The Fearlessness Commitment: Choosing Love Each Moment
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
When faced with challenges, crisis, and uncertainties in the moment, we always have a choice. We can choose love, or we can choose fear. Jerald Jampolsky authored the book Love Is Letting Go Of Fear (1979), and this statement expresses a universal answer to the question “what is unconditional love?”
When we understand love as our natural state, free from fear, the phrase “unconditional love” expresses a reversal of the limited experience of conditional love, back to the experience oneness. Conditional love and unconditional love, then, are two sides of the same coin, and one cannot exist without the other. Within this clarity, it can be seen that conditional love is an unnatural state of being, a resistance to our natural state. This resistance is caused by beliefs rooted in fear. This fear has its roots in the primary belief in suffering and death. This may sound like an oversimplification of a very complex reality system, yet take a moment to imagine…
Imagine yourself as immortal. You do not experience pain, and your being cannot suffer, nor can any other being. Would you know fear? If you knew nothing else but continuous experience, growth, and beingness, would you not be fearless? Your dance with all other energies would have a freedom from concerns of loss, pain, suffering, abandonment, or betrayal. The hesitancy and building of trust necessary to many human relationships would not exist, and the playful dance of joy and bliss would naturally occur between all.
Now, know that you are immortal. Your physical body may experience pain, but this is just an experience. Suffering is a condition of your limited human focus, yet your true self expands far beyond your human focus. Now look at the daily challenges, the uncertainties and fears that come up so often. See them in terms of this bigger picture, this greater spiritual perspective. Take a deep breath and affirm your true nature. Can you imagine fearlessness? Can you imagine staying in the natural state of bliss even though you are having many experiences? Can you imagine, in each moment, choosing love instead of choosing fear?
Living with a human focus, this understanding often requires a “leap of faith.” When we can trust life, when we can essentially trust ourselves as competent divine creative beings, we can truly choose fearlessness. This naturally leads to having little need to protect the self. When you lose the need to protect yourself, your focus naturally shifts to having continuous experiences of love, joy, and oneness with others. When you are fearless, and someone is struggling with fear within themselves, rather than resonating with their fear, you will naturally act in a supportive way. You will guide and help this one to be fearless and “in love” along with you. Everyone is a playmate, and seeing others suffering and confused in their experience, you send energy effortlessly from your heart to help them open their hearts and heal. We describe this effortless heart-flow as the feeling of “compassion.” When you are fearless, you can choose love easily and freely, in each moment, with each experience you have. When you are challenged, you can think to yourself “What would I do if I was fearless?” and “How would I act if I had no need to protect my position?” or “What would I do with the realization that I truly have nothing to protect?” Some people like to use “What would love do?” What would Jesus do?” or “What would Ammachi do?” Asking these questions in moments of challenge can be a very powerful and transformative practice.