3-8-13
5 Nothing and everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. What you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation has occurred, and to deny it is merely to use denial inappropriately. However, to concentrate on error is only a further error. The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay. It should be emphasized, however, that ultimately no compromise is possible between everything and nothing. Time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be given up. It only seems to be abolished by degrees, because time itself involves intervals that do not exist. Miscreation made this necessary as a corrective device. The statement “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” needs only one slight correction to be meaningful in this context; “He gave it to His only begotten Son.”
Fear is nothing and love is everything. I can believe in only one at a time. I cannot hold the idea of fear in my mind and still believe in love. I can jump back and forth, but I believe in only one or the other in any given moment. This is the reason it seems so hard to let go of a fear thought. While I hold the fear in my mind, I cannot believe that it is not real. And if I believe in the fearful image in my mind it becomes real to me.
I believe in the separation and so the separation is true for me. It would not be helpful for me to stand here in the face of fear and say that the separation isn’t real. That is the truth, but I don’t really believe it. If I believed it, I wouldn’t think I was here. Since I believe the separation is real, it is real for me. Yikes! I’m stuck in this cycle of false thinking.
Jesus shows us the way out of it. We cannot take ourselves out of it, but we can be released when that is our desire. First we see evidence that we believe in separation, that is when we experience fear, guilt, sickness, pain, rage, grievances, jealousy, depression or any of the other feelings that come from believing we are separate from God. We acknowledge what is happening. Then we immediately go to the correction. We accept the Atonement and allow love to heal our mind.
It may seem like a subtle difference, saying that fear does not exist as opposed to saying I am experiencing fear and fear does not exist so I accept the Atonement or I accept healing, but in my experience it is a very important difference. The first is denial of what is obviously true for me and will produce conflict in my mind and this will bring me deeper into fear.
Jesus asks us to look with the Holy Spirit at the thoughts in our mind. He asks us to keep nothing from Him. This is what we are doing when we acknowledge our erroneous thinking. The ego likes to step in at that moment and make a lifetime study of the thought, but Jesus warns against this. He says that while pretending it has not happened is using denial inappropriately, to concentrate on error is only a further error. So look at the error, acknowledge it, and then go straight to the correction.
I think for some people, this business of looking at the fear or anger or guilt, or whatever form the separation takes, is simple. For me it was hard to get the hang of it. I had a problem with expressing emotion, which caused me to repress it or to stuff it. And if I repress the emotion, I also repress the cause. This doesn’t work, of course, and even if I deny the fear for a while, it just pops back up.
I would then try to control it by finding solutions. This doesn’t work either as any attempt to control fear just makes it seem more real. I tried to go straight from a fear thought to healing without looking at it or acknowledging it. I saw the error in this when I read that Jesus could not take my fear from me.
At first that was an upsetting thought, but eventually I understood that he was not abandoning me to my fear, but helping me to see what needed to be done to eventually be healed of the belief in fear altogether. Now when I feel fear I look at it straight on, I feel what is happening to me, I become willing to know anything about it that would be helpful in releasing it. I am not afraid of the fear anymore. I know that this process of looking with the Holy Spirit is safe.
So for awhile now we have placed ourselves in a situation that demands we acknowledge as real something that does not exist so that we can make a different choice about it. Eventually, as Jesus says, we are going to have to make the ultimate decision and accept that there is only God and nothing else exists. This might take a long time as we look at one fear thought after another and allow each to be healed. But finally, we will notice the pattern and the mind will click, I guess. ~smile~
Or maybe it will not take a long while. Maybe we will just, one day accept the truth. I know it is really that easy. If I can let go of a fear thought simply because I want to then I can let go of all fear thoughts, or the belief in fear, simply because I want to. The moment I want this, wholly want this, it is done.
I often think of Jill Frazier (Fear Falls Away). She had a moment of looking at her fear and considered the thought that there could be a way of doing this without fear. After a lifetime of fear, it was her moment of complete release. By the way, reading her story I was struck by the fact that she didn’t know she was doing this, she wasn’t trying to let go of fear. The Holy Spirit doesn’t need our help, only our permission.
The Holy Spirit will always heal my mind to the degree I am willing. Why I hold onto fear when I don’t have to is a mystery to me. But as a matter of encouragement, I will tell you that doing it the slow way does work. I don’t have fear like I used to and when I do, I look at it with less anxiety and choose the Atonement quickly.
I see that one day, maybe soon, maybe later, I will be ready to accept the Atonement completely and permanently. I don’t know when but I see it is inevitable. Jesus says it only seems like it is being abolished in degrees because I believe in time. Well, I can’t do anything with that but go with the program.
As a last thought, I know that the “program” is unique to each of us. Jan Frazier had her program and so did Byron Katie and others. Some seemed to have experienced their awakening suddenly and without any effort on their part. Mine seems to be a slow progressive experience as I do the work and take small gentle steps and share my progress with others. I didn’t choose this. None of us choose our path. We just seem to.
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