“Everything that the Divine created has It bestowed on you lovingly as yours forever. Nothing can be lost to you in all the Universe.” “Truth extends inward, where the idea of loss is meaningless, and only increase is conceivable.” “All loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Actual loss of any kind is impossible” “It is impossible that anything be lost if what you have is what you are.”
The healing corrective process described with regard to undoing fear may also be applied to our fear of loss: the feared loss of the relationships dear to us; of losing out on being part of experiences we long for or cherish; of our home, livelihood, and access to resources; of our belongings, especially those we believe would be difficult or more expensive to replace; of our health, functionality, purpose, sanity, and joy of living; and fear of the loss of our very lives. Anticipated loss in any form may cause a chill of fear to touch our spine due to the harm we expect will result from not having what we believe protects us or that we need to survive and enjoy life. Believing ourselves to be living in a world of lack and loss, and incarnated in this world in a physical body – the symbol of limitation – we deal with this phenomenon of the chill of fear of loss to some degree on a regular basis, e.g., whenever we experience perceived threat.
Yet regarding all loss the Course states, “I can give up only what was never real.” This reflects part of the statement summarizing the entire Course: “Everything real is eternally perfect. Nothing unreal exists. In these truths the Peace of the Divine is found.” With regard to loss this means that if something can seem to be lost, then it isn’t real, and was never real. An important variant of this with regard to relationships is that if we can “fall in” love and afterward fall “out of” love, then it was never Love, because Love is eternal. We can trust that we will always have what truly belongs to us—i.e., our eternal Relationship with our Creator and the Abundance that this assures.
“The entire belief that anyone can lose anything, which undergirds this world, merely reflects the fundamental tenet that the Divine must be insane. In this world it does seem that one can gain because another loses. If this were true, then the Divine would be mad indeed. But what is this belief except a form of the ego’s more basic tenet, ‘Separation is real, and rules the world’? For in this world it is fervently believed that with every little gain someone must lose and pay exact amount in blood and suffering, or otherwise would evil triumph and destruction be the total cost of any gain at all. You who believe that the Divine must have been mad to have made or even allowed such a world, observe this carefully, and understand that it must be that either the Divine or this world must be insane, but hardly both.”
“Attack could never prompt your counterattack unless you perceived the attack as a means of depriving you of something you value and want. But you cannot lose anything unless you do not value it and therefore do not want it. Only this lack of appreciation makes you feel deprived of anything, and by projecting your rejection, you believe that others are attempting to take something real from you. Appreciation makes loss impossible because it keeps safe your Oneness with the Divine in that which you appreciate. Only the Divine in each of Its creations or Children can be truly appreciated.”
To release the fear of loss we need only “sort out” what is the same and what is different, and remember that all things that can be lost are exactly the same in their unreality, and therefore that there are no actual differences between them, regardless of the appearances of size or importance of whatever we fear losing in any given situation. Imagine a cheap coin dropping out of one’s pocket or from one’s person. Would losing this, simply letting it go, cause consternation? If the same is the same, then just as little should anything else that appears to leave us in the realm of time, space, and form cause us distress. Since there are no accidents in our lives, the appearance of the change in form that “loss” suggests must hold a blessing if perceived clearly. Such things with regard to their form were never real in the first place, and it is only the form that is changing where we perceive loss. Focusing on the blessing will allow us to receive it.
“Creator, Your Peace is ours. What need have I to fear that anything can take away from me what You would have me keep? I cannot lose Your Gifts to me. And so the Peace You gave Your Children is with me still, in Quietness and in my own eternal Love for You.”
One of the key themes in the Course in healing our fear of loss is the idea that sacrifice in any form is meaningless and insane. Of course, this idea runs counter to accepted wisdom. Sacrifice is a sacred hymn of the world, whether in the gym (“no pain, no gain”), working long hours to “get ahead,” or in the spiritual beliefs of many people. Perhaps especially those who consider what they are doing in the world to be good work, for instance those doing healing and/or social work, may feel that the universe asks them to give up their own best interests, be it sleep or other aspects of their health or lives, in order to serve the greater good. In other words, that they are asked by the universe, in essence, to be martyrs. The Course urges us to become absolutely clear that the Divine never requires sacrifice of us of any kind or in any way, and therefore that it is impossible that the Universe could ask that of us. “No cost or sacrifice is asked of me to find the Mercy and the Peace of the Divine.”
To require sacrifice would mean that the Divine had violated Its Own Law of Abundance. The Divine only gives by extending Itself forever, which only increases the Abundance of Its Creation and Children. It never takes away. So any belief, either temporary or ongoing, that the universe, Spirit, Divine Essence, or the Divine requires sacrifice of us, or the taking away from us, of any kind, for whatever reason, is just a faulty idea that the ego has incorporated into the mind and the world. Nor can anything be taken away from us randomly, by chance, as there are no accidents in the “real world” in which everything is meaningful.
“Creator, to You all sacrifice remains forever inconceivable. And so I cannot sacrifice except in dreams. As You created me, I can give up nothing that You gave me. What You did not give has no reality. What loss can I anticipate except the loss of fear, and the Return of Love into my mind?”
“The gifts you offer to the ego are always experienced as sacrifices. But the gifts you offer to the Realm of Heaven are gifts to yourself as well as to everyone. They will always be treasured by the Divine, because they belong to Its Beloved Children who belong to It.” “Creating is the opposite of loss, as blessing is the opposite of sacrifice.” “A tiny sacrifice is just the same in its effects as is the entire idea of sacrifice. If loss in any form is possible, then are the Divine’s Children made incomplete and not themselves.”
Getting clear about the meaningless of the idea of sacrifice is an aspect of the correction of our idea of giving and receiving in general, which is part of the first step of the undoing process. Understanding true giving, receiving, having and being, and the insanity of the idea of sacrifice, is the most difficult step in changing the direction of our lives from illusions to Truth because everything that we are taught to believe about the world and ourselves is based on the idea of a limited world, a world of scarcity and lack, which also implies a world where sacrifice is possible and even meaningful. It is taken for granted that in order to have anything in this world someone else must be without that same thing. In other words, that everything comes at a cost, and this cost has to be a sacrifice for someone. Because we learn to take in order to have, instead of to give in order to have, we aren’t able to truly receive. When we change our minds even for a moment about taking in order to have, through putting someone else’s interest as important as our own, then we invite the Holy Spirit into our awareness.
However, putting someone else’s interest as important as our own means the interests are equal, as they must be because they are the same. To believe that something must be sacrificed or taken from us, for instance our well-being, in order for another to have, means putting someone else’s interest above our own, which is a reflection of the same misunderstanding about giving, receiving, having and being.
“Kneel not before the altars to sacrifice, and seek not what you will surely lose.” “The Holy Spirit offers you release from every problem that you think you have. They are the same to It, because each one, regardless of the form it seems to take, is a demand that someone suffer loss, and make a sacrifice that another might gain. And the problem is gone when the situation is worked out so that no one loses, because the problem was merely an error in perception that now has been corrected. One mistake is not more difficult for Spirit to bring to Truth than is another. For there is only one mistake: the entire idea that loss is possible and could result in gain for anyone. If this were true, then the Divine would be unfair, separation would be possible, attack justified, and vengeance fair. This one mistake in any form has only one correction: There is no loss, and to think there is is merely a mistake.”
In this regard the idea of compromise is like the idea of sacrifice. Compromise seeks to make a bargain with the world, an act that by its nature makes the world of limitation and lack seem real. “Awakening is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept only part of what you want. It means to take a little, and give up the rest. Awakening gives up nothing that is real. It is complete for everyone. Whenever the idea of compromise enters, the awareness of awakening’s Purpose is lost, because It is not recognized. It is denied where compromise has been accepted. For compromise is the secret belief that awakening is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. Thus it would teach that a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact and as one. Does this make sense? Can it be understood?”
Learning about the insanity of sacrifice is also a crucial part of the development of our total trust in the Divine, without which awakening is impossible. The development of total trust is a sixfold process described in detail in the Manual for Teachers. The second stage of this process involves our valued tool of sorting out, in this case sorting out the valuable from the valueless, which ultimately means sorting out the Eternal from the transitory. The Course clarifies:
“There is, however, no point in sorting out the valuable from the valueless unless the next obvious step [the third stage in the process] of letting go of the valueless is taken. The third stage rarely if ever waits to begin until the second stage is complete. Therefore the period of overlap is apt to be one in which the teacher of the Divine feels called upon to sacrifice their own best interests on behalf of Truth. If this is their experience then they will not have as yet realized how entirely impossible such a demand would be. They can learn this only as they actually do give up the valueless. Through this, they learn that where they anticipated grief, they find a happy light-heartedness instead. Where they thought something was asked of them, they find a gift bestowed on them.”
Thus there is only one sacrifice we ever need to make in our minds and in our lives: “I gladly make the ‘sacrifice’ of fear.” We simply need to let go, permanently, of the idea that we can ever lose or give up anything real, or that sacrifice or compromise of the real is ever asked of us. We need to let go of our anxiety in any moment to allow the space for Peace to come to us. We need to let go of actions that cause pain and of the thoughts that generate such actions, in order to allow well-being to envelop us. We need to let go of all fear thoughts so that laughter can ripple through us. The beliefs of loss and sacrifice can only arise from a perspective centered in the world of illusions, which obviously is a world of limitation because of the very nature of physicality. These beliefs could never arise from a perspective centered in the Truth, in the Eternal, and in the unlimited Source of Everything there is.
“Only the Holy Spirit knows what you really need. And It will give you all things that will not block the Way to Light. And what else could you need? In time, Spirit gives you all the things that you need have, and will renew them as long as you have need of them. It will take nothing from you as long as you have any real need of it. And yet It knows that everything you need is temporary, and that these things will only last until you step aside from all your needs, and learn that all of them have been fulfilled. Therefore, It has no investment in the things that It supplies, except to make certain that you will not use them on behalf of lingering in time. It knows that you are not at home in this world or in time, and It wills no delay to cause you to wait upon your joyous Homecoming.
“Leave, then, your needs to Spirit. It will supply them, with no emphasis at all upon them. What comes to you of It comes safely, for It will ensure that nothing you have can ever become a dark spot, hidden in your mind, kept to hurt you. Under Spirit’s Guidance you will journey lightly, for Its Sight is ever on the journey’s End, which is Its Goal.”
We can remember that the Creator and Provider of all things we’re afraid of losing is the One who created whatever reality these things have; that It allowed them to come into their current form to the degree that this form has any meaning; that It provided our relationship to this form; and that there is no limitation on Abundance for this Provider to replace old forms as we let them go with new and more appropriate ones. This Source of Everything that is can and will certainly provide us with everything we need to fulfill our part in Atonement. What a joy it will be when our perspective is so clear that we will actually laugh at all fear thoughts, including all thoughts of loss and sacrifice!