Greetings to you this day. I am Jeshua. I have come this day to discuss with you, fear. For you have asked me about fear. You have asked me what it is and how it functions in your life. You have received in your quiet times, some of the answers. But today I will clarify for you many of those things and more.
So what is fear, you ask. For I have told you in A Course In Miracles, there are only two emotions, love and fear. Now I tell you, love is all that is. The entire universe is comprised totally of love. The word you can use is non-dualistic. A non-dualistic universe means there is one; God is one; you are one; you and your brother, you and your sister, are one. And that means there is absolutely nothing which is not love.
So what is fear, then, if everything must be love? Fear is that of which this world is made. And I have told you, have I not, that fear has made everything you think you see. Now why would that be so? When you, creative spirit, son of God, decided to create a world of space and time, you needed to work out the logistics, if you will, of how it would work. And in order to experience space-time, in order to experience this world as you seem to, even though it is not real, it is necessary that you not be fully aware of the nature and essence of what this world is, which, as I have said, is love, nothing but love. And so as I have told you before, part of the creation of this world was imagined bodies, and an imagined brain, and imagined thoughts that seemed to be within that brain. And I have told you in A Course in Miracles, your thoughts do not mean anything. I have told you that your thoughts are just images that you have made.
And what is an image? An image, for you, is a picture, if you will, something you project onto a screen that you can then observe and experience. The thoughts of your brain function as images that you can look at, if you will, in order to experience the world of space and time. This was necessary in order for you to believe, if you will, that this world is real, even though it is but illusion and it is not real. So when you experience this world, in order for it to play out as you have desired, you need to look at images. And those are your thoughts. You need to look at images you have made that allow you to experience what you will of space and time. And I have told you that perception involves an exchange or a translation that knowledge does not. And that is the exchange or translation. The truth of what you are is modified into an image that is pasted, if you will, within your brain. And you think thoughts. You think thoughts with such clarity and with such a vivid nature that you absolutely believe them to be real. In fact, one of the things that causes you to believe it is real is the fact that you seem to think at all. And you say, “I think, therefore I exist”. And that is a most powerful illusion indeed.
Now when you look at your world of space and time and limitation and isolation and separation, you are seeing that which is not real. However, this world, illusion though it be, was created by you, creative spirit, child of God, one with God, and in a non-dualistic universe. Everything must be love. So this world, this world that you seem to live in, in these imagined bodies is, in essence, love. It is not possible that it be anything else in a universe where all is one. But in order to play out the illusion of space and time and bodies, you must see it differently. And what allows you to see it differently, if you will, are the thoughts of your brain, the images that you have chosen to place in that brain, that you use to play out this illusion of space and time. And if you will, all of the thoughts of your brain, all of the images which seem to show you a world that is not perfect love, which it of course must be, — all of the images that seem to show you a world that is not perfect love, that is fear.
Doubt, fear, you can use as a word. And it has meanings and connotations for you. And you think of fear as being afraid of something. And that is exactly right. However, the fear can be extremely subtle, even though in your silence it can be extremely strong in its expression. So fear is the thoughts of your brain, the images. Fear is anything that would cause you to believe in this illusion, rather than to see the world of perfect love. Now I have told you that the thoughts, which are not your real thoughts, the thoughts that are images you have made, have no meaning, and no effect. The thoughts of your brain do not have creative power.
This I have told you before. And yet you seem in your world to have choices. You seem to process within your brain. And you believe, in your thinking, that you make choices which determine what happens in your life. And that is one of the grand illusions as well, that thoughts have creative power, and that they can determine what happens in your life. Hear me well, this day. It is not so. And the reason it is not so, I have already told you in A Course in Miracles, is that the script is written. Time but seems to go in one direction. And what seems to be the flow of cause and effect is but façade, and is part of the illusion itself.
The thoughts of your brain do not have creative power. However, those thoughts are most powerful in the world, the thoughts of your brain. The images you have made, which are not your real thoughts and are not real, have power. They do not have the power to create. They do not change or alter your life. They do not make it happen. The power that lies within your thoughts is the power to block your awareness of the presence of love. And have I not told you that A Course In Miracles is all about removing the blocks to your awareness of love and its presence. So, in a word, how do you remove those blocks? You do it by letting go of fear. But if fear is the thoughts of your brain, then you remove the blocks to the presence of love by letting go of your thoughts. And have I not told you, be still and know that I am God. And when you are still, when you have gone beyond your thinking, then what arises, like the most illustrious sunrise? What arises is the world as it truly exists and as it was created, a world of perfect love and beauty and joy.
So it seems easy, does it not? Stop your thinking, and you will see love. And that is true. However, herein lies the catch. The thoughts of your brain, the thoughts that are indeed fear, are the very same thoughts that define who you are. The thoughts of the brain define your ego. And you equate your ego, while you are yet living space and time in the illusory aspect of it, you define your ego as who you are. And, therefore, to give up your thinking is tantamount to dying. And I said to you when I walked this earth 2000 years ago, “He who would seek his life shall lose it, but he who shall lose his life for my sake shall find it”. I did not, indeed, mean dying physically. I meant that he who has the courage and the fortitude to give up the image of himself defined by his thoughts, he who has the courage and the fortitude to cease to exist as ego, will discover the world of love. That is called, if you will, enlightenment. That is called the atonement. That is called the world of forgiveness. Though, when you let go totally of your thoughts, including your very life as it is defined by those thoughts, when you let go of that, you simply see the world differently. Instead of seeing through the false images, you see and experience the truth of love.
What of ego, then? What if you give up your ego? What if you cease to think? How would your life look? Would you physically die? And the answer is no, indeed. In your life, the script is written. And you were born, and you will play out your days in space and time until the chosen moment when your body seems to die and you evolve back into spirit only, and its freedom, and the essence of love. Is it possible to flow through your life without ego, and experience it here? And the answer is yes, indeed. That is what I meant when I said for you to live in the world but not of the world. For the illusion of this world cannot define what you really are. So would your life look different from what it might look if you gave up ego and continued to live in this body, to someone observing you from the outside? There would be no change. For the script is written. But what you would experience is a world beyond fear, beyond the thoughts that define who you are. You could still be aware of your space and time. And you could still be aware of the images and what they look like. And you could still flow through your life and keep appointments, and above all, experience that which you came here to love and to do. But all of it would be the perfect, almost unfathomable for you, flow of love. For your life was created as exactly that. It is entirely possible to live this life without ego in a world of oneness and perfection and joy.
And could you still enjoy the same things that you enjoy now. And the answer is, of course. For you all come here with choices which give you the huge variety of experiences here. Some of you might like music and some of you might not. Some of you might enjoy being on stage and acting in a play. Some of you might not. Some as you might be academic and scholastic and some of you may not. Some of you may enjoy athleticism and seeing what your body can do in performance and others might not. Can you still live all of that in the awareness of love? And the answer is yes, indeed. For in a world that is comprised totally of love, everything in it is love. It cannot be otherwise in a non-dualistic universe.
So the goal for you is to give up your fear. In fact, that means dying to your ego. How can you tell if your thoughts are of ego? One is if you feel threatened, then that is fear. One is if you feel that you, as you define yourself, will change, and you have apprehension, that is fear. One is if you wonder if you will be able to understand something and are not sure you will, that is fear. In the absence of fear, you flow through your life. You flow through the experience of infinite love here in space and time, reveling in every moment, but without agenda and without attachment.
Does that mean you should not love your life here? If you look out at a world that is comprised totally of love and you experience it, is it possible not to love? And indeed it is not. What would seem to block your awareness of love, which is also fear, as I have told you, are your values. And your values, in simplest form, are the building blocks of your ego. The things that you value you feel you must have or maintain in order to be at all, or in order to be who you are. In the absence of fear, you will value nothing. You will value nothing. That sounds in fact, negative, does it not? But it is not, indeed. For I have told you, you want nothing you value to come of a relationship. And what does that mean? If you value a relationship, you use it to define who you are, ego. And that is a special relationship. And that will always, as I have told you, bring you pain. It is not possible to love, which is to allow freedom, if you value anything. So when you give up your values, you simply allow your world freedom. That is all. That is the beings in it who seem to be walking this world with you, that is your possessions, that is your livelihood, that is your job, that is your hobbies. That is everything in your life. Can you live it, can you love it with great passion, but without valuing, without attachment, and to simply experience it as you will? And when it passes away to move onto something else. And, indeed, you can.
And how do you do that? By living, if you will, in this moment. And I have told you that is the holy instant. The holy instant is just my term. Some people say, live in the now. Some people say, live without attachment. Some people say, live in the moment. It is all the same. For when you live in the holy instant your life will flow through time, but you will not sense that the past has determined what you are, and you will not fear. Hear me well. You will not fear that what you experience in this moment will affect the future, for it does not. Remember the script is written. You are playing out your life in an arena where you are absolutely safe. In a life that is comprised of nothing but love, when you fear, you are simply choosing to see it differently. But that does not change the fact that it is nothing but love. You are here playing out a life that has already been created and ordained by you, creative spirit. And you play it out in an arena where no harm can come to you. And you can choose, if you will, to see it through the eyes of fear or see it through the eyes of love. And that that is your only choice in this world. And I have said, you have but one remaining choice in this world, and that is which voice you will listen to. You can listen to the voice of fear or you can listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of love. And that is your choice.
Eventually, I promise you, you and every one of your brothers will flow into seeing the world only as the love. And when that happens all of your fear will pass away. Even that moment has been set, as I told you. But you can choose. You can choose to see through the eyes of fear or through the eyes of love. It does not change the flow of your life. It only changes how you experience it. And that is the power of fear. It cannot change your life. It cannot change the script. It only has the power to let you see it as fear instead of love. And what you have to do to let go of fear, as I have told you, all you have to do is die. All you have to do is let go of this ego that you cherish as if it were your very self. And in your dying, in your letting go of fear, you will open, as I have said, to a world of perfect, infinite love. And you will experience the rest of your days of space and time in exactly that love.
My blessings upon you all. That is all.
Brent A. Haskell, Ph.D., D.O.
(Editor’s note: Brent Haskell is the author of Journey Beyond Words and The Other Voice: A Companion to the Text of The Course Chapters 1-15 (Miracles Studies Book). During October, 2012, I had the pleasure of meeting Brent at the Miracles In The Mountains conference in Cañon City, Colorado and hearing him give a presentation there, during which he offered to send several articles – including this one – via an email to those interested.)
This is so beautiful. So simple. So inspiring. I even start to feel that the script is full. Full of life in love. Thanks.