Learn
about the origin of the thinking style of fear and attack,
how
it is a manifestation of the belief in separation and
how
it leads to limited experience in life
Introduction
In the Intro
to Part 3, I stated that our illusions of limitation are a natural
consequence of having come into physical form. But we are
not meant to remain mired in the muck of illusion. All
of the combined illusions of man's separation since the beginning
of time form what is often referred to as mass consciousness.
It is the dense energy of fear and limitation, what I refer
to as the muck. We shouldn't complain about the muck; it's just
part of the range of thought, providing us choices and opportunities
to come to better know ourselves. We should, however, try
to recognize the muck for what it is, since most of our problems
arise from the fact that we are unaware of its effects upon our
experience.
I would like
you to see how everything that we consider to be part of life-the
conflicts and struggles and distresses--are simply one version
of how it can be. It's like being in a funhouse with distorted
mirrors and perspectives and scary images. If we were raised
in such a giant funhouse (where it was our whole world), we would
adapt and think that is the way life is. Well, this life where
we see limitation and powerlessness is really no different. It's
an illusion. Immersed in the muck energy, it just feels like
that's the way life is. The illusion of mass conscious
thinking is held together with cords of ideology, dogma and conventional
thinking. The problem with these kinds of beliefs is that
they bring with them not just an assertion that they are right,
but a "certitude" that they are. When we are
certain that it's one way, we cut ourselves off from all other
possibilities.
Importance
of being aware of harmful beliefs
There
are two perspectives, inner and outer. Respectively, there are
thoughts of love (inner) and thoughts of fear (outer); truth
(inner), illusion (outer); our divine god-self (inner), our false
self--personality, self of the world (outer). Our life is totally
construed according to which of these perspectives we focus upon
or "come from". Each represents an approach to
living and being. Are we going to live according to truth
(our higher selves) and thereby live powerfully unlimited creative
lives or according to our separated selves, in bondage, limited
by our worldly reality)? In this part, we are examining
the realities of living from the latter perspective and the manifestations
of limitation and attack that stem from the fear thoughts inherent
to it.
If we are
perfect expressions of God, we often wonder why it is that we
seem to not experience a life we imagine would be consistent
with that reality. Why do we continue to swim in the mucky
energy of limited thinking? It seems we're not making a
connection between the idealism of our teachings and our real
world experience. It's as though we're saying that our
teachings are "up there" and my day to day real life
is down here. There's a gap. It seems to be that
we don't step out of the muck long enough to look objectively
at what we're in. If we did, we'd be more inclined to rise
out of it and begin living differently, ceasing to fight against
the things outside. What follows is an effort to bridge
that gap.
Nature
Of Fear Energy
The muck
exists. It's just a natural outgrowth of diversity of thought.
It is the humdrum mix of limited beliefs of mass consciousness
routinely repeating, over and over. They are urging us, judging
us, tempting us and pressuring us to feel unworthy, guilty, angry,
outraged, jealous, resentful and defeated. And as we buy
into it, we become mired, living the same old routine experiences
that result. For the most part, the muck is fear energy,
the opposite of love. It is the outer stuff of the world.
If it were love, we would experience it as light, joy,
magnetic power. When we stay in the muck however, we are
concerned with others, always sticking our noses into their business,
judging them, worrying about what they're doing or thinking,
worrying about how we stack up compared to them, wondering if
we are acceptable to them, agonizing about how they've hurt us.
Our egos convince us that this is life, the only way it
can be. But that's not true; we don't have to buy into any of
it.
We forget
that we are eternal beings, part of the whole of Universal Subconscious,
individualized into this physical expression in order that the
whole may experience itself. That experiencing can only
occur through comparison to what it is not. Mass consciousness,
with its range of thoughts of fear, attack and limitation, provides
the contrast and the opportunities to learn and evolve toward
thoughts of love. When we indulge in fear thoughts (an
error), the effect is undesirable experience. We are supposed
to learn from that (like touching a hot flame) and pull away
toward better thoughts. But erroneously thinking the muck
is just the way life is, we participate, playing its silly and
often nasty games. As bad as it feels, we choose it over
love. We actually get vicarious thrills from the attack
games (directed toward ourselves as well as others) and become
addicted to the dramas, yet never really experiencing any peace
of mind or joy. It's as though we're hypnotized. The
tragic part of this is that by participating, we deny ourselves
the opportunity to experience the magnificent life that a powerful
aware expression of God should experience.
We rise out
of this morass by simply waking up and becoming objective observers.
It's not productive to oppose mass conscious thoughts. Opposition
is just another way of participating in it. Rather, through
your observations, you can become more aware of options. Then
you can simply choose to focus upon more enlightened thoughts.
If you maintain focus upon what you want, you'll not draw
into your experience the undesirable ideas within mass consciousness.
Quite simply, they will not be attracted to you. Just
a reminder-everything is energy and like attracts like.
Moving
Toward Awareness
We don't
increase awareness through avoidance. Many so-called New
Age teachings / teachers, conscious of the fundamental truth
that we get what we give our attention to, seem to take an avoidance
approach about the unpleasant expressions of fear. This
is understandable. But avoidance is as much a focus of attention.
We can't run from or push away that in our lives which
we don't like. We do much better by bringing all of this
fear stuff out and laying it on the table where we can view it
objectively. Only through increasing awareness, does it
lose its hold over us. Seeing it for what it is, we will
soon lose our taste for it-even become bored with it. I'm
talking about breaking our emotional involvement through awareness.
As an example, in my particular sport of choice--skydiving,
we make ourselves aware of incidents that have led to problems
(for others and / or ourselves) so that we might choose to make
corrections in our own actions or equipment and to recognize
situations should they occur to us. Then we turn our focus toward
fun-not fear. We don't become emotionally attached to (fearful
of) problems that have occurred. Our awareness improves
our experience.
One of the
most fundamental metaphysical Principles is that of objective
observation. It is wise to begin now to observe your habitual
thinking and the experiences your thinking brings. For example,
one can't attack others as being wrong, rationalizing it as just
personal opinion, and not expect to experience that attack energy
coming back to him. With the awareness that comes with
objective observation, you will recognize that the "coming
back" phenomenon is just part of how the universe works.
You can't just condemn others for doing things that your
religion prohibits and say, "I'm just following God's will".
God's will - God as Universal Subconscious Mind that is - is
never about condemnation. As we look at the sort of unsavory
thinking that motivates attack, you may think of people to whom
that applies and then feel anger or outrage. The whole
point is to realize that these reactions are part of our own
conditioned tendency to attack back. Following the tendency
is a choice that only harms us. But awareness of the tendencies
must precede if we are to rise above them. So be warned,
this is a very candid, even blunt description of the manifestations
of fear energy. If you wish to be the expression of Infinite
Mind that you are, you must make a choice to move away from limited
thinking. And by the way, we should not blame ourselves
or feel guilty that we have been lost in the muck. The fact that
you are reading this is testament to the fact that you have decided
to follow the light of truth and move from the illusion.
A
Matter Of Certitude--Thinking Style Of Separation
The separated
individual, entranced with the illusions of his ego feels insecure.
He seeks to relieve the resulting tension by closing out
"other". For example, let's say that someone
is raised to believe or otherwise has come to believe certain
things and he has a strong conviction that those beliefs are
the only way (they could be political or religious beliefs).
Then, in order to relieve the stress he experiences when he's
confronted with ideas that conflict, he develops ruses to close
them out. He begins, consciously or not, to utilize faulty
thinking patterns which are expressed in a variety of ways.
Psychology refers to these as defense or coping mechanisms.
The more strongly we hold beliefs, the more assertively we hold
that we are right. We protect ourselves from threats to
our personal take on reality by attacking the opposing ideas.
The ego always wants to protect its idea of who we are;
opposing ideas have the potential for throwing that into question.
Being
Right
We utilize
the defense mechanisms to negate the feelings of vulnerability.
For the separated individual, the compulsion to avoid ambiguity
is powerful. He closes himself within the fortress of his perception
of reality and of who he is, locking out inconsistent ideas.
The walls of the fortress are built with the insistence
of his rightness, and, of equal importance, the wrongness of
others.
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Perspectives of God Series 
