Corresponding Text Section

Chapter 29: Undoing the Gap of Separation

8. Losing the Fear of the Divine

There is no time, no place, and no state where the Divine is absent. There is nothing to fear for there is nothing to be feared. There is no way in truth in which a gap could be conceived in the Wholeness that is the Divine’s. The compromise the least and littlest gap would represent in Its eternal Love is quite impossible. For it would mean Its Love could harbor just a hint of hate, Its Gentleness turn sometimes to attack, and Its eternal Patience sometimes fail. All this do you believe when you perceive a gap between your sisters and brothers and yourself. How could you trust the Divine then? For then It would be deceptive in Its Love, and so you would have to be wary, and not let It come too close, believing that you need to leave a gap between you and Its Love through which you can escape if there be need for you to flee.

Here is the fear of the Divine most plainly perceived. For Love does seem to be treacherous to those who fear, since fear and judgment can never be apart. Everyone who judges and rejects is afraid of Love, and therefore must be afraid of the Divine. Certain it is that they know not what Love means. They love to judge and fear to love, and so they think that Love is fearful and that judgment is love. This is the consequence the little gap must bring to those who cherish it, and think that it is their escape from what they fear, their salvation and their hope.

The fear of the Divine! This most insidious of obstacles that Peace must flow across has not yet completely gone from your mind. The other obstacles are past, but this one still remains as a stumbling block on your path, and makes the way to Light seem dark and fearful, perilous and bleak. You decided in an ancient moment of madness that your sisters and brothers were your foes. Sometimes they played the role of friend, perhaps, provided that your separate interests made your friendship possible a little while. But not without a gap of escape between you, lest they turn again into a foe. If they came too close to you, you jumped back. As you approached, they withdrew. A cautious alliance, limited in scope and carefully restricted in commitment, became the treaty you made with them. You shared a qualified settlement in which a clause of separation was a point on which you both agreed to keep intact. And violating this was thought to be a breach of treaty not to be allowed.

The gap between you is not one of space between two separate bodies. That space only seems to be dividing off your “separate” minds. It is the symbol of a vow made: to meet when you prefer and separate until you both elect to meet again. And then your bodies seem to get in touch, and signify a meeting place to join. But always is it possible to go your separate ways. Conditional upon the right to separate, you agree to meet from time to time, and keep apart in intervals of separation that protect you from the “sacrifice” of Love. Your bodies save you, for they prevent total “sacrifice” of your separateness, and give you time in which to build again your separate selves, which you believe diminish as you meet.

Your bodies could not separate your minds unless you wanted them to be a cause of separation and distance perceived between you. Thus do you endow the body with a power that is not within itself. And herein lies its power over you. For now you think that it determines when you meet, and limits your ability to have communion with each other’s minds. And now the body tells you where to go and how to go there, what is feasible for you to undertake, and what you cannot do. It dictates what its health can tolerate, and what will tire it and make it sick. And its “inherent” weaknesses set up the limitations on what you will do, and keep your purpose limited and weak.

The body will accommodate to this role assigned to it if you would have it so. It will allow only limited indulgences in “love,” with intervals of withdrawal in between. And it will take command of when to “love” and when to shrink more safely into fear. It will appear to be sick because you do not remember what perfect Love means. And so you must misconstrue each circumstance and everyone you meet, and perceive in them a purpose not their own.

It is not Love that asks for sacrifice. But fear demands the sacrifice of Love, for in Love’s Presence fear cannot abide. For judgment to be maintained Love must be feared, and only sometimes present, sometimes gone. Thus is Love perceived as unreliable, because It seems to come and go uncertainly, and to offer no stability to you. You do not see how limited and weak is your faithfulness, and how frequently you have demanded that Love go away and leave you quietly alone in “peace.” The body, innocent of any goal, is your excuse for variable goals that you hold and force the body to maintain. Yet in truth you do not really fear its weakness, but its neutrality.

Are you ready to recognize that nothing stands between you and your sisters and brothers? Would you know there is no gap behind which you can hide?

There is a shock that comes to those who learn that their sisters and brothers are not their foes. There is a wariness that is roused by learning that the body is not real. And there are overtones of seeming fear around the happy Message that the Divine is purely Love and can never judge nor condemn. Yet all that really happens when the gap of separation is gone is Peace eternal. Nothing more than that, and nothing less.

Nothing could induce you to continue abandoning your Creator when you have completely released yourself from the fear of the Divine. No toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to hold you back an instant from Its Love. And you will no longer direct the body to say “no” to Heaven’s Calling when you know that finding the Divine can never lead to a loss of self. For how could your Self be lost by being found?