Welcome to Active Meditation,
A course in miracles.
Lesson 160 Fear is a stranger here.
Fear is a stranger.
The ways of love identify with fear,
And you will be a stranger.
And thus,
You,
What is your higher self,
Remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real,
But different from your higher self.
Who could be sane in such a circumstance?
A madman.
Believe he is what he is not,
And judge against himself.
There is a stranger in our midst who comes from an idea so foreign.
There is a stranger in our midst who speaks a different language.
A stranger that looks upon a world and does not know.
A stranger who understands truth regards as senseless.
Stranger yet,
He does not recognize to whom he comes,
And yet he maintains his home belongs to him.
While he is alien,
Is actually at home.
How easy it would be to say,
This is my home.
Here I belong.
And I will not leave,
Because a madman says,
I must leave.
What reason is there for not saying this?
What could the reason be,
Except that you had asked this stranger to take your place,
And let you be a stranger?
No one would let themselves be dispossessed so needlessly,
Unless they thought there were another home more suited their tastes.
Who is the stranger?
Is it fear,
Or you,
Unsuited to the home which God provided for his child?
Is fear God's own,
Created in his likeness?
Is it fear that love completes,
And is completed by?
There is no home that can shelter both love and fear.
They cannot coexist.
Say to yourself,
Repeat after me,
I am at home.
Here stranger here.
Reflect on this for a few moments.
If you are real,
Then fear must be illusion.
If fear is real,
Then you do not exist at all.
How simply then,
The question is resolved.
The one who fears,
Has but denied themselves and said,
I am the stranger here.
I leave my home,
Then myself,
And give them all I thought belonged to me.
They are exile of necessity,
Not knowing who they are,
Uncertain of all things.
But this,
That they,
Their home,
Has been denied to.
Do they search for now?
What can they find?
A stranger to themselves can find no home,
Wherever they may look,
For they have made return impossible.
Their way is lost,
Except a miracle will search them out and show them that they are no stranger now.
The miracle will come,
For in their home,
Their higher self remains.
Their higher self asked no stranger in,
And took no alien thought to be itself.
Their higher self will its own unto itself,
In recognition of what is its own.
Who is the stranger?
Is not the stranger the one higher self calls not?
Unable now to recognize this stranger,
For you have given this stranger your yet higher self as certain of its own as God is of his child.
Cannot be confused.
Creation is sure what belongs to him.
Stranger can be interposed between God's knowledge and his child's reality.
Does not know strangers is certain.
God's certainty suffices.
Belongs where he has set his child.
God has answered you.
Who is the stranger?
Hear God's voice assure you,
And sure that you are not a stranger.
God has joined in God.
No stranger to God himself.
Repeat after me.
I am at home.
Fear is the sky.
Am at home.
Fear is the stranger here.
Ponder on this.
I am at home.
Fear is the stranger here.
Today we offer thanks.
Search the world.
Christ's vision sees no strangers.
He beholds his own and joyously lights with them.
They see Christ as a stranger,
For they do not recognize as they give Christ welcome.
And he leads them gently home again.
Does Christ forget?
Christ does not fail to give you to remember that your home may be complete and was established.
Christ has not forgotten,
But you will not remember him until you look on all as he does.
The one who denies their brother or sister is denying Christ.
Refusing to accept the gift of sight by which their higher self is clearly recognized.
Your home is remembered and salvation come.
Now take a few moments to reflect on this lesson.
I am at home.
Fear is the stranger here.
If you are real,
Then fear must be illusion.
If fear is real,
Then you do not exist at all.
Whom God has joined remain forever one.
At home in him,
No stranger to God himself.
I am at home.
Fear,
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
