Love and Fear: The Last of the Lessons

 

Perfect love casts out fear.

If fear exists;

Then there is not perfect love.

But:

Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear,

It produces a state that does not exist.

ACIM 1: VI: 5:4-8

 

 

Say Whaaaaat?

 

 

A Course in Miracles is based on the premise that there are only two apparent emotions in the world to be concerned about: Fear and Love.  Only one of these, however, is real.

 

Fear

 

Fear is what I believe to encompass a whole realm of different emotions.  To me, it is anything basically that does not feel "good" from frustration to anger, to sadness to complete despair.  All these emotions are energies that belong under the fear spectrum. 

 

The Ladder

 

I use the analogy of a ladder.  At the bottom of the ladder is complete despair and at the top of the ladder is complete and utter bliss.  In the middle of the ladder, at the neutral point, is acceptance of what is.  All fear emotions inhabit the lower rungs that fall below acceptance of what is. All fear emotions, then, are emotions that resist life...resist presence...resist the now of our experiences. They resist reality!

 

Fear is Not Real

 

If the present moment is all there is and if presence is all we truly are than fear is not real. Fear is something we made at ego's insistence, to drag us and take us away from acceptance of what is and therefor from our ability to experience all the emotions that inhabit the Love rungs on the ladder. Fear is of the ego, not of the  true Self.

 

But man does it feel real! It takes up so much of our mental energy and our life. We did such a good job making it that we have come to believe it is real.  Just as we mistakenly believe that all forms we experience only with our five senses are real we believe fear is. 

 

You can never control the effects of fear yourself, because you made fear, and you believe in what you made. ACIM 1:VI:4: 2

 

We fear losing these physical things be they material objects or ideas of recognition and success.  We fear other people hurting us or taking something away from us.  We fear the unpredictability of the world and our loss of control in it.  All that is ego and it isn't real.

 

All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exists at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all. ACIM 1: VI: 5:1

 

Every time we feel "bad" we are delving into fear perception and with fear perception we are delving into illusion.  If we could only detach our identity from fear producing thought and feeling...we would recognize the illusionary nature of it. We would be free.

 

Believe this and  you will be free. ACIM 1: VI: 5: 9

 

Love is Real

 

Where fear is of the ego; Love is of God. God, to me, is the Source of all Life, presence, awareness, all that cannot be seen. Love is all there is.  Presence is Love.  God is Love.  Life is Love. If we could be still and quiet our minds , crawl into acceptance of the present moment like we were crawling onto the lap of a loving protective parent who knows all, we would know that.

 

Love exists on the ladder rungs above acceptance. It encompasses all the emotions that feel "good" like peace, happiness, joy, enthusiasm, bliss.  Love, however,  is not just an emotion.  It is a way of Being.  It is Being.

 

Fear is really nothing and Love is everything. ACIM 2: VII:5: 2

 

Love exists on all the ladder rungs above acceptance.  Once we accept the present moment without resistance, we begin to experience what Love really is. Love is our essence...it is internal yet expands outwardly healing all with its Divine essence.  It is what allows us to expand as the One Self .

 

Teach only Love for that is what you are. ACIM 6:I: 13:2

 

We cannot be anything but Love

 

We are Love and can be nothing but Love.  When we pretend otherwise, we feel awful! Ego will try to convince us otherwise using the tactic of fear ...a fear created by this crazy idea that we are separated from Our source which is Love, therefore we are left on our own to attack and defend our way to survival.  It will do whatever it can to prevent us from experiencing the joy that comes with recognizing who we really are...pulling us down the ladder rungs. When we defend and attack out of fear we will experience this fall from Love. When we listen to ego we will suffer.

 

Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to one of God's creations. ACIM 5: VII: 5:1

 

Our Purpose is to Be Love and to Extend Love

 

We are here to Love: to Be Love and to extend Love.  In order to do that we must step out of ego's entanglement and make the climb up the ladder, first to acceptance, than to peace and then to all the other wonderful rungs above. We allow ourselves to radiate this Love within us and to the entire world.  That is what feels good and what we are looking to do even though we may not know it yet. :)

 

Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained.  Being limitless it does not stop. ACIM 7: I: 3:4-5

 

Fear and Love are opposites but only one can exist

 

So when you catch yourself feeling anything but good, seeking grievances and reasons to defend or attack   those around you, or holding back and retracting from the world remember this:

 

Know first that this is fear.

Fear arises from a lack of love.

The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love,

Perfect love is the atonement.ACIM 2: VI: 7:5-8 

 

Choose to Love perfectly instead. :)

 

All is well

 

References:

 

A Course in Miracles. Combined Volume. Third Edition. (2007).  Mill Valley: Foundations for Inner Peace.