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State of Fear

State of Fear

I have been reading the new novel by Michael Crichton, “A State of Fear.” The premise is that since the cold war ended, there has been a conspiracy to find new ways to keep people in a state of fear so that they can more easily be controlled. Examples would be global warming, thousands of ways we get cancer from our environment, etc.

My first thought was how easy we make it for them. We don’t need much of a conspiracy because we fall so quickly and so willingly into fear of every kind. I can’t see any way out of this except through A Course in Miracles. The hardest part of letting go of fear is that first step. I see that I am very afraid of something and I take that thought (because after all, it is only a thought even if it does seem hugely frightening) to the Holy Spirit and offer Him my willingness to see it differently. But like anything that scares me, it is hard to take my eyes off it. It is as if the boogey man will eat me up if I let my eyes stray from the danger. So sometimes I have to start out by giving the Holy Spirit what little willingness I have, and asking Him to fortify it. That works, too.

It does, indeed, seem that we live in a state of fear. Why do I so willingly accept fear each time it is offered to me? Some years ago there was a scare about apples. It was announced that apples are sprayed with something that causes cancer and people became afraid to eat them. There was a real run on organic apples in health food stores. I was getting caught up in the scare along with everyone else when someone pointed out that we need to be sane about this. He reminded us that we live longer and are healthier than people have ever been. He reminded me that I was in far more danger of being killed in a car wreck than I was of dieing from eating apples and he didn?t see me giving up driving. Why was I so willing to buy into the fear that the media was selling?

Could it be that I am responding to the deep seated, unconscious guilt that I have because I think I have sinned against God? Sin is the belief I have separated myself from God and so am no longer Love. The body is the proof that this is so and it is the way I play out sin. This state of fear I find myself in always revolves around the body. Without the body there would be no fear. Without the body, where would be my proof that I have sinned and so have something to fear?

How do I get free of this mindset? I have been taking Pathways of Light Course 915 and what I am learning is that I have a choice in the goal the body serves. The ego thought system is designed around the body serving fear, but I can choose to serve truth instead. Workbook page 419, P 2:6-7 says, ?Truth can be its aim as well as lies. The senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.? One thing I have discovered is that it is very hard to seek for witnesses to truth if I keep my attention focused on lies. I don?t find truth on CNN, or watching endless replays of scary stories on the local updates. I get my news from the papers or off of the internet, and only periodically. I am then able to read only as much as I want to and am not as likely to get pulled into the drama.

In fact, I can use the news stories as practice for seeing the truth. An example of this would be instead of seeing President Bush as the antichrist trying to drag us into another Vietnam, I can see him as the holy Son of God that he is and recognize that he, like me, is just struggling to break free of the state of fear he has brought himself to.

Something else I read in Course 915, is that seeing that the separation never really happened and that our Identity in God is unchanged is what releases us from fear. The idea of Halloween is used to demonstrate how our belief in separation through bodies is just a game we frighten ourselves with. It reminded me of my child?s first participation in Halloween. She loved dressing up for Halloween, but when I put on my mask she was very frightened. I had to take it off and show her it was really me and that the mask didn?t change that. I had to do it several times before she really relaxed and was able to enjoy the fun of it.

This is what is happening to me. I wanted to play this game of being separate from God and imagining that living in a body made me separate from my brothers. It was the scary mask of pretend, but I got so involved in my play that I forgot it wasn?t real. I began to believe in the fearful idea that I could be separate from God, different from what He created me to be, and that He was mad at me for it.

The way I am learning to return to the truth is by being aware of what I am doing. I notice those thoughts that try to draw me into a state of fear. I look straight at them and ask the Holy Spirit to look with me. They seem so dark and so threatening when I look alone, but when the Holy Spirit looks with me, He shines the light of truth on them and the darkness is gone. I do this every time I am aware of fearful thoughts. It is like taking little small steps, but each step leads me out of the state of fear and into God?s loving arms.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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