Living The Way of Mastery with Jason Amoroso
Each day I will read a passage from The Way of Mastery and share my commentary on it. The intention is to provide an opportunity to develop a consistent, simple spiritual study practice and grow together.
Living The Way of Mastery with Jason Amoroso
Lesson 15: Expand Your Commitment to Love
Lesson 15: Love or Fear - The Choice Is Yours
Section 1
Paragraphs: 7-10
Can you imagine transforming your life by simply choosing love over fear? In our latest episode, we promise to guide you on a journey of conscious decision-making where faith, courage, and generosity become your daily companions. Join us as we unravel how fear can manifest as anxiety and doubt, and explore how to commit to a life of transformation. We’ll share practical daily exercises to help you cultivate awareness and grace, allowing you to trust in divine timing and surrender to a higher power for your ultimate good.
We also explore the incredible power of imagination in shaping your inner world. Learn how embodying emotions like joy and peace can shift your internal state, challenging the belief that external achievements are necessary for happiness. Drawing on spiritual teachings, we'll highlight how these qualities already reside within us and how imagination can align you with an abundant consciousness. By seeing even life's toughest moments as opportunities for spiritual growth, we'll provide tools to help you embrace love over fear, awakening deeper truths on your spiritual journey.
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Hello and welcome back to Living the Way of Mastery. I'm Jason Amoroso, your guide and friend and fellow student. And today we dive back into Lesson 15, love or Fear. The choice is yours. And before we get into the text, just take a moment to reflect. Where in your life are you noticing that you are giving priority to fear over love? Where you are listening to the voice of fear? Another word for fear is worry. Another word for fear is anxiety. Another word for fear is doubt. Another word for fear is lack. Another word for fear is judgment attack. Another word for fear is judgment. Where are you noticing in your life that you are giving priority to the voice of fear rather than the voice of love? Another word for love is faith. Another word for love is courage. Another word for love is generosity. Another word for love is peace. So just notice, this is an opportunity for us to ask that question. And again, the title of this lesson is Love or Fear. The choice is yours and it is a choice. As Jeshua will say over and over again in this lesson, choosing fear is never justified. So let's dive in Again.
Speaker 1:All of this stuff is about understanding the theory, understanding and then applying it in our life, using our daily life as our ashram, moment by moment bills, in conversations with our family over Thanksgiving dinner, with our partners, with our kids, with our co-workers and bosses and clients, with our community on social media. It's like every single aspect of your life. It's not just mundane, it is a sacred moment, it is a holy opportunity. Of course, it doesn't always feel like that. We kind of can easily go through the motions because we all are so busy with so many things to do and so many tasks to be done, so many things pulling at our attention, so much stimulation from social media to the news, to just this busy world that we've collectively and individually created, this busy world that we've collectively and individually created. So it's easy to kind of go unconscious on autopilot. That's one of the great beautiful challenges and opportunities, because we've got thousands of opportunities throughout our day to really be conscious. What am I choosing? What am I thinking? What am I valuing here?
Speaker 1:So let's dive into this opening section paragraph we're picking up in paragraph seven, where Jeshua says Beloved friends, the way of transformation does indeed require your commitment. Where you feel that your commitment has wavered, when you become aware of it, simply choose anew and the end of the journey must be certain, must be perfectly certain, for as you have created your journey away from God in your imagination, so too do you imagine or bring into the form of images the very pathway that returns you to your true reality Beautiful. The way of transformation requires your commitment. Commitment is something, it's a decision. I'm committed. Once I'm committed, I'm all in. It's not something that I do when I feel like it going to really do it. No, commitment is something that you do, you show up, you make the commitment and you do it, and again, with all the distractions. That's why it's so important to, I would say, like have some kind of recommitment on the daily, some kind of morning routine, some kind of prayer. There's plenty of exercises in the way of mastery, and I'm a big fan of either reading something or writing it down. If you write something down every single morning, it's going to be ingrained in you that this is what I'm committed to today, being the presence of love, seeking out any areas that I'm in fear and asking what does it look like to choose love here and doing that? If you wrote down that every morning for these 30 days of this lesson, it would change your life. It would change your mind, it would change your consciousness.
Speaker 1:So this work requires commitment and, as Jeshua says, if you feel that your commitment's wavered, don't judge yourself. Don't be hard on yourself Just when you become aware of it. And awareness is always the first step in making any kind of shift and change. You can't shift something you're not aware of. When you become aware of it, don't judge yourself, beat yourself up for it. Simply make another choice. How much grace is that In life you can just simply make another choice. But what do we do? We carry the past with us. We carry our judgments with us. We carry all this stuff. We're shaming ourselves. We're carrying so much that we don't need to. That keeps us not in the present moment. Simply choose anew in this moment. And he says then the end of the journey must be perfectly certain. It is done. You don't have to keep begging to God to get what you want. When you are residing in that consciousness of knowing your wholeness, it's done.
Speaker 1:Now it may seem to take time to unfold. That's where patience comes in, that's where faith comes in. But when we make that decision from the heart, it is done. God doesn't make us beg for it. God doesn't make us prove ourselves worthy of it. God doesn't make us earn it. It's done. Can we allow it to unfold in the most graceful way for the highest good of all concerned? Where we get in the way is we attach our expectations. We say no, god, this is what it has to look like. No, this is the timing it needs to happen in. No, this is the way in which it needs to happen. And we say that from our limited perception of how something, of how we can see something. And that's where surrender comes in. We surrender our timelines, we surrender our expectations and allow the infinite, beautiful, intelligent, powerful force that we call God, the universe whatever word you want to use to work its magic it seems like magic to us, but to work its power to bring the highest good for all. So the end is perfectly certain. So relax, enjoy the ride.
Speaker 1:And he says for, as you have created your journey away from God in your imagination and that word is intentional, it's used over and over and over and over again kind of separate from the rest of creation, the rest of all that is that that part of us has created the journey away from God in the imagination. It has never happened. That's the good news. You've never. Actually, you couldn't be separate, even if you tried, but you've created the experience of separation. And then you experience what it feels like to feel separate. It's suffering, it's awful, it's disconnected, it feels like there's something missing. And so then we go and search in the world to find that thing, to try and fill the void or fill the hole, but we never do. It's impossible because there actually is nothing missing. So you've created your journey away from God, but it actually never happened. That's why A Course in Miracles and the Way of Mastery says it's a journey to a destination you've never left, back into the heart of God, into your awareness of who you really are, and it's a journey away from God.
Speaker 1:In your imagination, everything is happening. Another word for imagination is consciousness, and he says so too. Do you imagine or bring into the form of images? That's what your imagination is, the form of images, the very pathway that returns you to your true reality as the son of God, as an aspect of an individuated aspect of all of creation, one with it all, beautiful, whole and complete, as you've created this tiny mad idea that you've separated from God, this journey away from God in your imagination, so, too, can you use the same power of your imagination to create the pathway that returns you to your sanity.
Speaker 1:So you're not at the mercy of the whims of some sky daddy, santa Claus God. If you're daddy, santa Claus God. If you're good, you get rewarded. If you're bad, you get punished. You're not at the mercy of anything outside of you. The kingdom of God is within you. Now, this doesn't mean that you get to control everything and play the puppet master. You set your intention. I am seeking first the kingdom of God within. This is my priority. I and my father are one. Within this is my priority. I and my Father are one. My intention is to wake up to the truth of who I am, that I've never left the heart of God, and then you allow it to unfold in the dimension of space-time, using every experience that comes up for your learning, for your growth, for choosing to see love over fear. Now, this is something that we do in the five.
Speaker 1:Every morning, monday through Friday, 10 am Eastern, I lead a five-minute meditation exactly around what this passage is saying using your imagination to return home, and the idea is that so often in our world we are waiting, hoping, wanting something out in the external world to change so that we can feel a certain way. So we look for peace in financial stability. We look for lovability in the companionship of a soulmate or a partner. We look for feeling good about ourselves in achievement. When my body looks a certain way, then I can love myself. Then when I get the money, then I'll be generous. I can't be generous without the money. Of course we're only seeing generosity in terms of money. In that mindset we're not seeing generosity of presence, generosity of love, generosity of kindness. So we think when the thing happens, then I can feel a certain way which hopefully you're realizing is just not true. It's a lie, it's not true, it's a misunderstanding.
Speaker 1:And I and I, we train people in this meditation, we practice it. I need to practice it every morning for five minutes and the way that I do it and come and experience it, because I'm going to talk about it, but it's not going to be as much as if you actually experience it. It is we have, I have everyone close their eyes and we pick a quality every single day. It could be a different quality every day, the same quality. Today Some people chose joy. Let's use that as an example. So we close our eyes and as we drop into the breath and into this moment, I invite people to now, as you inhale, feel yourself embodying the feeling of joy.
Speaker 1:When you say I want to be more joyful, well, in your imagination and kids do this when they're playing, they pretend let's play house, let's play cops and robbers, let's play whatever. You know, kids dream of being an astronaut or being a professional athlete. They're using their imagination, their consciousness, and it creates a feeling inside of them. This is the same work that Dr Joe Dispenza does and a lot of other people like Bruce Lipton. You change your chemistry, you change your internal state through your consciousness.
Speaker 1:So I ask people when you say I want to be more joyful, well, what do you imagine it's going to feel like when you're super joyful? My gosh, I'm gonna feel light. I'm gonna feel this, this energy blasting, radiating out of my heart in all directions. I'm gonna feel this. My smile across my face, my whole energy shifts. I feel lighter, I feel more energetic. Right, it's like if you imagined here's another one. Like if you imagine if you're really struggling with lack and you just could imagine if I won the lottery. How do I think I would feel? Well, maybe all of a sudden I would feel a sense of relief and my body would soften and that tightness I hold in my solar plexus around survival would ease and soften and my whole energy. Maybe my brow would soften and I would be able to breathe easier. And just using your imagination, we're pretending and all of a sudden my whole energy shifts. This is the power of imagination and consciousness and you're not actually winning the lottery for you to feel that way. In that moment, you are actually feeling relief, you're actually feeling calm, you're actually feeling whole. Or, in the example of joy, you're actually feeling calm, you're actually feeling whole. Or, in the example of joy, you're actually feeling joyful, even though you're quote unquote pretending.
Speaker 1:This is such a simple way to really embody and understand that we don't have to wait for something to happen for us to feel the way we want to feel. If peace didn't exist within us, we wouldn't be able to do that. We wouldn't be able to create the experience of peace unless something happened out in the world. So the fact that we can create and feel peace even though the things outside are chaotic is evidence, is proof that all of the qualities we're seeking out in the world are already within us. But we've been brainwashed and tricked and confused to think that something has to happen in the world for us to feel that way, and that's just not true. So the more we can feel that way without the external happening, we are free. And then we're like oh my gosh, I can be joyful no matter what's happening outside of me. Yes, I can be generous no matter what's happening outside of me. Yes, I can be at peace and calm, no matter what's happening outside of me.
Speaker 1:Yes, this was the message of Jeshua the kingdom is not of the. My kingdom is not of this world, it's already within you. Seek first within you and then all the added things will be given unto you. When you are an abundant consciousness, feeling abundance, not just money, abundance of love, of joy, of kindness, then you just show up in the world as that abundance expressed. You know what happens. You know what happens. Usually you receive so much more than when you come from a place of lack, a place of scarcity, a place of I got to get to then feel it. Then you're always searching and trying to get and it never works. You might feel momentary relief if you get some more money, but you'll spend that money, because money gets spent and money flows out, and then you'll feel that sense of lack again and then things seem to dry up. But when we are the abundance, we are the flow, things seem to come to us. So you don't have to wait.
Speaker 1:This whole thing came from this idea of God in your imagination that you've created in your imagination, the path away from God, the separation, and you can use your imagination to create the journey home as well, this feeling of, and do it right now. What do I imagine enlightenment to feel like? This is from lesson nine. Sitting is five minutes. As a Christ, what do I imagine Jesus felt like when he would do this exercise, when he would meditate as a Christ, what do I imagine he would feel like? And then I start to feel like that. That's it. You're feeling like that. That's the whole point. To just stay in that energy, that frequency, more and more and more, and then start to live in the world in that frequency, not just with your eyes closed in meditation, in your chair or whatever, but when you're walking around with your eyes open at the grocery store, getting gas or just being in the world that you can do that as well. You don't need to just disconnect, close your eyes, sit and do nothing in the cave. You can parent with your eyes open, as the Christ. So we practice and develop that skill, that muscle. All right, I love our detours.
Speaker 1:Here we go back to the text. We now embark upon the next lesson and study period, in which you have the choice to become fully committed to heating every word, to letting the vibration brought forth by that word settle ever more deeply into the nervous system of the body, as it settles likewise into the depth of your mind and your heart. So this text, this teaching, is a frequency, it's an energy, and it's not just about reading to comprehend and then just reading to get through it and then moving on to the next. This is a manual, it's an instruction guide on how to transform. This is the way of transformation and to allow these. The words are just, they're ink on a paper, but the word is a symbol of a symbol, it's a feeling, it's an energy. So when we read this, we open up to this other energy that our brain maybe can comprehend on one level, but it's so much more than that. So can I kind of open myself to receiving the energy of these words as I'm reading and allow that ever more deeply into the nervous system of the body.
Speaker 1:Right now I think a lot of people in kind of wellness spaces are obsessed with the condition of your nervous system and I get it Like I understand that our nervous system is. We can't outthink a dysregulated nervous system. It's something deeper than just the mental process. But we're not a victim to our nervous system. Our nervous system is, in effect. It's in response to our deeper subconscious beliefs and perceptions that we're choosing, that we're choosing. So when we can receive at that deeper level that we're safe, that we're loved, that we are one with God, that we are infinite and eternal and not just this physical form, then as we embody those ideas, as we open up to those ideas, as we reinforce those ideas, our nervous system because we say, oh, as an eternal being, I'm safe In forgiveness, I realize that those things that I thought defined me, that happened to me, they don't. So I'm safe, I'm lovable, I'm loved forever. Then, as a result of that belief, the nervous system can soften and open and respond and receive more.
Speaker 1:So allow these words in this text to really sink into deeper layers within you, into the depth of your mind and in your heart, and it's going to happen. It's not something you can think about and force to do. He says therefore fear not, for you are, think about and force to rest in perfect safety and to embrace all that comes to you in the simple reality that you have called it to you as a challenge, perhaps, but always as an opportunity to expand your commitment to love. The word commitment in italics for emphasis. All things that you have called to you as a challenge, perhaps, are always an opportunity to expand your commitment to love. And where love is chosen so that you want nothing else, you will see nothing else but a lovely world, infinite in dimension, sparkling in clarity, radiant in beauty. You will look upon it and say, behold, it is very good. Heaven is here now. It is a state of consciousness. You bring the experience of heaven on earth wherever you go, as you show up in Christ's consciousness. This is not about changing the external, so let's go back. I love it, fear not.
Speaker 1:I saw this thing on social media and I had to do a little bit of research to see if it was true. And it wasn't true, but I saw this thing anyway, I'll share it with you. It was like what phrase shows up in the Bible exactly 365 times, and then it says be not afraid or fear not. And that's actually not true, but it's a cool idea that somebody made into it into a social media video. But we can never hear this enough fear not. Because we live so much in fear. We're so our, our. When we're, when we're identifying with the body, our body is always on alert for a threat. What's a threat? I need to be afraid to keep myself safe, so we're afraid of everything. Maslow's hierarchy of needs we're afraid first of our physical needs being met, and then our emotional needs being met, and then purpose needs being met, whatever else. I can't remember the entire Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it's like we're always on the lookout for threats and afraid of something on some level in the human experience. And so to hear the message fear not is so comforting. Fear not, for you are the creator of your journey home.
Speaker 1:Jeshua is saying don't be afraid of feeling you're away from home, because the very power that you use to create the experience, not the reality with a capital R, because the reality is you can't be away from home. You're in home right now. You're in God right now. But the very power that you use to create the experience that you're apart from God, you can use to create the experience that you're home. You are the creator of all that you perceive. All that you perceive, everything that you experience, comes through your perceptual filters. That's why I think it's in the Course in Miracles, maybe in the Way of Mastery too. It says like you don't actually ever experience another person, you only experience them through your own perceptual filters. Everything is subjective in this experience. Everything is subjective in this experience. Everything.
Speaker 1:And you are the one who has infinite power. You've been given it, gifted it. You didn't have to earn it. You have to prove yourself worthy of it. You don't have to achieve it. You've been given out of the grace and love of being an extension of love. You've been given this infinite power of the mind of God to see through the eyes of love. You can see everything through the eyes of love. And if your brain right now is like, well, how can you see child trafficking through the eyes of love? That's a great. That can be a really challenging question. Ask, ask that question God, spirit, holy Spirit, universe, whatever. Again, whatever way you connect, how can I see this through the eyes of love? I'm willing my brain has a hard time doing it. I want to feel it in my heart. How can I see this example right in front of me through the eyes of love? You have the infinite power of the mind of God to rest in perfect safety that I'm safe, no matter what's happening out in the world or seemingly to me. I am safe in my identity as Christ and to embrace all that comes to you. Love embraces all things, even the hard things, even the inconvenient things, even the things that everyone else in the world says oh, poor you, that's awful, that's a tragedy. Love embraces all things.
Speaker 1:Love is embracing yourself as you move through depression, instead of judging yourself for being depressed. What's wrong with me? How do I get out of this? Love says oh look, I'm depressed. I'm going to love myself as I move through this experience, because this too shall pass, but I don't want to bypass and skip it and try and get out of it. I'm going to love myself as I move through it, trusting that, moving through it, I will learn what I need to learn. Or I will learn what I need to learn or I will see what I need to see that it's an important chapter, even if it's temporary. It's an important chapter.
Speaker 1:How can I love myself through fear? How can I love myself through anxiety? How can I love myself through guilt and shame? Love embraces all things, in the awareness of the simple reality that you have called it to you. My conscious brain has no idea why it might have called this cancer experience to me, but my soul does. My soul, which is my true identity, is choosing this experience to use it as a vehicle to wake up to deeper levels of truth and love. So let me meditate on that, let me get curious and open to that. When my brain sees this as bad and everything around me sees it as bad, I'm going to have faith to open up to something, maybe a different experience, an invitation inward even more.
Speaker 1:And can I love myself through the fear? I can have the cancer experience and be in fear, and can I love myself as I'm in fear? Having the cancer experience? It's like love embraces all things and Jeshua says you've called it to you as a challenge. Perhaps Some of these things we call the challenge, we call challenges to us to I would say, test ourselves in a way like, oh, can I apply love here too?
Speaker 1:Jeshua says that in the crucifixion it was like his culminating challenge. Can I find love here, when I have every right to play the victim here? I've I'm so justified to be the victim in my crucifixion experience, but can I find love here too? Can I embrace this experience too? And that's a beautiful example.
Speaker 1:There's so many examples in life where people have every justified reason to be the victim, but they choose to make a different choice as a challenge. How can I find love here? How can I be love here? Viktor Frankl, nazi concentration camps, martin Luther King Jr, gandhi I mean all the inspirational examples of people there's so many. And there's men, there's women, there's all different kinds of people throughout history that those are the most inspiring people in the world. They have every justification to be the victim and they choose not to. They choose to show up in their love, in their power, in their strength, in their courage, and not let circumstances dictate to them their self-worth, who they believe themselves to be, who they know themselves to be. So our soul calls these experiences to us, maybe as a challenge, but always as an opportunity to expand your commitment to love, which is expanding your presence of love. How beautiful is that?
Speaker 1:And where love is chosen, jeshua says where love is chosen so that you want nothing else else, because nothing else fulfills you anymore the things of the world. Can you see yet that the things of the world will never fulfill you? They may temporarily give you a sense of happiness or satisfaction, but they never, ever, ever last. They never last. So that where you choose love over anything of the world, so that you want nothing else but love, and all the children of love are the forms of love, like I've said peace, joy, abundance, generosity, courage, strength, compassion, kindness, all the forms of love, where you want only those things, you will then see nothing else but a lovely world. When you want only that, that's all you're going to get, that's all you're going to see. You will look upon this dimension and all dimensions of creation and say what the fudge. Behold, this is very good and this has been here the whole time, and not judge yourself yourself.
Speaker 1:What was wrong with you? Why'd you stay asleep for so long? Why'd you choose that? No, you'd be like holy smokes. This was here the whole time. What a joy, what a gift. I forgot. I just forgot.
Speaker 1:I made a different choice. I wanted to have an experience of being separate, but I did that for a bit and I'm done with it. Now I'm ready to wake up back to the infinitude of God and love that is me, expressed as that Holy smokes. What a joy, what a ride, what a journey. I'm so grateful for that journey. What else can we create now? Just out of the joy of creating, because that's what I am a creative being, because that's what God is. God creates, god extends more the good, the holy and the beautiful. That's what I want to do. Just extend the good, the holy and the beautiful. That's what I want to do. Just extend the good, the holy and the beautiful for the joy of it. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome sauce. I love you guys. So much. Way to go. I'm so honored to be on this journey with you.
Speaker 1:We're doing it together in community, learning and growing and maybe being challenged by this information, maybe seeing things a different way or grappling with it intellectually, but our heart is saying yes, just keep going. You got this. You'll see this. If you don't understand a concept, stick with it. It'll pop in at the right time. You're doing great. Thanks for listening. If you want to share this with someone that you thought about, please share it. And if you can like, subscribe and give us a good review and maybe write a small comment on Apple Podcasts. That would probably be amazing for the growth of the pod, and love you guys. Can't wait to be here next time. Take it easy.