Today’s reading is about two specific misperceptions: fear, and the belief that you are a person.
The Misperception of Fear
In order to let go of fear, it is helpful to notice what fear really is. Fear is nothing but imagination. It is negative fantasy. Whenever you are afraid, it is because you are imagining what might happen, and “you are imagining fearfully.”
Today’s reading says:
To live without fear is to live without imagining. This is to stay in the now and in the heart of true desire.
Whenever you are in fear, pause and notice what is actually happening. Notice that you are imagining.
We can all imagine many fearful scenarios and live a life of anxiety and fear, but why? Why use our minds and attention that way? Is there a benefit to entertaining fearful imagination?
Look at fear. Question your fears. Are they something you choose to hold on to?
The Misperception that You are a Person
On Day 245, we saw that the idea, “I am a person,” is the mistake of believing that manifestation is primary and life is secondary. Life is seen as belonging to a specific manifestation, so when the manifestation ends, life ends too. The mind believes that life is fragile and temporary. That is the root cause of fear.
Today’s reading says:
You are not a person now, and you have not been a person before. There is no person from this lifetime or any other that you must let go of, because there has never been a person. There has only been the thought of persons, and the thought of persons is not real.
What are you?
Ultimately, you are life-awareness, the First Principle of God, but before you realize that, you will realize that you are consciousness, the Second Principle of God.
Let’s review the four principles again:
First Principle of God– Pure, unmanifest, life-awareness; abstract, unlimited potentiality.
Second Principle of God– Consciousness, also known as I Am or Spirit. It can be called “the thought of spirit” since it is a thought born out of (evolved from) the unlimited potentiality of the First Principle.
Third Principle of God– The ongoing activity of creation, which occurs naturally through the declarative interaction of consciousness with that which is witnessed. (“Declarative” means that consciousness uses believing attention to maintain what it witnesses as true and meaningful.)
Fourth Principle of God– Manifestation, which is the realm of appearance (experience and images). NTI Romans called it “a picture-thought within the thought of spirit.” (Reference Day 150.)
The Second Principle of God gives believing attention to persons, including the personal dramas (thought, emotion and perception), and believes it is person. However, it is consciousness.
As today’s reading says:
You are not a person now, and you have not been a person before. There is no person from this lifetime or any other…, because there has never been a person.
All there has ever been is the thought of persons combined with believing attention on the resulting appearances, experiences and story thoughts.
What I think, I see. (Persons)
What I see, I experience. (Lifetimes of people)
“I” is consciousness.
It might be helpful to listen to a short audio on reincarnation. This audio may help you see that people are ideas, which are temporarily manifest and experienced by consciousness. People are not actual. Consciousness is actual, and it experiences itself as people.
Today’s reading says:
What does this mean?
It means that you believe in illusion, but illusion is not the truth of you. It means that you look on misperception (the person), but you are the one that declares misperception is true.
If you declare that you are a person, you can also reverse that declaration.
How do you do that?
~ Let go of believing the stories that appear in the mind.
~ Live from your knowledge of truth.
~ Practice awareness-watching-awareness.
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.