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Franklin Delano Roosevelt once told the American people:
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
We’ve all heard this quote-it’s almost a cliché in our culture. But how many of us have truly considered what it means? We have nothing to fear but fear. Think about it. What is it that keeps our lives from being happy, joyful, and free? If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that, indeed, the culprit is fear.
Virtually all of our suffering is caused by fear. When we actually stop and consider what we are suffering over, most of us have to concede that what is happening in this moment is not so bad. We’re sitting somewhere-in our living room, on a bus, or propped up in bed-and reading this book. Maybe the light isn’t as good as it could be, or the temperature is not to our liking; and, if we’re reading outside, perhaps there are flies. But that’s nothing to suffer over-unless we interpret our discomfort as a personal attack by the Universe. In that case, we will get angry and will suffer over such small inconveniences.
It’s quite silly when you look at it, but we all do a fair amount of suffering over really inconsequential things. We lose our keys, have a flat tire, find our new shirt is missing a button, or burn the pot roast and often react as though it were a major catastrophe. It does not occur to us in these moments that we are afraid, but we are.
Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to do so.
A Course in Miracles
The reason we react with such strong emotion to such minor and soon-to-be-forgotten events is that they trigger the fear of unworthiness we carry inside. The keys always turn up, it’s no big deal to sew on a button or change a tire, and the pot roast is probably still edible and might even be good. But the voice inside is saying, You idiot, you can’t ever do anything right! It figures that you’d pick right now to blow it. You can’t even relax for ten minutes without some damned irritation.
The event may be trivial, but the suffering is real. And even after the moment passes, our confrontation with the fears we have about not being good enough can leave a residue of negativity that doesn’t completely evaporate for hours. As we look at these episodes from the cozy perspective of sitting behind this book, the tendency might be to dismiss them as ridiculous. But how much of this precious life have we wasted being upset by such ridiculous episodes?
The small-time sufferings that are sprinkled through our days are, of course, the tip of a much larger iceberg. All of us have done some big-time suffering as well-have lost loved ones, have become impaired in some way, have failed at something we’d worked hard for and considered important, or have been disillusioned. Some of us have been the victims of crime, war, disease, or poverty. But, even these things are not, in and of themselves, the source of our suffering. It is what our minds do with them that creates suffering.
Fear is the killer of excellence, the trigger that opens the door to our limiting beliefs.
Kendrick Mercer
Our minds generate fear, and fear causes suffering. We don’t suffer because we are alone in this moment, we suffer because our fear tells us we will always be alone and that thought makes a statement about who we are. We may have lost our business, our spouse, or our job, but what makes us suffer is the mind’s projections that declare we are failures and that losing these things means our life is ruined forever. So, although we are sitting here reading this book, quite comfortable in the present moment, our minds may be dwelling in the past or worrying about the future.
All of our lives, we do battle with this experience of suffering. Some of us work very hard to obtain the things we believe will make us happy. Others of us retreat into alcohol, drugs, or some other addiction to escape our pain. Some of us wallow in our suffering, hating it, but unable to trust what might lie beyond it. Some try to ignore suffering, thinking that the appearance of happiness will create the genuine item. No matter what we do to escape our suffering, it doesn’t seem to work, and the reason it doesn’t work is we are manipulating the effect, but ignoring the cause.
If we want to stop suffering, what we need to come to terms with is not the outer event, but the inner reaction. We don’t solve the problem by training ourselves to put the keys on the key hook or having our tires checked more often. Happiness will not be found by struggling to gain more control over the external circumstances of our lives, because it isn’t those circumstances that cause suffering. It is fear that causes suffering.
We hear a lot these days about low self-esteem. A poor self image is the fear that we are not good enough. Even deeper, however, is the fear that we might be powerful beyond our wildest dreams. It is the power of our Light, not of our darkness, that we fear the most.
It takes conscious effort, therefore, to go against the voices of the world and to actualize our spiritual nature. To go within is not to turn our backs on the world; it is to prepare ourselves to serve it most effectively.
Marianne Williamson
We have involved ourselves in a quest for happiness that is doomed to failure. We have set up a situation as impossible as wanting to climb a mountain while staying indoors or go swimming without getting wet. The change required to transform our lives is not an outer change, but an inner one. It has nothing to do with achievements, acquisitions, or honors and everything to do with our moment-to-moment awareness. The only way to truly change our lives is to change our minds. And what we need to change about our minds is fear-and the notion that we are separate.
Somewhere along the line, the point of awareness that allows us a unique experience of life changed from a window to a door. We lost our tribal identity and our sense of connectedness to Nature. We developed strong individual egos and our sense of self became something separate and walled off from the rest of Life. This sense of separation gives rise to the experience of fear. Fear and separation are a package deal. As long as we believe that we are separate, we’re going to be afraid; and the greater our fear, the more we think, feel, and act in ways that enhance our sense of separateness. Fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. It gives us a distorted view of the world, and so long as we remain unaware of the distortion, we continue to build our lives upon a premise that guarantees suffering.
We lose sight of the fact that fear begins with a belief on our part. A core belief, such as I am not worthy--or--- There is not enough, colors the way we respond to Life. When someone gets something we wanted for ourselves, decides they aren’t in love with us, or challenges one of our cherished opinions, we feel threatened and alienated. Our attitudes and actions, then, reflect this fear, creating an atmosphere where the sense of separation is intensified.
An important element in our experience of separation is the belief we all hold that we are special. Specialness, by definition, sets us apart. As long as we equate self-worth with specialness, we see some people as higher and some as lower, some as deserving and some as not deserving, some as more lovable and some as less lovable. Our efforts to preserve our sense of specialness readily translate into fear. In a world where one gains at the expense of others, scarcity, injustice, and hatred are assured. In trying to become special enough to win love, we lose the very thing for which we long.
When we think about what we want, the pictures that come to mind are diverse. We might want a more fulfilling job, a fancier car, a committed relationship, or the ability to fit into pair of jeans four sizes smaller. But, beneath all these varied desires is the yearning for Wholeness. No matter how much we have, it is never enough. The reason for this is that the love we seek is a distortion. If someone were to insist that a husband was a daughter or a shovel was a hoe, we would have no problem seeing why their lives did not work. Yet, we make a similar mistake when we equate Love with the things that makes us feel special. Love is a word we use to cover a whole range of experiences from our relationship with Divinity to our relationship with chocolate; but what we think of as Love is more often than not attraction, attachment, or sentiment. The only Love that is capable of filling us is the unconditional Love that comes from the knowledge that we are Whole.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
Kahlil Gibran
The notion that we are separate causes us to confuse Love with our experience of special people in those special circumstances that reflect back to us our own sense of specialness. Yet specialness is nothing more than a gentler aspect of fear-a delusion we entertain when we feel we have made separation work for us.
Any love that is based on specialness, any love that we can have more of than someone else or that can be lost or given unwisely does not affirm Wholeness and is, therefore, not real.
Unlike the love that assures our ego that we are special, real Love has no conditions. The ego cannot grasp unconditional Love, because the ego, by definition, arises from our perception of separateness, and that perception automatically gives rise to fear. The Love that will change our lives involves the recognition that we are not, in fact, separate. Such Love involves no risk, holds no judgments, plays no favorites, makes no demands.
Contrary to popular belief, Love is not something we must earn. Unconditional Love is an expression of Wholeness, not specialness; of abundance, not neediness, of Trust, not fear. We experience it as an overflowing of the Heart. There are no reasons or justifications. Love just is When we realize this Truth about Love, we discover the Truth about ourselves in that moment. We are part of Love’s unconditional Wholeness-Love is who we are.
The Twelve Steps of Benestrophe begin with the radical notion that the suffering in our lives stems, not from what we typically see as to blame for this suffering, but from fear, which blocks our experience of Love. Furthermore, taking the First Step requires that we recognize this fear is something we allow. There is no question that such a perspective represents a major challenge to our egos; for when it is convenient, ego loves helplessness. However, developing the willingness to work with this notion is essential to transforming our lives from arenas of struggle into expressions of prosperity, fulfillment, and enlightenment.
We are better than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives, we will be unwilling to settle for less.
Outward Bound
Only when we acknowledge responsibility for our lives will we stop feeling like victims and enjoy Life to its fullest. By taking the First Step, we begin a process that transforms our most fundamental sense of who we are, and, by extension, our sense of who others are and what Life is.
Although we may be accustomed to thinking of spirituality as a journey, the Twelve Steps of Benestrophe are more like the steps of a sacred dance. Once we work our way through from One to Twelve, we realize that, in practical terms, out there in our daily lives where it really matters, each Step comes into play continually; and when we use the Steps to guide our lives, we grow in wisdom. As time goes by, we learn to dance the Steps with increasing grace, to combine them in more intricate and beautiful patterns. When we take the First Step of Benestrophe, we open the door to the life of which we’ve always dreamed.
Participating in the scared dance of Benestrophe requires a willingness to take risks, to suspend cherished beliefs, and to acknowledge the deeper need we all have to know ourselves as Whole. Spirituality is about realization, not rationalization; about the way we live, not the way we talk. The ideas, such as responsibility, Wholeness, and unconditional Love that we encounter in these Steps start out as concepts. Accepting them intellectually is a beginning. Integrating them until they become Heart-felt realities in our daily lives will transform our fear and suffering into the experience of Unity, Freedom, and Bliss.
In each and every moment, we have the freedom to choose, and every choice determines the direction of our lives.
Olivia Hoblitzelles
In order to transcend our suffering, we must be willing to change the most basic ways we look at Life. So long as we cling to the belief that what ails us can be fixed by enhancing our sense of specialness through trying to win approval and gain control, we live under the influence of fear and cannot escape fear’s painful consequences. We are often like Pooh with his fist in the honey jar: we want the sweetness of Love, but are unwilling to do what is necessary to get it. As co-creators of Benestrophe, we must become conscious co-creators of our own lives. Our initial task in taking the First Step is to find the willingness to look at the suffering in our lives and take responsibility for the fearful perceptions that bring it about.
For most of us, this requires courage, because as desperately as we desire to escape the effects of fear, we can hardly imagine life without it. Rooting out this belief in the inevitability of fear requires letting go of the notion that we are separate. It requires that we stop feeding fear through our judgments and learn to embrace the Perfection of the moment; and that we stop using our relationships to bolster a sense of importance and start loving one another.
We are thrilled at the thought of unconditional Love, but afraid to do the one thing necessary to experience it- give up our carefully crafted egos. When we think that ego is all we are, we live as though we were the center of everything and see the rest of creation as the backdrop for our personal drama. But there is no way to keep this identity and, at the same time, experience Perfection.
There’s a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one. That is spirituality.
Ellen Bass
The yearning for Wholeness is Benestrophe’s requirement for membership because only when we acknowledge this yearning are we able to put our craving for specialness into proper perspective. Only then do we become willing to release our beliefs about the necessity of suffering and do what is required to create a joyful life. When we finally admit that the experience of Wholeness is what we are really searching for, our pain will have served its purpose. For, ultimately, it is the pain of separation that motivates us to abandon the self-serving logic of the mind and attune our ear to the inner call of the Heart.
Ego is the false identity that springs from the notion that we are separate beings, and mind is the mechanism ego uses to support its existence. The alliance between mind and ego is so strong that we cannot tell where one begins and the other leaves off. Beliefs held in the mind translate into the everyday reality we perceive in our world, so what we think we are is what we seem to become.
Mind directed by ego is the most destructive force in the Universe.
Yogi Amrit Desai
The mind is cunning, baffling, and powerful. It has the ability to back up its attachments and repulsions with perceptions that make its current position-whatever that may be-seem absolutely sensible. Because the mind experiences its opinions and interpretations as truth, it routinely and stubbornly mistakes the relative for the absolute, the unreal for the Real. Once the mind makes a judgment-that the boss is unfeeling, that the assignment is beyond our ability, or that a certain group of people have a certain characteristic-our experience invariably reflects that judgment. Others who do not share our belief have great difficulty understanding where we are coming from, since their beliefs generate a completely different experience.
To complicate things even more, the mind is multidimensional. What is real to the mind at the level of conscious awareness is often a distortion or outright contradiction of what is held at deeper levels. We ma consciously think we want to create success, attract a love relationship, or break a habit, but on the unconscious level, there are beliefs that sabotage our efforts. This is why we can’t simply decide to stamp out fear by sheer force of will. Our minds are wonderful servants, but they make terrible masters. We need to learn to quiet the outer mind so we can access and release the underlying assumptions that serve as the foundation for our sense of self as a separate and limited being. We need to turn away from that within us that clings to fear and separation and find that within us that knows Wholeness and Love.
When we recognize that we allow fear to block our experience of Love, we are admitting that our mind has been overshadowing our Heart. Just as we each cherish the notion of our specialness, within each of us is a place that knows the joy of Oneness. When the mind becomes quiet and fear is no longer present, the Heart opens and Love is what remains. Beneath the mind’s judgments, the Heart quietly waits for us to recognize the power of Love.
The Heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.
Pascal
Who we are from the perspective of the mind is different from who we are at Heart. The mind works with limitations, comparing and contrasting, scheming and defending, worrying and regretting. The mind, caught up in what we think and want, keeps us feeling separate. The Heart, however, knows Wholeness When we are totally in our Heart-space, we experience a sense of Oneness with Nature in which self-interest dissolves into compassion, and we feel absolutely fearless. The boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the world fade, and everywhere we look, we see beauty, excellence and Perfection.
The more Heart-centered our lives become, the more we touch the Bliss of Wholeness. Once the mind is no longer center stage, our experience of Life becomes more immediate, more intense, and more complete. It is ironic that, although we drive ourselves crazy catering to the desires of the mind, our most treasured experiences come when we enter the stillness of the Heart.
In order to shift our sense of what is real, we have to understand that reality is our creation rather than something external that we observe. For example, when viewed from the ocean’s surface, islands appear as isolated projections of land, separate and distinct; but when viewed from the ocean floor, islands are seen as part of one connected land mass. What we experience as reality depends on where we happen to be standing.
When we come to the threshold of truth, our whole being is filled with power.
Swami Paramananda
For most of us, the place where we now stand reflects the idea of unconditional Love as idealistic. We choose, instead, to believe in the reality of the mind with its fears and limitations-even though we must acknowledge that this reality is different for each of us and is probably even different from the way we experienced reality just a few minutes ago. The mind is absolutely convinced that we are separate, and fear shapes everything that the mind sees.
The Heart knows we are not separate and demonstrates this to us over and over again; but the mind, completely sold on its position, discounts that direct knowledge. Those moments when the mind opens wide enough to let the Heart shine through are moments when we look directly into the face of Love. So profound are these moments that we refer to them as peak experiences. But, although these peak experiences thrill us, they show us a reality that contradicts what we know to be true. So we explain them away; we discredit them, and they rapidly become unreal.
But Love is Real. In fact, only Love is Real; all else is illusion. For when we stand firmly in the Heart, it becomes clear that it is fear that is the illusion. Fear seems more real to us most of the time, because we live in a Heart-deprived world where everyone believes in fear. That collective belief creates a very solid-appearing reality. But so did the collective belief that the world was flat. Just because everyone believed it didn’t make it so.
Fear is an addiction that colors and distorts our perspective. As with any other addiction, it seeks to perpetuate itself by creating defenses against anything that threatens its position. A big part of that defense is the perception of Love as something we must approach with caution. If the view of the world that unconditional Love would provide seems far-fetched and unreal to us, it’s merely because of the place where we are standing. The purpose of these Twelve Steps is to show us how to shift our perceptions-how to stand someplace else. When we finally stand in that place where Love is Real, we will see everything in this Life through new eyes. When we do so, we will know the Reality of Love in a way that our minds can no longer deny. We will not simply believe in the Reality of Love, but we will perceive that Reality in all of our interactions.
Bliss is our birthright. It is the state we naturally enter when we choose to stand in the place where only Love is Real. By taking responsibility for our fear, we enable ourselves to choose Love; and when we do this, we find that Bliss is not the result of everything in our lives being exactly the way we want it to be. Bliss is the result of perceiving whatever is through the eyes of Love.
The reason most of us do not now live in a state of Bliss is that we have a belief system that tells us Bliss is something special that occurs only occasionally and doesn’t last because it is not as real as our more mundane experiences. The Truth is, Bliss is always available; but we filter it out with our beliefs about the reality of fear.
Follow your Bliss!
Joseph Campbell
All beliefs are filters the mind uses to shape reality. Surprisingly, the beliefs that affect us most profoundly are not the ones that answer the question, What do you believe? Rather, the most potent beliefs are expressed in the moment-by-moment assumptions we make about the details in our lives. If we expect a call from a friend that does not come and we react with anger or upset, it is because of a belief we hold that we are unworthy and, therefore, are being rejected. If we are irritable over having to do a chore we hate, it is because of a belief we have that says the chore is beneath us, is too difficult for us, or is something someone else should have done.
There is nothing intrinsically painful about sitting in a trafficjam, cleaning a toilet, being spoken to in a sharp tone of voice, or being ten minutes late, but our fearful beliefs and the interpretations they give rise to can turn any of these events into a cause for suffering. If we would simply stand in another place, we could experience the same event and feel Blissful. Bliss, like suffering, is not the result of the circumstances in our lives. Both stem from our relationship with the circumstance. When we allow fear to be our reality, we suffer; when we live in the belief of Love’s Reality, we live in a state of Bliss.
In order to allow Love fully into our lives, we must become aware that we are responsible for creating our reality. This is true in a literal sense: how we respond to Life is the reality we experience. If we respond with anger, judgment, self-pity, or some other manifestation of fear, then we will experience a painful reality; and if we respond with compassion, Trust, humor, excitement, enthusiastic determination, or some other manifestation of Love, we will experience a Blissful reality. It’s just that simple.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
M.Kathleen Casey
Simple does not necessarily mean easy. For our entire lives we have conditioned ourselves to honor the mind above the Heart. Our fearful, negative way of reacting is a deeply ingrained habit, and, like any habit, it will take time and effort to undo. The undoing of fear is our life’s masterwork as spiritual beings in this human existence. The Twelve Steps of Benestrophe are suggested as tools to help. They are all things that, in and of themselves, make our lives fulfilling-things like patience, acceptance, commitment, willing-ness, and honesty. Along the way, we will learn many methods and techniques, such as Sacred Touch, massage, assisted stretches, conscious breathing, forgiveness, and meditation that will sharpen these inner tools and keep them in good working order. Like any major task we set before ourselves, eliminating fear-based belief systems is much more daunting when thinking about it than when actually doing it. And, like any other task, we accomplish it one step at a time.
The First Step is to recognize that fear is a choice-that we are, in fact, responsible for our perceptions, even though we might not have consciously chosen them. This recognition allows us to choose again, to choose differently, and, in so doing, to allow Love back into our lives.
Every belief is a limit to be examined and transcended.
John C. Lilly
Stop right now and consider what your experience in this moment actually is. If you are feeling happy and inspired by what you have just read, acknowledge that you have chosen this reaction. You could choose instead to let your mind take you into the past or future-could choose to be upset over the fight you had with your spouse this morning or to be nervous about a visit to the dentist. It only seems as if reading this material makes you happy. Nothing has the power to do that. You make yourself happy-by the choices you make about what is real.
Make it a point to consider this Truth about your reality frequently. Whenever you think of it, affirm that your experience of the moment is the result of a choice you made. Then consider whether you like that choice.
Suffering is any reaction to Life that is less than Blissful. Life does not have to be a bell-shaped curve with a bit of terrible agony at one end, a portion of extreme joy at the other, and a whole lot of nothing special in between. Life can be wondrous, and will be when we follow these simple instructions.
When suffering surfaces-and it will-we take responsibility and look for the fear. It will come in many guises-as anger, boredom, worry, sorrow, irritability, disappointment and dissatisfaction. When we feel anything negative, we identify what it is we are afraid of. We then look at what is actually happening in the moment.
The need for approval, the need to control things, and the need for external power are needs that are based on fear. This kind of power is not the power of pure potentiality, or the power of the Self, or real power. When we experience the power of the Self, there is an absence of fear, there is no compulsion to control, and no struggle for approval or external power. Deepak Chopra
The moment, itself, is Perfect. In most cases, the actual sensations we experience in the moment are quite pleasurable, or would be if we would place our focus on them instead of on the rantings of the mind. We miss so much joy in the now by projections we make over a future that has not yet arrived or the images we hold onto of a past long finished. We can eliminate a lot of suffering by simply asking ourselves if the thing we are suffering over is actually happening in the present moment or if it is a figment of our imagination, a result of our minds being somewhere else.
Even if suffering seems to be happening right now-if you have a stomach ache or someone has just bashed into your car-identify the fear and question it. Would the suffering be so acute if we knew the pain was gas, not appendicitis, and would be gone in ten minutes? No? Then, the suffering is not because of the stomach ache, but because of our projections about the stomach ache. And if it is appendicitis, what then? We can go have an adventure at the hospital where we will be fussed over and taken care of or we can involve ourselves with the possibility of dying, with a bill we’ll have to deal with down the road, or with everything that might not get done while we’re laid up. And what about that car? It will get fixed. There’s nothing inherently painful about calling a tow truck and the insurance company, and that’s what the moment actually holds for us. The suffering comes from the fear that the car won’t be fixed right, that the upcoming week might hold some inconvenience, or that if this awful thing could happen something worse might happen tomorrow, because maybe we’re destined to have awful lives. None of that is real.
That is why fear is an illusion. What we’re afraid of is never actually happening now. Fear always comes from a negative interpretation or projection that assumes the worst. In reality, Life holds very few moments of true suffering. Ninety-nine percent of our misery is simply a matter of allowing the fearful imaginings of our minds to become our reality. If we simply allow ourselves to let go of the mind’s projections and open our Hearts to the moment, Bliss can persist even as we experience physical or emotional pain. Only the moment is real. And, since fear, by definition, takes us out of the moment, fear cannot be.
When we begin to deal with fear in a conscious manner, our suffering decreases and Life becomes more enjoyable. We will face big problems in a more calm and realistic manner and, if we are persistent with our First Step work, most of our suffering over inconsequential trivialities will cease or be short-lived. When we use our suffering to remind us that fear is an illusion, the suffering, itself, becomes something different. Instead of being an experience of unmitigated negativity, suffering becomes the reminder we need to become consciously aware that we are in a position to choose Love!
Love is not mastered. It is allowed.
Emmanuel
There is one other thing we can do to help us allow more Love in our lives. In addition to being aware of and responsible for the content of our minds, we can make a conscious effort to live more fully from the Heart. We can begin to take more seriously the point of view we are shown by what we call our peak experiences.
These experiences are precious gifts that at one time or another, have come to each of us. They came in spite of the fact that our minds didn’t quite respect them and in spite of the burden of fear and negativity we carried. We may have thought that some unusual set of circumstances-a perfect sunset when we were alone on the beach with our lover, a drug we ingested, or a day that turned out to match the high expectations we had for it-was responsible. But such circumstances were merely catalysts that allowed the content of our Hearts to shine through.
Although it is true that when fear leaves, Love is what remains, Love is more than just the absence of consciously held fear. Love is a positive quality. It brings a lightness and sense of expansion that makes Life, not merely pleasant, but delightful. While most of our days may not be spent quaking in fear or writhing in agony, the fearful undercurrent of our minds casts a constant shadow that leaves us in a preoccupied state that can only be described as blah-a state where Life isn’t terrible, but it isn’t great either. It’s just ordinary, routine, run of the mill, business as usual. But Bliss, not blah, is our birthright. Bliss is how Life should be.
Those peak experiences are previews of the way Life can be most of the time. They don’t require windswept beaches or LSD. They simply require the same care and tending that we have given to our fearful perceptions. The way to begin is to stop discounting them and start contemplating them. When we focus on the way we felt in those most cherished moments, we invite those feelings into our present moment.
So don’t be afraid to embrace Love. It’s okay to have a soaring Heart while you’re doing the marketing. It’s okay to feel real Love when you smile into someone’s eyes and tell them to have a good day.
Living in Love does not mean that we need to be ungrounded and go around with goofy grins on our faces. It doesn’t mean that we can’t still do our serious work and be taken seriously for it. It simply means that all of Life can be truly joyful and exciting, full of deep pleasure rather than just pleasant distraction. So, in addition to reminding yourself that you create your reality and processing the fear and suffering that comes up for you, make it a point to actively embrace Love. Allow yourself to feel high on Life, even when there is nothing out of the ordinary going on. These two practices will clearly demonstrate that when we stop putting so much effort into trying to be special and, instead, open our Hearts to embrace the miracle of Wholeness and Love, Life, itself, becomes special beyond our wildest dreams.
This Step’s power comes when we remember Love at the very instant that fear arises. What we yearn for is not out there in some distant future to be ours if only we work hard and are very lucky. It is right here, right now. To make its Truth a reality for us, we simply need to stand in another place, and that place is the present moment. Until we embrace the present moment without qualification, until we release our need to be special, let go of our desire to control the uncontrollable, and stem the raging self doubt that drives us to crave approval in all its many guises, we remain caught in the pain of separation.
Life is not about the big picture, not about those few occasions or accomplishments that we set so much store by. Life is about the details. Many people attain many major goals and still live their lives in quiet desperation because their moment-to-moment existence is so miserable. To live happily is to fully live each moment in the awareness that we are happy.
Sadly, our lives are much sweeter in retrospect than our days are as we live through them. Even the times we remember as happy weren’t often experienced that way. Happiness can only occur in the present moment; when fear governs our lives, joy is more often a memory than an experience. But, when we enter the present moment, fear is banished, and joy becomes our day-to-day reality.
Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. It boils down to upset over pictures we have in our minds. Whenever we engage ourselves with these pictures, we are missing something wonderful that is right in front of us. The way to take responsibility for our fear is to bring ourselves, mind, Heart, and soul, into the present moment, where fear becomes meaningless. One component of that moment we have no control over, for events happen the way they happen. But the other, most important, component-the quality of consciousness that we bring to the moment-is ours to choose. The more aware we are in each moment, the more Love we allow into our lives.
We recognize that we have been allowing fear toblock our experience of Love.
Share about specific ways in which you have allowed fear toblock your experience of Love.
Describe an instance when you were scared.
Which motivates you more-your desire for approval oryour desire for control?
Fear is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Tell about a time when you were so afraid of something that your worst fear happened.
Tell about a time when you experienced fear as a result of being lost.
What values in our society tend to foster fear and negativity?
Share about a time when fear made you feel like hiding.
What are some beliefs that are holding you back from enjoying Life?
How has fear served as a wake up call to you?
Tell about a time when you felt powerless.
Talk about how your desire for control feeds into your experience of fear.
Tell about a situation in which your mind and your Heart perceived things differently.
Share about how your mind takes you out of the present moment.
What do you fear most about the future?
Coming from your own experience, how would you define fear.
Share about how taking the First Step has changed your life.
A Course in MiraclesBenestrophe is being here now
Let us tune ourselves in such a way that we will
never be a jarring note in the cosmic harmony.
Swami ParamanandaBenestrophe is being here now!
TOPICS OF DISCUSSION
STEP ONE
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