What would you see without the fear of death? What would you feel and
think if death held no attraction for you? Very simply, you would
remember your Father. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that
lives, the Father of the universe and of the universe of universes, and
of everything that lies even beyond them would you remember. And as this
memory rises in your mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle,
after which is salvation completed, and the Son of God entirely restored
to sanity. For here your world DOES end.

The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the
face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because
He is in His Father’s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and
run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last. For this dark veil, which
seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper’s, and the
bright rays of His Father’s Love which light His face with glory appear
as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear
of death is gone.

This is the darkest veil, upheld by the belief in death, and protected
by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but
the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego never to lift this
veil, not to approach it, nor even to suspect that it is there. This is
the secret bargain made with the ego to keep what lies beyond the veil
forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to
allow union to call you out of separation; the great amnesia in which
the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from
you;– THE FEAR OF GOD, the final step in your dissociation.

See how the belief in death would seem to “save” you. For if this
is gone, what can you fear but LIFE? It is the attraction of death that
makes life seem to be ugly, cruel and tyrannical. You are no more afraid
of death than of the ego. These are your chosen FRIENDS. For in your
secret alliance with them, you have agreed never to let the fear of God
be lifted, so you could look upon the face of Christ, and join Him in
His Father.

Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the
same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beneath, and so the
fear is gone. And so it is with this. The desire to get rid of peace and
drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet
recognition that you love Him. The exaltation of the body is given up in
favor of the Spirit, which you love as you could NEVER love the body.
And the appeal of death is lost forever as love’s attraction stirs and
calls to you. From beyond each of the obstacles to love, Love Itself has
called, and each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of
what lies beyond. Your WANTING fear seemed to be holding them in
place. Yet when you heard the voice of love beyond them, you answered and
they disappeared.

And now you stand in terror before what you swore never to look
upon. Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your “friends.”
The “loveliness” of sin, the delicate appeal of guilt, the “holy” waxen
image of death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood
not to desert, all rise and bid you not to raise your eyes. For you
realize that if you look on this and LET the veil be lifted, THEY will
be gone forever. All of your “friends,” your “protectors” and your
“home” will vanish. Nothing that you remember now will you remember.

It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you if you but raise your
eyes. Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever. This
is the re-establishment of YOUR will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and you
will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you,
forces you cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your
will. It IS your will to look on this. No mad desire, no trivial impulse
to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can
stand against your will. For what attracts you from beyond the veil is
also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it and completely One.