Becoming More Aware of Our True Self

“This essential matter of being aware of your true self is what will make fear disappear forever from your sight, reduced to the memory of an unpleasant nightmare.”  COL bk.2, 19:I

What does it mean, to be “aware of your true self”?  I think this message in Choose Only Love means that we are to drop egotistical leanings, just resting in God’s grace as we approach each day.  Our true self is our Christ-Self, and this Self has been hidden in our depths for a very long time.  The ego did this to us.

But now we would walk a different way.  We would drop the ego from our experience.  When we rest in God’s grace, we approach life with a soft focus.  We don’t drop into analytical nightmares, trying to make sense of our world from a stressed and difficult attitude of mind.  We rest easy.

What a promise we have when we become aware of our true self!  Fear will disappear, becoming only an unpleasant nightmare.  We may not see how this is possible, but this word from Jesus does indicate that fear will not be a factor for us any longer.

Let us take Jesus at his word.  If we feel the need for help, let’s simply ask him to hold our hand as we walk along.  A Course in Miracles says that doing so will be no “idle fantasy.”

Are You Afraid of God?

“You are afraid of Him [God], and do not see you hate and fear your Self as enemy.  (M-19.4)”

Affirmation:  “May I think calmly.”

Reflections:

1 – Afraid of God?

This passage is true because we project our God from within, seeing Him in our own image.  And that image believes that the true Self is Someone to be feared.  The true Self is elsewhere identified as the Christ within, or Christ-consciousness.  (These ideas are developed in A Course of Love.)

2 – Holy Spirit = Our Guide

We have no reason to be fearful of our true Self.  It is the ego that has led us to this impasse.  And we must be careful of nothing.  Let the Holy Spirit make the decisions that we are afraid to make.  Let Him guide.

3 – Internal Self

To hate and fear our own internal Self is a great deterrent to improved living.

4 – Forgiveness

How might we cease to hate and fear our Self?  We must entertain forgiveness of ourselves and our brothers and sisters.  The fact that we still hold something against ourselves and others is the point around which our problem revolves.  But we can, through greater insight, bring an end to this foolishness.  We can still see that we did not create ourselves, and it is only a detour into fear that we have made.  (Interpretations of ACIM, most not stated precisely therein.)

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I can remember when I feared You, and not in the sense of “awe,” which is what is meant in the Bible.  I really was afraid of You, fearing that I would be sent to hell for any of the childhood misdeeds that I did.  I know now that not is childhood a time of innocence, but so is adulthood.  Thank You for leading me to A Course in Miracles, which proves this point.

Be with me as I seek to enlarge not my ego, but my real Self, the inner Self that is a part of You.  As a part of You, I have never really been separated from You.  All of that thinking was a detour into fear, a fantasy that we forgot to laugh about.  So this tiny, mad idea took hold, and the ego of us all was born.  May the ego in all of us just cease to exist.  May we cense to depend on such a shallow basis for self-worth, for the ego can give no genuine self-worth.  You are the Source of my self-worth, as well as my self-esteem, and I would turn to and our Guide, the Holy Spirit, for the flow of my days.  Help this day to be good, and may I answer any need that is legitimately mine to answer.  I pray that You have guided me today.

Amen