What is fear?

April 14, 2005

Fear equals the estimated risk of suffering. In that sense fear is a

guide helping us avoid suffering. But the problem with fear is that it

is itself suffering. Fear prevents flow. The more fear, the more

frozen stiff we become. When we experience fear, the chance of

suffering is 100%! And the problem is that we virtually always

experience fear. The fear may be hidden as a frozen contraction in

body and mind, but it is nevertheless always there.

I have come to believe that fear is what fuels the thinking mind. And

desire is another fuel for the thinking mind. Desire is the

accelerator, and fear is the brake. Thinking happens as a result of

stepping on the accelerator (desire) with full force, while at the

same time Nature is stepping on the brake (fear) with full force. Can

you get a taste of the conflict involved in such behaviour?

The absence of fear would bring about an unbalance in the mind guided

by desires. The world must act in balance and harmony between people.

And only those desires acting in accord with the rest of the world

will be able to uphold such balance. But personal desires are

incapable of functioning in harmony with the world. Why? Because

personal desires are limited to the narrow personal view and personal

knowledge people are equipped with.

Desires are not bad because they are wrong. Desires are bad because

they are limited. Not only are desires limited, they are always the

past trying to repeat itself. There is nothing new in desires, and the

world is ever new. As long as those limited and static desires guide a

person, she or he will always live in a state of fear. You cannot

remove fear without upgrading your desires. And you probably don't

know how to upgrade your desires.

The only way out of fear is to desire what is now. We want change, we

want adventure, and we want fun stuff to happen. Therefore we look

into the future because the now is mostly giving us fear, boredom,

loneliness, despair, restlessness, frustration and hatred. But this is

so only because your desires are limited and unflexible. If your

desires are converted into desiring the now, then fear is not needed,

and new and interesting stuff will happen by itself because the world

is ever new.

When you desire only what is now, then what do you need to be afraid

of? Are you concerned about how you look in the eyes of other people?

Then you are having desires about the future. Then you live in fear.

But is that human?

al.

April 14, 2005

for what it's worth (probably nothing :-)

Without thinking, feeling, seeing,

hearing, remembering...

do you exist? ... or not exist?

There is NO separate 'you' or 'me.' Try to find a me - a separate self -

there isn't one.

Look deeply.

You will soon see that all there is, IS ...

an unshaken unmoveable peace - spaceless -timeless -

unchanging, untouched, invincible, always so.

That, you are.

Welcome.

Only a separate 'me-entity' can suffer.

When you discover there is no separate 'you' the suffering ends in a single

strike of the scimitar of your own Original Nature

Fear depends on an illusory 'person' to be fearful ... thinking about its

'future'

when there is no person there is no concern for a future 'what will happen

to me' ... and, there can be the organism's natural response to a threat to

it's integrity.

a story ...

There once was a sage who lived in a lonely temple high in the mountains. He

was visited one day by a wandering monk. As the two were talking a wild

animal roared close by, and the visiting monk, supposedly Enlightened,

jumped. " I see it is still with you, " said the sage...referring, of course,

to the instinctive " passion " of fright. Shortly afterwards, while he was

unobserved for a moment, the visiting monk inscribed the Chinese character

for the Buddha on the rock the sage was accustomed to sit. When the sage

returned to sit down he saw the sacred Name and hesitated to sit. " I see, "

said the wandering monk, " it is still with you! "

Love,

charlie

www.awakeningtotheeternal.net