Which do we choose: peace and bliss or anxiety and anguish?

It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your mind under my guidance without conscious effort, but this implies a willingness that you have not developed as yet. The Holy Spirit cannot ask more than you are willing to do. The strength to do comes from your undivided decision. There is no strain in doing God’s Will as soon as you recognize that it is also your own. The lesson here is quite simple, but particularly apt to be overlooked. I will therefore repeat it, urging you to listen. Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wants, producing inevitable strain because wanting and doing are discordant. This can be corrected only by accepting a unified goal. T-2.VI.6:1-9

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The Course is clear that Jesus doesn’t demand, only suggests. The question is when will you be ready? Giving up the ego to become one with the All is what we really want deep down but we are scared to give up our ego because we mistakenly think it is our real self. When we eschew our egos and rejoin the beatific vision of Oneness with our Transcendent Source peace and bliss is ours.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested in step three that we make a decision to turn our willfulness over to the will of God as we understand God. Acting on this decision is sometimes called “surrender” as when we give something up that we consider ours such as surrendering one’s driver’s license to the court when one is charged with a DWI. Some experience this as a punishment when it is simply a statement by the court that one should drive when they are intoxicated. This surrender is beneficial to the individual and to people the individual is in relationship with. In the long run this surrender makes it more likely that there will be benefit peace rather than harm and destruction.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual development. This encouragement involves the giving up of fear and the development of faith and trust in the unconditional love of God.

Today, it is suggested that we consider, seriously, making a decision to practice unconditional love which brings peace and bliss instead of conditional love which brings anxiety and anguish.