|
|
|
Class 23 - Fear
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. - Eleanor Roosevelt
Please Share
Fear - a positive place to start When we speak of fear, we speak of the most profound of all negativities. Profound because fear is the root of all negativity, and because it most clearly exposes us to the most powerful of all dangers, the loss of awareness of our real self, our soul. It is the ego that fears, not the soul. Its ultimate fear is to lose itself. This is why death scares it so much. It is sure it is all there is, so death means extinction. It also fears what it perceives to be separate from itself. Other people. Nature. The Wind. A storm. Fate. Animals. Even one’s own soul. The soul knows that we are not separate from each other. We are one. So why should we fear? The soul says ‘there is nothing to fear. Even time or death are but manifestations of our eternal experience.’ Anger, stress, anxiety, doubt, all negativity has fear at their core. Conquer fear and liberation is very close by. So what is fear for? What is the positive aspect to fear? Again, as in previous classes, we can see that a ‘negative’ is being used as a means of change. For some reason we did not get our lesson and so fear is a way of getting us to focus and concentrate. It is a way, an extreme way, to get us to act. When we use fear positively we act. When we are caught negatively by fear, we are paralysed. We hesitate, we do not change and we become imprisoned by our fears. I am sure if you think of something very simple that you fear (e.g. you may be scared of heights) you will see how this process works. You climb up onto the diving board and if you allow yourself to be caught by your fear, you will not be able to jump, you will be paralysed. You will become imprisoned by fear, by anything of any height that you associate with the diving board in the future and that negative energy will be swallowed down expanding that fear. If however, you act, you will jump off the board and move on to the next challenge in your life. If you apply this principle to any negative in your life you will find a similar dynamic. When you are honest with yourself and see what negative qualities you are transforming, ask yourself what type of fear is holding you back. Do you doubt yourself?
Do you lack belief in your convictions? What fear is driving that? Are you
scared to trust your own heart? Do you fear taking a leap of faith? Is it a
fear of change? The answer with fear is to act. Don’t procrastinate or hesitate – act! What happens when we doubt our self? We diminish our own sense of self. We trust others opinion above our own. We don’t put faith in our own experience. We become paralyzed and imprisoned by fear to the extent that we will not act without others’ validation. Conversely if we look at this situation positively and use doubt constructively then we will rationally analyze any leap we are about to make. We might use our doubt to question the action we are about to perform from many angles. Is it safe? What does current science say? What is the opinion of religious scriptures? But over and above all this, what does my heart say? Then act with faith and conviction, either to dismiss it completely or leap. The overwhelming utilization of positive fear is to realize that to transform any negative we must act, not allow it to be swallowed down but allow the energy to be redirected to its own higher form. In this case, we would act rationally by using constructive doubt and then acting until resolution. The higher form of fear is trust and faith and ultimately love. If we did not act and allowed our doubts to make us hesitate or procrastinate or ultimately paralyze us then that fearful energy would be swallowed down and it would ultimately eat away at us. This would make us scared about other choices, lose confidence and trust in our inner feelings and ultimately lose faith in ourselves. Then we begin to hate ourselves and isolate ourselves, look for validation outside of ourselves, get angry easily and so on. For us to be all we can be ultimately all fear must be resolved, or to be more clear, transformed. We evolve the fear to its highest version of itself. It is only the really great life masters that attain this state, but it is for all of us inevitably to achieve. For us, right now, if ever you feel fear, take it as a catalyst to act, an inspiration to go higher with your life, with trust and faith and love in yourself and the universe. Remember that fear has no place in love.
home•
daily meditation
• online classes •
forums • shop • ecards •
join up •
site-map •
contact
|
|||||||||||
