Saturday, August 27, 2011

A Course In Miracles commentary #20 - The release from fear.

As a Psychotherapist I am aware that Anxiety Disorders are the largest form of psychiatric disorder in the United States today. As a nation we are a fearful people. We rush to alter our anxiety with alcohol, street drugs, sex, gambling, overeating, religion, and prescription drugs which are advertised on TV constantly on the evening news broadcasts.

What does Unitarian Universalism have to offer people who live in fear especially those who have chosen to medicate it away? With our six sources and no God like figure we espouse as a religion, we have nothing magical to offer to assuage people's fears. What we do offer is covenantal relationship organized around 7 principles.

What A Course In Miracles offers is what it calls, a "miracle", which is a shift in perception that recognizes that we are one with the Love of God and not the separate body which the ego mind has taught us we are. It says in the Course, "The miracle is the means, the Atonement is the principle, and healing is the result."

The "acceptance of one another and encouragement to the spiritual growth in our congregations", the third principle, points to this activity of healing as a release from fear that the Course describes. The correct implementation of this principle is to recognize the Spirit of God in each other and not the bodies. The principle of the Atonement is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The separation is a figment of the imagination of our ego minds. Our UU faith acknowledges the interdependent web of all existence, but does not acknowledge that this "existence" is not real, but a miscreation which we, unfortunately, continue to believe. The Course teaches that the only thing real is the Love of God which we have never actually left even though we think we have and sometimes in our egotistical defensiveness continue to insist on.

The take away today is the willingness to acknowledge that we are something more than our bodies. We are all part of the Love of God. What happens to my brothers and sisters, my fellow human beings, happens to me, and what happens to me happens to them. My willingness, with the help of the Holy Spirit , to shift my attention to the Spirit of God, brings a release from fear and great peace. This shift of attention occurs when I practice forgiveness. Will I forgive myself today for believing and miscreating all the things I thought were real and am discovering are nonsense? If I forgive myself I will find it easier to forgive others. Forgiveness is the key to releasing fear and it brings about great healing.

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