This is the transcript from a recent Living Truth Forum call (lovingly transcribed by one in our community - thank you, AN) that is being shared, for those who might find what flowed out, to be helpful.
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We have a question for the call. I will read it and we will see what unfolds.
Question:
“How to be with fear. It seems I just want it to go away. I want to get away from it. When it appears, it's in my body, usually in my throat and chest, and I don’t want to not look at it. When I am alone with the fear it feels like it is going to annihilate me, or that I can't stand up to it. The fear seems like it will overtake me. It’s all I can experience. Perhaps I am afraid of being afraid? The strongest fears are around my health, my body, and dying.”
Ok, well, we have a lot of substance here. It’s good. It’s really good. Now, I’m not saying that to be trite or to disregard the intensity of what is being experienced here, but, there's always a divine purpose that is rooted in Good, for things that appear to be rooted in bad.
So, let’s take the word fear and let's just look at that for a minute, because it’s an important fundamental, it’s a fundamental not to skip over and take lightly.
What is actually meant by fear? We’ve heard all sorts of things; false evidence appearing real... Some have said, and I have said, it’s an energy. You could say, it's an excitement with a negative assumption attached. But at its root, it is energy, and of course, it is the mind, it is the world mind, not a personal mind that gives it the label, that named it fear.
Do you think God would name an aspect of Its energy, an aspect of Its expression something negative, something bad, something wrong, something unreal? What labeled it as fear would have to be something that was steeped in separation... for it to give it that name and also that connotation... that there is something to be feared. And as she says at the end, “…is it fear that I am afraid of?’
We are taught by the Christ teaching and other absolute teachings that fear is not real, that it’s an illusion of the senses, it’s a concoction, as I was just saying, of the mind. It is a label given to a very neutral energy.
So, if we know this, what do we do with it? Well, the first thing to always do when something comes up that is so unwanted, and “feared’... we have to look at it broadly. We have to look at the big picture. We have to look at it spiritually if we want to know the Truth about it, which I am assuming we do.
The spiritual perspective says; ‘God is All.’ ‘There are no problems.’ ‘There are no conditions.’ ‘There are no situations or circumstances that are not harmonious and fulfilling.’ And that this Essence of Life that is perfect is never interrupted. It is constant, it is consistent. Nothing can interrupt it, to even pretend to be a condition or a situation - Life is that Self-complete and Self-maintaining. it is impossible for it to be interrupted, or to be diminished or lessened.
If that’s the case, then what the heck is what seems to be appearing as something other than that? And, we know that, ok, it must be illusion. But, how did that illusion get there? How could something that seems so true and present and real… and we are told over, and over, and over again by those who experience it that Reality can’t be disrupted, and that it is literally all there is…
So, we’re forgetting one important, essential aspect of this whole equation, and that is US, The I that you are, your conscious awareness . We are always consciously aware of something. It’s impossible not to be because we are alive. We are conscious. We are Consciousness Itself. But, we are conscious, as that Consciousness. We are the fulcrum, we are that point that that consciousness comes through, flows through, expresses outwardly, so to speak.
And given that fact (and it is a fact. You can prove it to yourself. It is very easily proven) that means, that we actually live as Omnipresence, not as people with names.
It is as Omnipresence ITSELF that we are conscious. A human being cannot be conscious. And, the reason that is, is that there is no such thing. It too is an assumption. It’s an imagination. It’s a thing, a concept that has been conjured up, reinforced, over, and over, and over again, until it seems like it’s an actual entity an actual thing, but it’s not.
If we are conscious as this Omnipresence, this omnipresent Self, that is everywhere, that is everything, that it is the Essence behind all form, or as Joel says: “…the Substance of all form…”, when you look at it that way, there is no room for an illusion.
And, what we learn by doing this, by living this, by practicing, switching our perspective, our perception, we see that, it’s when we turn, when we use, so to speak, our conscious awareness to imagine, we allow the mind to suggest, to this conscious awareness that we are, that is everywhere, we allow the mind to almost shrink that conscious awareness. It seems to bring us down to this finite point that is localized, in a location. “I am this body.” “I am this mind.” “I live in this town,” “I live in this house.”
And, that’s when all the trouble starts. Because we have turned away, we are out of the awareness of Grace. We are out of Grace, we are out of the protection, the safety and the security of Grace. Grace is always operating, but we only experience it when we are consciously aware of ourselves as Its Omnipresence.
So when we turn away and we focus on this world, this appearing world, the things that are constantly in flux, constantly changing... the perishables... they come in, they go out. It’s telling us, this illusion, and let's go back to our point here, the fear... It’s telling us that we have turned. That we, for that moment, for that hour, for that day, for that week, whatever it is… that we have forgotten who we are.
It’s almost like, and I have said before, any problem that appears is a gift, it is a blessing because it is pointing out the leaks in our armor, where we are not accepting and feeling our true identity, as Omnipresence, as the Christ, the Light. It’s literally telling us, and it’s automatic, the moment we do turn it is right there. That’s what happens, and that is why it happens.
Because I am the Source and Substance and Activity of Spirit, only, only. It literally is everywhere and everywhen. It is always, it always has been, it always will be, so to speak. But, we have to be still and know and feel that I Am This.
And, when we feel something like fear, immediately, it should ring a bell ‘…Well, God can’t feel fear.’
So, who is it that's feeling the fear?
And then it clicks, and then we realize, wait a minute, it’s not Me…. It’s not “I” that is feeling the fear. It is the illusory, conjured, assumed, false thought. I’m not even gonna grant it the beingness to be a thing. It’s a thought. It’s not even a false self. It’s a thought. There is no such thing as a false self. What seems to be a false self is a collection of false thoughts. We can only be aware of one thought at a time.
So I like this way of looking at it because it disarms the whole notion of this almost impossible task that we think we’re given, to get rid of the false self. The only way to do that is to realize it isn’t there and when a thought comes up that tempts us to believe that there is, a false identity, we reject it. We don’t resist it by being concerned or whatever. We’re just not interested. I believe that to be a good and very practical way to look at it... we’re not interested in it. Why would we be? It has nothing to do with us. So why are we interested in it? That’s just habit that this work is in the process of changing, where the old habit is allowed to diminish by us establishing a new way, a new way of seeing what we think scares us the most. We have to look at it in a new way. We have to be willing to recognize the truth and recognize that we have the power. We have the power to do exactly what we have been told to do.
Now, I am just going to go over this again, having said all that and having established a bit of a foundation for understanding here. Now we can get specific...
So, how to be with fear...
We’re just gonna throw that out, because there’s no way for IAM to be with fear.
How to be with fear would be to first acknowledge and accept, fully, with feeling, that (this is part of the ‘interest’ I am talking about). if we want to not be interested in what isn’t real, what isn’t there, we have to take away what it feeds on, which is our attention. So, we’re not interested, and that’s why that statement has to be thrown out.
We’re not going to discuss how to be with fear, because it isn’t there.
“It seems I just want it to go away. I want to get away from it.”
That’s because the Self knows it’s not real. The Self knows. The thought that says those things, thinks that it means its annihilation as it says later in this question. And, it does. It means the annihilation of what isn’t there, of what is appearing, of what is so untrue that it has never even been. It’s so flimsy and temporary that it can just dissolve, just like that, with just a shift of perception.
Now, in the beginning of this she says:
“And, I don’t want to not look at it.”
Well, if we know that there is no Power or Substance in appearance, then we can be that conscious awareness that can look at anything, and throw our head back and laugh at it, even.
It’s like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the Good Witch of the North says: “…you have no power here. Be gone, be gone, before someone drops a house on you.” That house is our conscious awareness. It squashes the little fear, it squashes the little condition that seems to be there plaguing us. It says: “No, IAM here, IAM here in all my glory, with all my doors and windows open, and rooms lit with chandeliers. IAM here as the beautiful mansion that you live in.
She says, “When I am alone with the fear, it feels like it is going to annihilate me or that I can’t stand up to it. The fear seems to overtake me. It’s all I can experience.”
The last line is very revealing, and good for conversation here, because it says:
“The strongest fears are around my health, my body, and dying.”
Now, I would offer that that was spoken…well, let’s ask, who was that spoken by? Who is it that can have the fear? Who is it that thinks it has health, or has a body? Does Conscious Awareness have health, good or bad? Does Conscious Awareness have a material body?
So, what’s revealed here is that this is that thought that is trying to make itself relevant, that is going straight for the jugular because it knows its days are numbered. It knows that the conscious awareness that is doing this work with an incredible amount of dedication and devotion, it knows that this means its annihilation, not the conscious awareness that is the IAM, the omnipresent IAM, that is the beautiful Being that this is. It’s the false thought impersonating itself as a person, as a person that can have bad health or good health.
The conscious awareness that we are, can look at anything, and not be swayed. But only, if and when there are no remnants of a separate me or a separate self. That’s what we’re cultivating here - we’re cultivating the dying off of the suggestion of a separate self, the suggestion of anything other than spiritual perfection which is all that is here. It is ALL that is here, literally.
But the suggestive thought says,
“Yea, but I need to be here.”
“I need to be in control, because who is going to keep you safe?”
“Who is going to keep you secure?”
“Who is going to keep you healthy?”
“I need to be here, and in control of this situation before it gets out of hand.”
“Looks what’s happened!”
“Look what can happen!”
“Look what happened in the past.”
“Look what happened to him.”
“Look what happened to her.”
“That could happen to you!”
That is what it says. These are the suggestions that can happen when we’re not standing in the Truth.
This is no small task. I get it. I know. The tears are going to come and the gnashing of teeth, and the anger is going to come. So let it. Let it be there. Let it express. Feel it. Feel everything because that’s part of the journey. It has to be, because it is. And when it doesn’t have to be, it won’t. Those emotions will diminish. It is important to feel them, but it is important to feel them AS what you are…. not as that suggestive self that these thoughts would tell you to identify with.
You are infinite and there is nothing that can touch you.
Because there is nothing outside of you to be able to touch you. It’s all you. What’s behind the scary situation, behind the lack and the limitation, and the craziness... is something so pristine and immaculate that when you do experience it, it’s blinding. It does. It blinds the senses, all of them. And you just exist as this Light.
Well, that’s what’s really here. Those of us who have experienced it can come back and say, “Yes, don’t worry about it, don’t worry about this nothingness, this world of fleeting images that seem to have the ability to not only haunt us and taunt us, but to please us, to excite us.
None of it is real in the sense of it being eternal or permanent.
This is our Golgotha. And our seeming death, and our seeming resurrection, and ascension have already happened. So, if we feel like we’re being put up on a cross, what of it? What of it? We’ve already died to anything that has seen evil, or like another power that can do something to us, that can hurt us. We’ve already died to that. We just need to accept, accept, accept the truth and reject the lie. Just as we are told to forgive seventy times seven, we need to do this seventy times seven... every day, every time we’re tempted to stray away from what, not only already is, but does not require any assistance to be what It Is, or to perform those things that are given us to do.
In biblical terms, it is “Peace be Still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” We know what that really means. It just means “The Kingdom is finished,” more biblical terminology, but that’s okay. It’s a universal language, a language of Truth. If we get hung up on the words, we’re not gonna get it. We're not gonna feel it. I happen to feel that terminology has a reverence and a holiness to it that more closely aligns with the consciousness that brings the words forth.
What it is saying is that perfection is already established. We don’t need to be saved, because we were never threatened. But we have to bring that awareness of our true being into this moment, into the practical, nitty-gritty messiness of our life - what seems messy, not what really is messy.
We have to bring it into the specifics of our life and we have to be IT, by choosing to accept IT and only IT every moment, especially those moments when we’re tempted.
And after we master that, then, especially the moments when we’re doing Great! We’re flying high and Life is a go! That’s when we really want to pay attention... and make sure, we’re not having fun and enjoying life as anything other than Omnipresence, Itself.. cause that’s another trap.
Yes, if we overcome this current health challenge, and we have a sign of relief, Ahhh! Now, now I can really do my work. Now I can enjoy life. That’s the moment to really be on your toes, spiritually. We can’t get complacent with this. If we get complacent, will attract some sort of adversary.
Another important aspect of the work, or the play, or however you want to see it… the activity of living in and as the Truth... is embodied in two words; listening and feeling.
Listening, because everything that has just been said is true, it’s true, but it’s not enough. You have to hear that within yourself. Your reliance and dependance cannot be on anything in the so-called "outer". And I say reliance and dependance... I am not saying don’t listen, don’t read, don’t talk, don’t come to the Forum… (chuckle). But what I'm saying, is when you’re about your day, and especially when you’re in your quiet times, whether it is formal meditation, or not, that’s when this all comes together.
Because what you are doing with what you are listening to, reading, and talking about, is you're preparing the Soul to be able to listen and to actually hear the Word, that only comes through your consciousness, in the silence. It comes from the silence, it comes in the silence, and again, just to remind, I don’t mean the silence which is the physical silence, or even the mental silence... the Silence of anything other than the omnipresence of Your I Am.
So, the listening is very important, to listen without judgement, without conceptions, to just listen, and also, to listen without expectations. Just Listen.
In that stillness that is created by this activity of listening, there will come a feeling of the Presence, and it really is different every time because there is a purpose for it, a purpose unique to you, in your day, or your life at that moment that determines what you feel and how you feel.
But, the feeling is important. It’s like feeling is spiritual vision. You could say that is how we see spiritually - by feeling. That is what is called the Quickening, and that is what we allow. It is what actually does the work of transforming the erroneous, so called images, to divine ones.
If we don’t feel, meaning spiritually See, then what used to be called demonstration, but we could say now, manifestation... doesn’t occur. Again, we are that point, we are that focal point, not local, but we are that focal point of consciousness that Spirit wants to express through.
As it is said, “God knows our needs.” We don’t need to, even if we veil it, when we say ok, we acknowledge that we're speaking to our I Am. We don’t need to tell it anything... it's us, we already know what is needed and we, as Infinite Awareness, part of which we are not conscious of, just by divine design, we're conscious of what we're conscious of, when we need to be conscious of it... But if it isn’t seen within, in the invisible, it’s not going to be real to us. It’s just going to be words that we’ve heard or read.
That is why feeling is so important. It needs to become real to us.
What is wanting to come through as the harmony of our life has to be real first, to us, invisibly, in order for it to come through for us, into visible manifestation.
We cannot depend, again, we cannot depend or rely on anything in the visible. It just doesn’t work.
The divine idea that is meant to be our experience must be made alive with feeling, with Spirit. Jesus said, “Whatever things you ask, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them.” And, of course, religion interpreted that specifically, as houses, and cars, and partners, and good health. I would interpret it, and I believe what the true interpretation has to do with is, (divine qualities) because you know, we have to remember who he was talking to at the time. He was talking to a whole lot of Hebrews who were living a very different way. What we are asking for, always, is to Know our Self.
So, we can’t have the awareness of our true identity if we don’t believe, if we don’t accept that that is the Truth. When we feel what we are, as I was saying, by being still and listening, allowing that feeling, that spiritual quickening to come into awareness... that is when, and how, it externalizes.
We don’t need to ask for better health, we don’t need to ask for more money, we don’t need to ask for anything specific. We already Know what is needed. The I of our being knows what we need at any given moment. All we need to do is know, accept what we are, to the point where we feel it. Then our work is done. Then Spirit takes over and arranges everything perfectly.
We have to stop allowing this middleman or middle-woman to come between us and our Good. It's not necessary. It's not wanted. It’s not divine.
And I’ll repeat Herb Fitch’s rendition of some of this:
“Damn the torpedoes, damn the mortality. Don’t worry about it."
It’s nothing. The power of Spirit is what is happening regardless of what middle person is allowed to be in the way. Regardless of, if our attention strays and we live our whole life in the dream, it's still there. The power of Spirit is constantly present. So we might as well align with that, cause it’s not going anywhere.
An exercise could be, especially when our clouds seem to roll in, clouds of Joe thoughts, or Mary thoughts... and seem to cause us to stray or pull our attention away from Now... is to just keep silently, quietly noticing the inability of Now and Here to go away. It’s almost like they’re un-go-away-able. Now can never not be Now and Here can never not be Here.
But as awareness and Presence itself, we can notice that it’s never not here. And as I say, the thoughts, they always have to do with either the past or the future, never the NOW. And that’s our clue, if we need a clue to determine where these thoughts are coming from. They are about a past or a future. Then they're just a sign that we are, for that moment, hypnotized. But, we're not even really hypnotized, are we? WE cannot be hypnotized. Again, that’s just another thought. We are Now Itself. We are present awareness, Now. Silence, Perfection, Infinity. They are all synonyms. And they are all omnipresent, effortlessly omnipresent, I might add. It’s not work to be, Being, Itself. It’s a resting, it’s a relaxing.
But the fact that this Being, this One Self that we are, it leaves nothing to do, to strive for, of course, and, it leaves no separate sense, a thought of a separate self... to do this, correctly, or incorrectly even, even in the practices or exercises we might do.
There is no one there to be right or wrong, to be good or bad, who has it or who doesn’t have it.
(short silence)
We, as Being, know only the immediacy and intimacy of Our Self, as Alive Presence Itself. And another way of saying what I was saying earlier, is that Being Itself is not faced with the appearance of fear, or love, or any of the pairs of opposites.
So that Being, which is the only one present and alive... and here’s another trap... It’s not watching the appearances to see if and when they clear up, when what was feared is gone. You, the Real Self are not the one that seems overwhelmed by appearances or by fear. You are not the one who seems to be watching it, and watching the appearances or watching the fear, to see if it's lessened.
Because, you see, in the absolute, total Truth of Being that lives in the Kingdom, the Christ Self, no appearances are appearing to that Christ Self, that Light, and believe me when we know that the Light is all that is here, it’s a given, no, there are no appearances.
Our focus has to be 100% with the Truth, with Presence, with Alive Presence, with Being, with Love, which has nothing to do with appearances or thinking, or suggestions.
And when your focus is on that which is invisible,
the visible
takes care
of itself.
When we switch our attention from thinking to feeling, that is what activates the quickening. That is what activates... not that it’s been inactive, because it hasn't. It is always act-ing, it’s always functioning, but we’re not aware of it, unless, we are the main ingredient. We are that point of focus IT happens through.
So, we rest back with ease, knowing that the Presence is taking care of everything, as we recognize that that is what we, and everything, IS. That is what we are, that is what everyone is, that is what this condition that seems to be fearful, is, that’s what is there... this Alive, perfect Presence which doesn’t require anything.
Instead of thinking about replacing a negative thought with a thought about Truth, not that I am saying there is anything wrong with that. Eventually those thoughts will be unnecessary, but we’re not there yet. There’s more to do, and the more to do, is to feel it. It’s easier. It’s not even a doing - it’s a Being. But if thinking that thought about Truth helps to get us to the next step, then great. But it's not necessary. What is necessary is to feel, and to silently Be, this Alive, Omnipresence that we are.
Sometimes, using the mind for too long by trying to counter a negative thought with a thought about Truth... it’s almost like we’re still in that zone of trying to do something about it, trying to fight, trying to improve it, which is, of course, acknowledging that there is something there to be improved.
But the Kingdom is finished, so, what are we doing? What are we doing with that?
Creation is done. God has already perfected our life. We just need to live in that perfect Life. That’s really all it is. That’s why we’re here.
We are here to remember the Way, to show our Self the Way, and in doing so what seem to be so-called others, benefit from that.
It is the Light within us that is the Way Shower, not a Jesus or a Buddha.
(silence)
Let’s be still, together...
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