Search in this category
SearchAs I get closer to awakening, is it normal to start feeling intense fear or doom, and is this just the ego trying to scare me?
Question:
I do so enjoy your exchanges in my inbox. They seem to come to me at such appropriate times in my own little story. I am nearing the end of the workbook lessons of ACIM, and lately I have occasionally had a feeling of deep impending doom. This feeling does not affect me as it once would have, but it is still a little upsetting to my peace. I have interpreted this as my ego putting fear in me as it slowly loses its total hold on me. Am I interpreting this correctly?
Answer:
Thanks for writing, expressing your appreciation, and asking your question. The momentum of Awakening does SEEM to flush up the ego's deepest fear—the fear of being destroyed. This is the illusory feeling of deep impending doom. Christ gives a description of the fear which SEEMS to arise in approaching the Light (Beginning or Source) in this ACIM passage:
"Your Self is still at peace, even though your mind is in conflict. You have not yet gone back far enough, and that is why you become so fearful. As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death." (T-3.VII.5.8)
It is impossible that something that has no existence could be destroyed. Love is real and knows not of destruction. Atonement, the final and only lesson in Awakening, realizes the impossibility of the belief in separation from God. The Mind of God is our Union as Spirit, in which no division is possible. The ego is literally an unbelievable belief, for it has no Foundation or Source. What has no beginning can have no end. Error cannot arise from Truth, and darkness cannot arise from Light. Love and fear have no meeting point, for Love is real and fear is not.
One may describe Awakening as happily giving back to the Holy Spirit the part of the split mind that believes in separation. This part seems to experience many illusory emotions (fear, anger, guilt, pain, pleasure, etc.) up until the point when the experience of wholeness (love, peace, joy, freedom, etc.) is all that remains in awareness. Peace comes to the mind that is still a moment and rests in God. The Holy Spirit experiences the mind as whole, and this Perspective is Healed Perception. The Holy Spirit simply sees the false as false. This is another way of saying that the false is impossible.
Awakening seems to come to a point of surrender. It is really a point of acceptance. Atonement is fearful to the ego, and Joyful to the Holy Spirit. The emotion experienced seems to be a direct result of the mind's identification and alignment with ego or Spirit. Yet in acceptance of the Holy Spirit's Correction it is apparent that there is only Spirit.
Happy Awakening Beloved of God!
Love,
David