the ego really likes that. The ego is always pushing for fear. Because fear is always its first choice, I see that I must be vigilant about making another choice. The more I simply accept fear as real and unavoidable, the more fear I will experience. By accepting fear, I am teaching myself (and everyone else) that fear is real.
My goal is to listen only to God and to do so at all times. Until that goal has been mastered, I continue the practice of noticing thoughts that are not of God and letting them be healed. One morning a while back, I had an experience with looking at fear and making a decision with God instead. The following is what I wrote in my journal.
Fear Arises
Before I began my meditation, I checked my bank account. I check it every day, but usually, I do this after my meditation. Once I did that, I started to turn to this work, but I had the thought to check my credit card account. I used to check it daily but got out of the habit. I started to ignore that prompt, thinking I needed to get to my writing, but I have formed the habit of paying attention to those little taps on the shoulder.
What I discovered is that there have been several charges to my card that I didn’t make. My first (ego) reaction was fear. Then I set that feeling aside. Perhaps I would not be held responsible for the charges since I didn’t make them. I searched carefully for three months and found all the charges. They were to a particular company. The first charge was legitimate, and the rest were not.
The fear kept coming up. I guess setting it aside is not the same as letting it go. I also noticed anger. The first charge was one I (reluctantly) made for a young woman I know. I didn’t feel comfortable using my card on a website I wasn’t familiar with, but I let myself get talked into it.
Fear, Guilt, and Victimhood
Now I felt fear that expressed itself as anger and then moved into resentment. I was very quickly back to feeling like a victim. I’ve noticed that fear, guilt, and victimhood seem to be part of my classroom here, and while I have made great progress in undoing them, there is still more belief that must be let go. The difference now is that I don’t hold as tightly to the belief and for not as long. I feel the reaction, but I also watch the reaction with a bit of detachment.
I asked for help seeing this, and I was reminded that I am never a victim of the world I see. The world is a projection of my beliefs, and through my beliefs, I decide on everything that is in my life. This situation is really my story, so why am I blaming someone else? If I continued to blame this other person, all my energy would be directed toward keeping my victim story alive and none toward healing these beliefs.
My Real Goal
I was also reminded that the fear I feel is not a real thing. It is just a feeling and the only meaning it has is what I give it. As I remember that it is just a feeling, I stop fighting it and being afraid of it, and it just moves through me. In doing this, I am allowing myself to be taught that fear is not real. When I release it to the Holy Spirit, it is gone.
The credit card problem and the money loss are important only in the illusion. I will take care of it because that is what we do here. But my real goal is to stop believing in fear, and I am also doing that. This morning I took another important step toward leaving fear behind. I will not allow this fear of loss to become an obstacle to peace.
To check out today’s Pathways of Light Daily Inspiration, CLICK HERE.