To us who identify with this body and this world fear certainly does seem justified in so many forms. We have fear of being hurt by others, of germs, of pollution, of insects, of losing our material goods of sickness, death.....I could go on and on but you get the point. We have thousands of fear thoughts. In fact our lives here are all about fear.   Lesson 153 tells us that this sense of threat that we live with is much deeper than we even realize. But we cover it up. The ego needs to keep us from seeing how much fear we are in. If we were more aware of this deep level of threat we may be more motivated to choose to see our guiltlessness. All of our fear comes from our belief in guilt, that we have done something wrong for which we deserve to be punished.

The core of our learning today is that "not one thing in this world is true". If that is truly so, then what would we be afraid of? All of our fears would truly be foolish because if there is nothing true in this world or about this world and all the forms of this world (including our bodies),  then our fears would all be about nothing

 That is why the Course can be summed up by the words "nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God". That is, in its simplest summary, all there is for us to learn. No more than this. The world of form is all an illusion. But it is valuable for our learning because it "witnesses to your illusions of yourself".   In other words it all first starts in our own minds. The guilt is in our minds and then we project it out in the world and expect to be punished. And we think we deserve it. The punishment that seems to be delivered by the world simply reinforces the beliefs that we hold that we are a body, that we are guilty of having killed off God and caused pain to others and that there is a real world that has real effects on us. It all witnesses to the thought system of the ego that we hold.  However, as a witness to our illusions, we can use our experience here in this world as a classroom. to look at our fears and to release them to the Holy Spirit. Increasingly, as we recognize how foolish are our fears (2.2) we gain faith in our true reality as the Son of God, unlimited, eternal and "a part of Love Itself". What can we fear if we accept this as the truth? The truth is that we are holy, innocent and that nothing we think we have done has actually happened in Reality.

When I am afraid, I don't think that I am deceiving or fooling myself. I think that there is something real that is threatening  my well being. So my defenses go up and I try to protect myself. When we really look at our experiences here, we are afraid all of the time. Oh we might have moments of peace and release from fear in a holy instant but mostly we are reminded  daily of our vulnerabilities. We look out at a world that we think has power to hurt us. By valuing anything outside of ourselves we give it power. We feel manipulated and controlled by forces seemingly outside  of our own minds and we build protection and defenses against them. And thus we keep reinforcing our fears. Yet the lesson reminds us that through forgiveness, our fears will be released. When we awaken to the truth of who we are, we no longer can be controlled by anything.

We do think that our bodies, our identities in this world, our personalities define us. But as we progress in the Course, our hold on these beliefs becomes loosened. And as we increasingly stop trying to hold onto things that are nothing but illusive, changeable and temporary in this world, then our freedom is felt. So we neither have to stop enjoying the things of this world, nor give them up. We simply stop believing that they can ever bring us happiness or that we can be threatened by anything in this world.

This is a lesson reminiscent of lesson 48 that says:  "The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength".  But we try to cover up our anxiety.  We don't like to admit fear. We hide behind masks of independence and competence, covering over the fear. Fear makes us feel vulnerable and weak which we don't like to admit. So it can go into hiding where we deny its existence, thinking that our competence in the world, makes us sufficiently capable that we can handle everything. But the fear is still there in all of us as long as we identify with the ego thought system and the body. Because we do, we see ourselves as  a vulnerable self living in the world. 

In the Manual for Teachers, Section 16 "How should the teacher of God spend his day?" we are reminded that "there is one thought in particular that should be remembered throughout the day. It is a thought of pure joy; a thought of peace; a thought of limitless release, limitless because all things are freed within it. You think you made a place of safety for yourself. You think you made a power that can save you from all the fearful things you see in dreams. It is not so. Your safety lies not there. What you give up is merely the illusion of protecting illusions. And it is this you fear, and only this. How foolish to be afraid of nothing! Nothing at all! Your defenses will not work, but you are not in danger. You have no need of them. Recognize this, and they will disappear. And then will you accept your real protection."

We are not asked to give up things that remind us of our fear such as locking our doors and  taking medicine when we are sick if we are too fearful to let our minds do the healing. We need not increase our fears by deriding ourselves for not being further along in our healing. We simply continue to use each situation that arises where our fear comes up, and bring it forward for healing. "By not supporting them, it (salvation) lets them quietly go down to dust."

 And when we do this kind of healing of our own minds, we give  healing to the world. As we remember the truth of who we are "God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world and only Heaven now exists at all" (What is Salvation? 5.2)

 Remember to be content with your learning and not to be impatient with yourselves which is just another attack on the mind. We have guilt and fear as a result of our belief  in separation from God and we have now made a choice for healing. The entire Course is one of making this choice over and over with each problem, with each difficulty, with each fear that comes up, and with all of our grievances. This choice seems to be spread over a long period of time yet the moment we are ready, we will awake to the truth of who we really are in truth. 

Today we focus on release from guilt and fear. The only way to our freedom is to see the innocence in everyone without exception so we can know that we are innocent. Why is this important? Because our fear is justified by our belief that we have sinned and are guilty. When we know our own innocence as we were created by God there is no more fear. To remember God is to reflect His Oneness in each brother. Every attack we make reinforces our guilt and keeps us unaware of our Oneness. That is what the ego would have us do in order to keep us locked into this cycle of guilt and fear. But we have a way out. Jesus is the way-shower and tells us that in giving up grievances and attack thoughts we can return to the truth of who we are. And thus fear dissipates because there is no longer any justification for it.

Love and blessings, Sarah

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⁴⁹ Perception selects and makes the world you see. It literally picks it out as the mind directs. The laws of size and shape and brightness would hold, perhaps, if other things were equal. They are not equal. For what you look for you are far more likely to discover than what you would prefer to overlook. The still small Voice for God is not drowned out by all the ego's raucous screams and senseless ravings to those who want to hear it. Perception is a choice and not a fact. But on this choice depends far more than you may realize as yet. For on the voice you choose to hear and on the sights you choose to see, depends entirely your whole belief in what you are. Perception is a witness but to this and never to reality. Yet it can show you the conditions in which awareness of reality is possible or those where it could never be.

⁵⁰ Reality needs no cooperation from you to be itself. But your awareness of it needs your help because it is your choice. Listen to what the ego says and see what it directs you see, and it is sure that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You will experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You will believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control and far more powerful than you. And you will think the world you made directs your destiny. For this will be your faith. But never believe because it is your faith it makes reality.

⁵¹ There is another vision and another Voice in which your freedom lies awaiting but your choice. And if you place your faith in them, you will perceive another Self in you. This other Self sees miracles as natural. They are as simple and natural to It as breathing to the body. They are the obvious response to calls for help, the only one It makes. Miracles seem unnatural to the ego because it does not understand how separate minds can influence each other. Nor could they do so. But minds cannot be separate. This other Self is perfectly aware of this. And thus It recognizes that miracles do not affect another's mind, only Its own. [They always change your mind.] There is no other.

⁵² You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separation has interfered with reason. Reason lies in the other Self you have cut off from your awareness. And nothing you have allowed to stay in it is capable of reason. How can the segment of the mind devoid of reason understand what reason is or grasp the information it would give? All sorts of questions may arise in it, but if the basic question stems from reason, it will not ask it. Like all that stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple, and remains unasked. But think not reason could not answer it.

⁵³ God's plan for your salvation could not have been established without your will and your consent. It must have been accepted by the Son of God, for what God wills for him he must receive. For God wills not apart from him, nor does the Will of God wait upon time to be accomplished. Therefore, what joined the Will of God must be in you now, being eternal. You must have set aside a place in which the Holy Spirit can abide and where He is. He must have been there since the need for Him arose and was fulfilled in the same instant. Such would your reason tell you if you listened. Yet such is clearly not the ego's "reasoning." Its alien nature to the ego is proof you will not find the answer there. Yet if it must be so, it must exist. And if it exists for you and has your freedom as the purpose given it, you must be free to find it.

⁵⁴ God's plan is simple-never circular and never self-defeating. He has no Thoughts except the Self-extending, and in this your will must be included. Thus, there must be a part of you that knows His Will and shares it. It is not meaningful to ask if what must be is so. But it is meaningful to ask why you are unaware of what is so, for this must have an answer if the plan of God for your salvation is complete. And it must be complete because its Source knows not of incompletion. Where would the answer be but in the Source? And where are you but there, where this same answer is? Your Identity, as much a true effect of this same Source as is the answer, must therefore be together and the same.

⁵⁵ Oh yes, you know this and more than this alone. Yet any part of knowledge threatens dissociation as much as all of it. And all of it will come with any part. Here is the part you can accept. What reason points to you can see because the witnesses on its behalf are clear. Only the totally insane can disregard them, and you have gone past this. Reason is a means which serves the Holy Spirit's purpose in its own right. It is not reinterpreted and redirected from the goal of sin as are the others. For reason is beyond the ego's range of means.

⁵⁶ Faith and perception and belief can be misplaced and serve the great deceiver's needs as well as truth. But reason has no place at all in madness, nor can it be adjusted to fit its end. Faith and belief are strong in madness, guiding perception toward what the mind has valued. But reason enters not at all in this. For the perception would fall away at once if reason were applied. There is no reason in insanity, for it depends entirely on reason's absence. The ego never uses it because it does not realize that it exists. The partially insane have access to it, and only they have need of it. Knowledge does not depend on it, and madness keeps it out.

⁵⁷ The part of mind where reason lies was dedicated by your will in union with your Father's to the undoing of insanity. Here was the Holy Spirit's purpose accepted and accomplished both at once. Reason is alien to insanity, and those who use it have gained a means which cannot be applied to sin. Knowledge is far beyond attainment of any kind. But reason can serve to open doors you closed against it.

⁵⁸ You have come very close to this. Faith and belief have shifted, and you have asked the question which the ego will never ask. Does not your reason tell you now the question must have come from something that you do not know but must belong to you? Faith and belief, upheld by reason, cannot fail to lead to changed perception. And in this change is room made way for vision. Vision extends beyond itself, as does the purpose which it serves and all the means for its accomplishment.