Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Love and Fear
The following is an excerpt from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, well known for her work in the field of death and dying, and her co-author,David Kessler:
(from If You Don't Choose Love You Choose Fear)
If we could literally reach into you and remove all your fears – every one of them – how different would your life be? Think about it. If nothing stopped you from following your dreams, your life would probably be very different. This is what the dying learn. Dying makes our worst fears come forward to be faced directly. It helps us see the different life that is possible, and in that vision, takes the rest of our fears away.
Unfortunately, by the time the fear is gone most of us are too sick or too old to do those things we would have done before, had we not been afraid. . .Thus, one lesson becomes clear: we must transcend our fears while we can still do those things we dream of.
To transcend fear though, we must move somewhere else emotionally; we must move into love.
Happiness, anxiety, joy, resentment -- we have many words for the many emotions we experience in our lifetimes. But deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.
It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear. Can you think of a time when you've been in both love and fear? It's impossible.
We have to make a decision to be in one place or the other. There is no neutrality in this. If you don't actively choose love, you will find yourself in a place of either fear or one of its component feelings. Every moment offers the choice to choose one or the other. And we must continually make these choices, especially in difficult circumstances when our commitment to love, instead of fear, is challenged.
Having chosen love, doesn't mean you will never fear again. In fact it means that many of your fears will come up to finally be healed. This is an ongoing process. Remember that you will become fearful after you've chosen love, just as we become hungry after we eat. We must continually choose love in order to nourish our souls and drive away fear, just as we eat to nourish our bodies and drive away hunger.
- By Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler from "Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living"
If It Is Not Too Dark
Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.
Get some fresh air, try to smile.
Say something kind
To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.
Always exercise your heart's knowing.
You might as well attempt something real
Along this path:
Take your spouse or lover into your arms
The way you did when you first met.
Let tenderness pour from your eyes
The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.
Play a game with some children.
Extend yourself to a friend.
Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants -
Why not let them get drunk and wild!
Let's toast
Every rung we've climbed on Evolution's ladder.
Whisper, "I love you! I love you!"
To the whole mad world.
Let's stop reading about God -
We will never understand Him.
Jump to your feet, wave your fists,
Threaten and warn the whole Universe
That your heart can no longer live
Without real love!
Hafiz
(from I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
P. S. from Dorothy--yes, what we yearn for is love--from others, from God, for self, for others, for God. And I think this is what Kundalini can in fact give to us. Even when we do not have a close human partner, we know that we are in fact loved by an inexhaustible divine source, that which gives us life and sustains us and often visits in the form of the Beloved Within. This is what Kundalini in its highest form does--it takes away fear (our sense of inner loss, our neuroses that grow from such fear, our loneliness and despair) and gives us instead a realization of overwhelming acceptance and love from that reality which most matters--the overarching presence of which we ourselves are a part.
(picture from N. M. Rai)
