III. The Fear of Redemption, P 4
4 You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be helpless in God’s Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you away from yourself and make you little, because you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made a world God would destroy; and by loving Him, which you do, you would throw this world away, which you would. Therefore, you have used the world to cover your love, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.
Journal
Reading this I see that the whole problem is very simple. I love God and my love for Him is so big, so intense, so complete, that if I let myself remember that love, I would rush to Him, and into Him. My fear is that this would leave me helpless, crushed, obliterated. I would be nothing. I would cease to exist, is the fear I have. So I defend myself against God.
I attack His memory and then I run deeper into the darkness of the ego, to hide from His wrath. I believe that this attack and defend strategy is my strength. And all this is happening only in my mind. I attack what I am, and I hide from my Self. And nothing is happening because none of this is possible. God cannot be attacked and I cannot defend against Love.
I dream and dream and dream. I dream of suffering and loss and pain. Mostly, I dream of fear. I am afraid to come out of the dream and I am afraid to go more deeply into it. I am afraid of God and of my Self, afraid that I have hidden myself away, and afraid I have not hidden well enough. In my mind, I have made this self, this body, this world, and I have given it value and now I think I must defend it against Love. And all the time, I love God and He loves me, and I cannot hide from Love. I can only pretend to do so.
“and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.”
And this is the essence of our resistance to doing the work. We are afraid of looking at our ego thoughts because we are afraid of finding the Love that is hidden there. I have been vigilant for my thoughts and have been taking them to Spirit for correction for years now, and yet I still resist at time. Recently, I have noticed myself pushing some of these thoughts down and away. Holy Spirit told me to stop doing that, to look at them with Him. I have nothing to fear in looking, because ultimately I will find only Love, and Love will not destroy me; it will fulfill me.
The world I made to play at separation is of no value. It is nothing, just thought given temporary form. It is meaningless. It is not me, not this body or this life or any other life. Letting it go would have as much impact as does coming into the house after a day of play has for a child. This is all we are doing with the study of the Course. We are convincing ourselves to let the memory of Love overtake us. We are choosing to come out of the dark, to return to our Home after a moment of play. The solution to the only problem we have ever had is simple; surrender into God; surrender into Love. Return to my Self.
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