To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple, we recommend that
you read the corresponding chapter and section in the Text of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Read ACIM Chapter 19, Section IV-D (pages 420-21)
The fear of God is the same as the fear of recognizing our oneness with the whole Sonship, the Christ Mind, which has not dreamed of leaving God. God is one, undivided Love that is all there is in Reality. To be attracted to something else that is different from Love’s oneness is to be attracted to another will that is the opposite of God’s Will.
When we are attracted to experience a world of separate bodies that opposes what Love is, we are attracted to maintaining a barrier or veil that hides the awareness of our Beingness in the one Mind of Love. Here Jesus describes this wish to be different from Love’s oneness as like a heavy veil that makes it appear that we have really separated from Love’s unity. This veil effectively hides the fact that we still are one in Heaven and have never left God.
To try to be outside of Love is to choose to make illusions of separation real in our mind. Jesus describes this veil of separation: “Here is your promise never to allow union to call you out of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you; — the fear of God, the final step in your dissociation.” (3:4)
In order to maintain this veil, and yet project the guilt we feel, we hold onto a story in our minds that makes it appear that we did not choose against God’s Will; we hold onto a story that we are at the mercy of things beyond us. We want autonomous control but we also want to make it look like what we now see is beyond our control. That is why we dream we are the victims of circumstances that are out of our control. That is why we dream we are vulnerable and weak and even die in order to make it look like we had nothing to do with this choice of separating from God. In this dream we refuse to take responsibility for our choices, and attempt to blame it on a source that is outside our mind.
Jesus says, “See how the belief in death would seem to ‘save’ you. For if this were gone, what could you fear but life? It is the attraction of death that makes life seem to be ugly, cruel and tyrannical. You are no more afraid of death than of the ego. These are your chosen friends [death and ego]. For in your secret alliance with them, you have agreed never to let the fear of God be lifted, so you could look upon the face of Christ and join Him in His Father.” (4:1-6)
We are now coming to the understanding that we do not have to continue this charade. We can let our thoughts of judgment be reversed by the Holy Spirit and wake up from the dream of fear by realizing that we really do love God. We can become willing to open to the peace that Love provides and the fear disappears. Jesus describes to us how this veil is easily lifted: “The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him. The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the spirit, which you love as you could never love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever as Love’s attraction stirs and calls to you. From beyond each of the obstacles to Love, Love Itself has called. And each [obstacle] has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies beyond. Your wanting fear seemed to be holding [the obstacles to Love] in place. Yet when you heard the Voice of Love beyond them, you answered and they disappeared.” (5:3-9)
Here we are seeing that this really is not that complicated. When we recognize we are not at peace, we now know enough to relax, soften and become willing to let go of conflicting wishes. We become willing to rejoin God’s one true Will. We find the truth that, “No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can stand against your will. For [the Love] that attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparated from It and completely one.” (7:6-7)
It is as if there is a powerful magnet on the other side of the veil and a companion magnet deep within us that we have hidden from our awareness. When we recognize the magnetic pull of Love within us, we will inevitably be drawn back to our Source.
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