One of the most frequently repeated statements of the Master is Fear not. It appears again and again throughout the biblical narrative, spoken in moments of uncertainty, vulnerability, and profound transition. For many readers, these words are heard as reassurance. For others, they feel like an instruction that is impossible to follow. Yet neither reassurance nor command reaches the depth from which these words are spoken. To understand the meaning of fear not, we must look beyond emotional encouragement and into the nature of identity itself.
The words are often joined to a second phrase: Fear not, for I AM with you. This is not casual language. The emphasis rests on I AM, not on the removal of fear. When this is recognised, fear is not managed or overcome; it dissolves at its source.
The experience of being human within a world of time and space naturally gives rise to fear. Fear belongs to identification with a separate sense of the personal self, the personal “I am” that lives between birth and death and is subject to loss, uncertainty, and vulnerability. From this standpoint, fear makes sense. There is much to protect and much that can be taken away. Fear is not a moral failing. It is the inevitable consequence of identification with what is temporary.
Most people, and in my experience most Christians, have never encountered the dimension where fear is not and cannot be. Fear is always tied to the separate sense of the personal self, and it is always bound to time. It concerns what might happen, what could be lost, or what the future may bring. Beyond time lies the Eternal, where there is no birth and no death. It is difficult to be afraid when you KNOW that you are an individual expression of the Eternal I AM.
This may sound like a beautiful idea, but fearlessness does not arise from believing something to be true. The power of Fear Not lies on the other side of direct experience. It arises from the lived KNOWING of the Eternal I AM that is within you. When this KNOWING dawns, fear dissolves naturally. This is paradoxical, because the experience is both deeply personal and unmistakably transpersonal at the same time. You remain fully human, yet you recognise yourself as an emanation of the Eternal I AM.
It is important to see that the I AM spoken in Fear not, for I AM with you is not the historical personality of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus himself was clear about this. He repeatedly refused personal authority, declaring that he could do nothing of himself and that to speak from the personal self is to speak falsely. His teaching consistently pointed beyond the separate self to the Source from which he lived and moved.
The Eternal I AM is with you always, whether you are consciously aware of this or not. Yet without at least one direct revelation of this inner truth, the words Fear Not offer little comfort. This revelation is not something you earn. You cannot become what you already are. You can only veil it. When the veil lifts, even briefly, you come to KNOW that you and the Father are not separate, that you are in the Father and the Father is in you. This KNOWING does not arise through effort, belief, or moral striving. It is given. It is grace.
My own upbringing within the Christian institutional church in Northern Ireland in the 1960’s was shaped largely by fear: fear of God, fear of judgment, fear of eternal punishment. I was taught that I was a sinner and, by default, condemned. This image of God is a projection from the mind of the separate sense of the personal self, a self that had never encountered the Ground of Being to which the word “God” is pointing. Fear was sanctified, and distance was mistaken for reverence.
Fear belongs to the false self; love belongs to the True Self – Richard Rohr
Yet the truth that simply is stands in quiet contrast to this distortion. Scripture does not say that God is loving, as though love were one attribute among others. It declares that God is Love. This is not sentimental language. It is ontological truth. When love is understood as an attribute, fear remains close at hand, because attributes can be withdrawn or reversed. Loving can become not loving. Acceptance can become rejection. But when love is recognized as the very nature of Being, fear loses its foundation altogether.
Most Christians interpret the phrase God is Love through their only available reference point, the personal self. From there, God becomes loving rather than harsh, kind rather than cruel. This still operates within duality. Beyond this dualistic framework lies the direct experience of KNOWING that God is Love and that you are made in the image of God. This is not imagination or belief. It is interior certainty. The fear of God creates the very barrier that obscures the revelation of union.
Fear ends when the self drops away entirely – Bernadette Roberts
Even belief itself can become an obstacle. To believe in God implies a believer who stands apart from what is believed. Where there is separation, fear remains possible. Belief is a construct of the human mind, and the human mind can never KNOW the Divine, because it can only think in opposites. You cannot think your way into the KNOWING of the Father within, because the Father is never known through thought.
This brings us back to one of the Master’s most radical teachings: Take no thought. This was never an invitation to passivity or neglect, but a doorway into Being itself. This central teaching was largely sidelined by the institutional Church, particularly after the Enlightenment elevated thought to the foundation of existence. When René Descartes declared, I think, therefore I am, thought became primary, and human beings learned to live second-hand lives through concepts, beliefs, and ideas rather than through the immediacy of I AM.
Notice where we instinctively turn when fear arises. We turn to thought, yet thought is one of fear’s primary generators. Beyond thought and belief lies the living reality of I AM. Fear Not is spoken from this ground. It is not reassurance offered to a frightened self. It is recognition of a deeper truth.
So the meaning of fear not is not the suppression of fear, nor the demand for courage, nor a test of faith. It is the quiet unveiling of mistaken identification. When identity rests in the Eternal rather than the temporary, fear has nowhere to attach. Life continues. Humanity remains intact. Challenges still arise. But fear no longer governs perception or defines the centre from which life is lived. Fear Not is not something you do. It is what becomes obvious when you recognize who — and what — you truly are.