In my understanding of Life, there are two emotions, two motivating factors, two ways of living. One is Love - which I consider to be the creative power, the expanding energy, the nurturing source of all that I call comfortable and good. The other is fear, which is at the root of all lack, limitation and resistance - those emotions and activities which I consider to be negative in nature.
In Reality, there is actually only Love - for just as darkness is not a force of itself, but merely the absence of light and cold is simply the absence of heat, fear is what happens when I believe in the absence of Love. Fear, and all of its attendant emotions of anger, jealousy, mistrust, helplessness, hopelessness and the like, can only exist when one is disconnected from a sense that there is Love, wholeness, truth in the world.
We live in a world where fear and mistrust are everywhere around us. From commercials on television to articles on the internet, we are told there is something wrong with us, there is something wrong with everyone around us, and anyone unlike “us” is the enemy. Love seems to be the farthest thing from anyone’s mind, and it is the only thing that can bring us back to sanity.
What causes an individual to move so deeply into fear that they become a danger to people around them - and to themselves? “Why” is really a crazy-making question, because there is never one, easy, direct cause to any situation. Everything is complex in nature - and still we cannot look at fear and try to fix it with more fear, anymore than we can fight a fire by adding more fuel to it.
There is a Biblical quote that affirms “perfect Love casts out fear.” It does not say more fear or bigger fear casts out fear. It does not say punishment casts out fear. It does not say hatred casts out fear. Only love has the power to do that, and still we want to get the last word - to make sure that everyone gets justice - but what we mean by justice is often simply retribution.
The great teacher of 2000 years ago said “they will know you are my followers because you love one another.” I think we need to remember that injunction to love. Now, more than ever, Love is the answer. Even when it makes no sense. Especially when it makes no sense. So, slowly but surely, I am finding my way from fear, to Love - I am finding my way to wholeness as I survey the world around me and see past the experience to its essence, which has always been Love - though often cleverly disguised.
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2 comments:
Thank you for the reminder about how love and fear are two sides of the same coin and as such we can toss that coin into the ether and call the side that will allow us to grow, to move forward, to take our particular path or Joseph Campbell would say, to follow our bliss. Why do we humans work so hard and take the more difficult, the more dramatic road paved with fear? The path of least resistance is love, it is what opens doors, it is the energy that leads us to oneness with the ever expanding and loving Universe.
Thank you for the reminder about how love and fear are two sides of the same coin and as such we can toss that coin into the ether and call the side that will allow us to grow, to move forward, to take our particular path or Joseph Campbell would say, to follow our bliss. Why do we humans work so hard and take the more difficult, the more dramatic road paved with fear? The path of least resistance is love, it is what opens doors, it is the energy that leads us to oneness with the ever expanding and loving Universe.
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