Fear

"Maintain the state of un-distractedness and distractions will fly off. Dwell alone and you shall find a friend. Take the lowest place and you shall reach the highest. Hasten slowly and you will soon arrive. Renounce all worldly goals and you shall reach the highest goal."

Milarepa

Fear is the greatest cause of human misery. We hurt because of it, we hate because of it, we kill because of it. A funny thing really considering It's just an electrical impulse, derived in a little place in your mind. And it all occurs because of what we know and what we're taught to believe.

There are some people who choose not to fear. They get to a point in life and wonder what it's all for - the misery is endless or so it seems. In an effort to find relief from it, people "discover" religion and that may help for a while. Religion can be very important. For some it helps a great deal. But history unfortunately has shown us that religion is also based on fear. How does one escape from fear when the very thing we cling to is also part of the disease.

So then, people turn to the last thing that's available. THEMSELVES. 

When I was 21, fed up with depression and angst, I decided to do something to change things for myself. In my practice, I started to notice a very peculiar thing; from ever since I can remember, I have experienced the same fear but in a different way countless times over. There seemed to be a recurring pattern but different actors. This happened with all of my fears. I started working with aphorisms and then read vociferously anything that might help to reduce my fears (and there were loads of them!!). The peculiarity that I mentioned earlier was this: when I worked through a fear and resolved the issue, the actors stopped turning up. The more work I did on myself, the less frightful was my day. In fact when I stopped being afraid of confrontation, no one confronted me. When I stopped caring about how people perceived me, I started feeling safe with those around me, and there was no conflict, no disturbance. A sense of peace started filling the places where fear had once been. And life started to feel good.

So in essence, I guess the main question that you may be asking yourself is "what can I do about my fears?" There is no set formula. There are loads' of techniques, and I found myself using everything I read about. I would try one thing for a while and then when it stopped being as helpful, I would try something else. I found that it was really important to try and go directly to the root of the problem. This meant trying to remember what happened in my past, especially as a child - "why am I afraid of authority figures?" (well, that big old man screamed at me when I was 5 years old, and told me that he'd tell my parents I was being a bad boy....!! ....you get the picture?) Once I'd figured out the reason, I would try to experience it in my mind again try and feel afraid like I did then. And then I could say to myself, "I can accept this, this fear is OKAY". If that didn't work so well, I would perhaps try Self Enquiry. This is asking yourself, "who is feeling this fear?" You'd respond "I am". Then you ask yourself "Who am I?" Then try repeating the "I" in your head. This actually brings your mind into the present, and brings a resolution to your fear.

Don't worry though if you're not able to achieve both of these straight away. I like to think of fear almost like thinking of a big bowl of jelly beans. Many flavours to get through. Imagine you want to use the bowl for some other purpose. You must take each bean, each fear, one by one. You hold it in your hand, look at it's colour, feel it's shape and then bite into it, swallowing it completely. You have to experience the texture of each fear before it can be resolved. The good new is, that once it's sorted, you never have to worry about it again. The more space in the bowl, the easier it is to see inside. When the bowl is empty, you have the power to do anything you want with it.

But a few ground rules. Firstly, your mind hates the idea of it losing control. (It thrives on fear!) It will try everything to get you to lose interest in helping yourself (it thinks it knows best) So many times in my practice, I have thought to myself, "I'm just wasting my time doing this, nothing's happening, I'm still getting angry or frustrated" or "maybe I should wait and do this tomorrow when it might work better".... blah blah blah.... The truth is, THE NEXT THING YOU DO TO HELP YOURSELF IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL EVER DO IN YOUR LIFE! Everything and I mean everything makes a difference regardless of how small. Irrespective of what your mind tells you, YOU CAN ACHIEVE WHAT YOU WANT TO! You have that Power!! 

I mentioned once before in one of the other discussions that your fears' are like a class full of students, all with their hand raised. All it takes is for you, the teacher, to go into the classroom and look at each pupil, say their name and answer their question truthfully. When each student has had their question answered and has lowered their hand, you can then sit back in your chair and bask in the peace, knowing that you have nothing else to do!

Prayer is something that is really important in this process. I will say this again in other discussion topics (repeat it verbatim in fact!!). Prayer is asking for help. There is a good reason for the quotation "ask and you shall receive". Especially if you have chosen to remove your negative thoughts, help will always be forthcoming. And the most amazing, beautiful thing is that the further along the path you get, the more you remove, the quicker your prayers are answered. I say quicker because at the beginning of our work, we tend to put up a lot of barriers to us receiving help - the main one being "no one's gonna help me!!" (sound familiar?). Tell yourself "I believe that I WILL receive help" (say it lots!) or "I deserve to Receive help" (say that one lots too!!). 

Help is forthcoming from all of those Saints and Mystics and Gurus that have gone before us - Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Sri Ramana Maharshi, St Francis of Assisi, Mohammed, etc. They WILL hear your call and they WILL respond. You can TRUST IN THAT!!

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