Fear is a major problem in this world. The experience we have of it can range from mild anxiety to extreme panic. These forms of fear are just hints of the terror of the ego’s “circle of fear” described earlier which attempts to keep us from ever truly seeing within ourselves.
In all of its forms fear is debilitating, which in a way is its function. It could in fact be said that fear is the single most corrosive force in the world, because it keeps the world arrested, stuck in its current state, which, as the Course points out, is nothing and nowhere, a state of oblivion. Not only does the ego’s circle of fear seek to perpetually keep us from seeing within ourselves to behold the reality of our split mind, where the Remedy for the cause of our madness is also found, but in its milder forms fear prevents us from deeply engaging with the world and with our sisters and brothers. Thus, the encounters and experiences we could have – and that we are destined to have at some point – that would contribute to our awakening and the awakening of our sisters and brothers, continue to be postponed because we are afraid they might put at risk the “safe” worlds we have made for ourselves.
And there’s really no positive need for fear. If there is something in our environment in any given moment that we actually do need to be aware and cautious of, then being fully present in our awareness, which will always be accompanied by calm and a lack of fear, and being connected with Spirit, which will always be accompanied by Peace and Joy, is always the best way to deal with such situations, since we actually know so little and Spirit knows everything about each situation, including how to avoid harm. Truly, Spirit can easily transform potential and even apparent harm into real blessing through the miracle, but we must allow It to do so through us, without fear.
The two biggest problems we seem to face with fear is that it’s so easy to slip into, and so hard to get out of. The medical understanding of the difficulty of getting out of fear when we have allowed it in is that the “fear” chemicals released into the body don’t just go away when we determine that they aren’t necessary. However, the Course repeatedly reminds us that the body does not control the mind, so chemicals in the body are not the problem with letting go or getting out of fear. It’s the thought of fear in the mind that is the problem, and once this is cleared, then any related chemicals in the body cease having any effect.
The Course indicates that there are two actual causes of fear. The first is that many of us aren’t yet fully present in our awareness most of the time, and far too often this absence of awareness allows the creative activity of the split mind in our unwatched unconscious to miscreate, causing us to subconsciously fear the results of such miscreative activity. Because of this regular phenomenon, we have literally become afraid of our own power, and of our own minds. The other source of fear is when there is conflict in our will between what we want and the realization of this want, which generates strain, resulting in fear. This again is an aspect of our creative power not flowing naturally.
The apparent causes of fear that are well known – the fears of harm and loss – may be seen to be outward reflections of the two actual inner causes of fear: the fear of harm being a reflection of the fear of our own power of mind causing harm when not controlled and directed appropriately, and the fear of loss being a reflection of the conflict of will of not getting what we want.
Jesus makes an important statement in the Course that can seem quite surprising, namely that he, even with unlimited power, cannot control our fear, even if we ask or pray for him to do so. Because fear is a result of our own thoughts and therefore of our own creative activity, even if it is a miscreation of our creative power, the Law of the sanctity of our minds and of our creative activity determines that only we can release the fear we have miscreated. This indicates that not only can Jesus not control our fear for us, but neither can Spirit, Divine Essence, or even the Divine Itself. Because we are the source of our fear through the way we frame situations or experiences, we must be the ones to prevent fear by not generating fear thoughts in the first place, and to let fear go by changing our minds about it once we have generated it or allowed it to come. Nothing else can do that for us. Fortunately, the Course presents a series of pragmatic steps (see below) to help us let go of fear, if we choose.
Another crucial insight that emerges from the Course’s teaching about fear is that there are two types of things in our lives that we must become more and more aware of, the sorting out of which helps us not to generate fear in the first place. The first type includes what is essential, important, and what truly matters (namely the Eternal, our creative activity, and awakening). The second type includes the nonessential, the unimportant, and what doesn’t really matter (namely the temporal and all things having to do with the body and with fantasy and illusions). If we request it, Spirit can take care of for us everything that doesn’t matter, that is, the minutiae of life, including all our physical needs, etc. But we can’t turn over what does matter – our mind and its creative activity – to Spirit (or to Jesus or anyone or anything else) to take care of for us, because this would violate the Law of cause and effect—our minds and creative activity being the cause, and our perceptions, our experience of the world, and all the results of our creative activity being the effect. We must be in complete control of this inner creative thought process (“I direct my mind, which I alone must direct”), though of course hopefully with the guidance (but not control) of Spirit. Learning to take full control of our mind so that it can become integrated and thus unsplit is the only way we can take our place again as cocreators of Perfection in Creation, without the danger of our power being used miscreatively. Helping us accomplish this is the goal of the Course.
“Everyone in this world experiences fear, and no one enjoys it. Yet it would take very little correct thinking to understand why fear occurs. Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody in this world remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world because human beings have many things they must do, and they find that they cannot engage in constant thought observation. However, those who hope to free themselves from fear must realize certain things, and realize them fully, at least some of the time.
“The mind is a very powerful creator and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. It is engaged in creative activity every instant, and always as a person intends even if they don’t realize it. . . . I [Jesus] cannot release you from fear, because I . . . know that fear doesn’t exist in Reality, even though you don’t yet know this. If I intervened between your thoughts and their results, I would be interfering with a basic Law of cause and effect, in fact the most fundamental one there is in this world. I would hardly be helping you in the long term if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this Course.
“It is certainly much more useful to remind you that you do not observe your thoughts, that is, pay attention to them and keep them from being undisciplined and harmful, carefully enough, except for a relatively small part of the day, and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. Human beings are not used to miraculous thinking, but they can be trained to think that way. All miracle workers have to be trained that way, and that is the purpose of this Course.
“It is essential that I be able to count on those who have chosen to join me in the Atonement. This means that I must remind them not to leave their minds unobserved or they will not be able to help me through doing their part. Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, a miracle will be necessary to set the mind of the miracle worker itself straight in order to perform the miracle, a circular process which would hardly foster the time collapse for which the miracle is intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect that every miracle worker must have for true cause and effect of thoughts and their results.
“It must be noted that miracles cannot free the miracle worker from fear. This is because both miracles and fear come from their thoughts, and if they were not free to choose one, they would also not be free to choose the other. When electing one course of action, you reject another. It is much the same in the choice between electing the miracle or fear. By electing to allow your thoughts to be guided by right-mindedness or miracle-mindedness, you automatically reject fear. Fear cannot exist unless it has come about through misthought.”
“The only solution for any individual experiencing fear, which is always the result of the basic conflict between Creation and miscreation, is to stop miscreating now, and at the same time to accept the Atonement for themself to erase all guilt for miscreations of the past.”
“You believe that ‘being afraid’ is involuntary. But I [Jesus] have suggested that only constructive acts, that is, the specific application of miracles by me through you, should be reflexive and in this sense involuntary on your part. I indicated that superconscious or Divine Essence control can take off of your hands everything that doesn’t matter, and Its Guidance can guide everything that does matter, if you so will.
“Because fear doesn’t exist in Reality it cannot be controlled by Divine Essence, but it can be self-controlled. I cannot control your fear either because to do so I would be intervening between your thoughts and their effects. However, fear’s absence, even temporary, allows miracles, which I do control in my complete Oneness with Divine Essence.
“Fear is always associated with the mind becoming concerned with what isn’t real and therefore doesn’t matter, i.e., with the transitory and non-creative. The correction of fear is therefore a matter of your will, because fear’s presence shows that you have raised the unimportant to a higher level of attention than it warrants. You have thus brought it under your will, where it does not belong. This means you feel responsible for it. The level confusion here is perfectly obvious.
“The reason that I cannot control fear for you is that you are attempting to raise to the creative level of mind what properly belongs to the unimportant minutiae of the physical level of experience. I do not foster level confusion, but I do support your will in correcting it.
“You would not tolerate unacceptable behavior on your part being acted out through your body, and would hardly advance the excuse that you could not help it. Why then would you tolerate insane thinking on your part? There is a fallacy here you would do well to observe clearly. You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think. You cannot separate the Truth by giving autonomy to your behavior. This is controlled by me automatically as soon as you place what you think under my guidance.
“Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to miscreate, i.e., have not allowed me to guide it. It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of misthought, that is, your behavior, can result in real healing or correction. When you are fearful, you have willed wrongly. This is why you feel you are responsible for it. In such situations to find Peace you must change your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of will.
“You do not need guidance except at the mind level. Correction belongs only at the level where creation is possible. The term does not really mean anything at the symptom level, where it cannot work because its source remains uncorrected.
“The correction of fear is your responsibility. When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that fear’s correction isn’t your responsibility. Therefore rather than asking for release from fear you should ask for help in the condition of your mind that has brought the fear about. This condition always entails a separation between thought and willingness. At the level of thought, you can help it.
“You are much too tolerant of mind-wandering, thus passively condoning the mind’s miscreative activity. The particular result never matters, but the fundamental error does. The fundamental Correction is always the same: before you will to do or engage in the very next action or activity in your day, and the one after that, and so on, take a quiet moment to ask Spirit or me if your will is in accord with ours, which you can be sure is in accord with the Divine’s. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear.
“Fear is always a sign of strain that arises whenever the will to do something conflicts with what you do. This situation arises in two major ways:
“1. You can will or desire to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or successively. This produces conflicting behavior, which would be tolerable to the self (though not necessarily to others) except for the fact that the part of the will that wants something not received becomes disappointed, frustrated, outraged, etc.
“2. You can behave or act as you think you should, but without entirely willing or desiring to do so. This produces consistent behavior, but entails great strain within the self.
“If you think about it, you will realize that in both cases your will and your behavior are out of accord, resulting in a situation in which you are doing what you do not will. This arouses a sense of coercion, which usually produces inner rage. Anger then invades the mind, and mis-projection becomes likely. Anxiety or depression are virtually certain.
“Remember that whenever there is fear, it is because you have not made up your mind. Your will is split, and your behavior inevitably becomes erratic. Correcting at the behavior level can shift the error from the first type of inner conflict (willing or desiring to do conflicting things) to the second (behaving or acting as you think you should but without entirely willing or desiring to do so), but will not obliterate the fear.
“It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your will under my guidance without much conscious effort, but this implies the kind of response pattern you may not have developed dependably yet. Spirit will not ask more than you are able to do. The strength to do comes from your own undivided will to do. There is no strain in doing the Divine’s Will as soon as It is also your own.
“The lesson here is quite simple, but particularly apt to be overlooked. I will therefore repeat it, urging you to really take it in. Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it wanders and miscreates through becoming conflicted in what it wills, thus producing inevitable strain, because willing and doing become discordant. This cannot be corrected by better doing. But it can be corrected by clearer thinking and willing.
“After taking the first corrective step: knowing that you are experiencing fear when you are experiencing it, you might benefit temporarily by adding another next step before going on with the corrective process. Try saying to yourself that somehow or somewhere you must have willed not to love, or the fear that arises from will-behavior conflict could not have happened. Then follow the previous instruction regarding asking if your will is in accord with mine and Spirit’s.
“If you consider what the process really means, it is nothing more than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the Atonement for yourself as the Remedy to all problems. From this viewpoint, the steps can be reworded as follows: Recognize:
“1. First that what you are feeling is fear.
“2. That fear arises from lack of Love.
“3. That the only Remedy for lack of Love is perfect Love.
“4. That the Atonement is perfect Love, and need only be accepted.
“It has been emphasized that the miracle, and the Atonement of which it is a part, are always signs of real respect from the worthy to the worthy. This Worth is reestablished in awareness by the Atonement. It may become obvious, then, that when you are afraid it is because you have placed yourself in a position where you need Atonement because you have done something loveless or without worth, having willed without Love. This is precisely the situation for which the Atonement was created and offered. The need for the Remedy inspired Its creation.
“As long as you feel or even recognize only the need for remedy, you will remain fearful. However, as soon as you accept the Remedy, you will have also abolished the fear. This is how true healing occurs.”
In summary, fear always arises in the mind, and it is only there that it can be prevented or corrected, and only by the one whose mind it is. “This Course has made clear that human beings cannot control fear, because they themselves bring fear into their experience through their belief in it. The content of the idea of fear, coupled with their belief in it, renders it out of their control by definition. For this reason, any attempt to resolve the basic conflict [between fear and Love] through the concept of mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact, such attempts assert the reality and power of fear by the simple assumption that it need be controlled or mastered at all. The essential resolution to fear is in not allowing fear to arise in the first place, and in recognizing its unreality when it does arise, both of which rest entirely on the mastery of Love, that is, the skill of presencing or attuning—of being aware that you are in the Presence of Love.”