Love & Fear

Love & Fear are our 2 Emotions that govern our State of Mind. It is from our State of Mind that we experience the many different types of Feelings that we have. It is common to confuse our Feelings with our Emotions and we often use these two terms interchangeably.

The first thing to understand is the difference between Emotions & Feelings. When we confuse these two we often see them belonging to our Hearts as opposed to our Mind. This is not accurate, our Feelings belong to our Heart, but it is our Mind that experiences the feelings. Our Emotions sets the parameters in order to experience our Feelings. Our Emotions belongs to our Mind and it is the Emotions that sets our State of Mind in order to experience our FEELINGS. How we experience our FEELINGS tells us the STATE OF OUR MIND (FEAR OR LOVE).

With only 2 Emotions – Love & Fear – it would seem to be a very easy thing to get a handle on, except there are many, many, different levels to these two emotions.

Love:

There are many different levels to Love – Unconditional Love, Conditional Love, Caring for another, Brotherly Love, Motherly Love, Hard Love, Physical Love and as many different levels of Love as we can imagine. The question is what does it all boil down too?

In many Spiritual Traditions the state of Unconditional Love is the state that is desirable. When asked to explain this state, it is often replied with, it is a state that cannot be communicated but must be experienced, and it is a state of bliss. It is the same traditions that tell us that in order to reach this state we must denounce our Ego. This I understand but do not agree with. The Ego I will get to later.

Love is the state of UNION WITH THE WHOLE. It is when we truly feel this state of being a part of the wholeness of everything that is the state of Love. That there is no separation! That there is a lack of the INDIVIDUAL (Ego). It is this state of COMPLETENESS and experiencing the WHOLE and the LOSS OF THE INDIVIDUAL that is a form of BLISS. This is TRUE, but it is not the DESIRED STATE – IT IS A STATE.

In our day-to-day life and in our society as a whole we are all searching for this LOVE. It is a search for BELONGING, ACCEPTANCE, VALUE, CARING, PARTICIPATING and being a part of...

We go about this search for LOVE as if it is a state from outside of ourselves. As if someone else will give it to us, or that we can find it somewhere out there...

We are searching from a STATE OF SEPARATION, from a STATE OF FEAR. It is really difficult to find our CONNECTION TO THE WHOLE from this state of SEPARATION. This is why many Spiritual Traditions teach us to denounce the Ego, to denounce the Individual, the separation.

Fear:

Fear is the Emotional State of SEPARATION, of the INDIVIDUAL. This state too has many different levels attached – Stress, Worry, Loneliness, Victim-hood, Anxiety, Death, Disease, Accidence, Abandonment, and all the worries of our Physical Life. These many levels of FEAR can range from very mild discomfort to paralyzing FEAR for our very Life; they all come from a state of SEPARATION – IT IS A STATE.

We ALL live our Life in this STATE OF FEAR. It you look at our society we are always worried about our SAFETY – seat-belts, helmets, air-bags, smoke alarms, CO2 alarms, even protection from the SUN is a concern and worry. This doesn’t even touch the issue of diseases – Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer, and many others. This does not include how we are always COMPETING with each other and with our ENVIRONMENT (pollutants, pests, virus, etc).

It is from this STATE OF FEAR that we are desperately searching for the STATE OF LOVE. At times this seems like a contradiction in STATES – How can we find the STATE OF LOVE when we are in a STATE OF FEAR? It is this contradiction that causes some Spiritual Traditions to denounce our INDIVIDUALITY (EGO) in order to obtain the STATE OF LOVE. Removing the INDIVIDUAL or EGO removes the STATE OF FEAR and reaching the STATE OF LOVE is much easier to be obtained. This has a very LIMITED RESULT, as if ONE state is better than the other, or that it is necessary to make a choice between the two and obtaining both is not obtainable.

Challenge:

The true challenge is to obtain a balance of these two states (Love & Fear). Many will say that this is not possible, or that balancing the two means that you do not fully appreciate either. I disagree. In fact the two are made to be balanced!

As an example, let’s take the feeling of being ALONE.  When we experience being ALONE from a STATE OF FEAR, we SUFFER from LONELINESS, from a STATE OF LOVE we can APPRECIATE our SOLITUDE. We even have different words to describe being ALONE depending on the STATE OF OUR MIND (Emotion).

The difficulty is that we are looking for the STATE OF LOVE, from a STATE OF FEAR. We need to change our position – we need to look for our STATE OF FEAR from a STATE OF LOVE. It is the STATE OF LOVE that we find our COURAGE to find our STATE OF FEAR.

How we change our PARADIGM:

In our search for LOVE from our position of FEAR is due to our CONSCIOUSNESS being focused on this Physical Realm that we define as our Life. In the last few hundred years we have focused our CONSCIOUSNESS on this Physical Realm and we call it REALITY. Science has forced us to tightly focus our CONSCIOUSNESS here in order to more fully understand how our Physical Environment reacts to each other. This has lead to great advancements in Technology and in our understanding of this Physical Realm and in many ways has EXPANDED our CONSCIOUSNESS of this PHYSICAL REALM. This has come at a PRICE.

Note: Classical Science and Organized Religion started to separate our CONSCIOUSNESS into 2 narrowly focused states (Physical & Spiritual) that we now see as being CIVILIZED. It is the time that these two disciplines became primary that we really moved into this current time of the STATE OF FEAR. For the sake of this article I will refer to the time before Science and Religion as simply “UNCIVILIZED”.

Prior to becoming CIVILIZED we were in a much more UNION with our ENVIRONMENT and with EACH OTHER. We saw ourselves as being a PART of LIFE and that there was much more to LIFE than just the Physical Realm.  In the UNCIVILIZED time the REALITY OF LIFE was seen to consist of 3 REALMS – PHYSICAL, ENERGY AND SPIRIT.  In the ancient time Shamans would communicate with the Spirit of the Plants to learn how best to utilize their properties, today we BELIEVE it was done with” trial & error” but it was not, it was done through SPIRIT. In the ancient times “Curses”, “Charms” and “Protective Amulets” were used and this utilized the ENERGY REALM. Today we think of these things as superstition. With our understanding of this PHYSICAL REALM we need to once again expand our CONSCIOUSNESS to incorporate the ENERGY AND SPIRIT REALMS of REALITY. In the ancient time our BELIEF was much more understood in what connected (LOVE) us to LIFE, and a lot less on the INDIVIDUAL (FEAR). We understood our connection with the WHOLE and the INDIVIDUAL relationship to the WHOLE. THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE LOST!

The NEW SCIENCE is beginning to explore the ENERGY REALM that is often referred to as the FABRIC OF LIFE. In the way of Science we have reached the limit of our expanding CONSCIOUSNESS of this PHYSICAL REALM and are once again expanding our CONSCIOUSNESS to incorporate the ENERGY REALM and at some point the SPIRIT REALM. It is the SPIRIT REALM that WEAVES the FABRIC OF LIFE.

When we truly believe and understand that we are an intricate PART OF THE WHOLENESS OF LIFE, we have found our STATE OF LOVE. It is from this state of LOVE that we can start to explore our INDIVIDUAL role in this LIFE. The state of LOVE gives us the COURAGE to face our FEAR. WE CAN BALANCE THE TWO EMOTIONS OF LOVE & FEAR and truly become WHOLE with BOTH of these STATES.

Blue Apatite Elixir

A friend of mine sent me some feedback on the "Blue Apatite" Elixir that he has been using for a few months time.

I think it is best to use his own words. I will keep his full name private as it honors our confidence.

"You really don't notice it at first. The benefits of the elixir creep up on you. Where you really notice it is when you stop taking it. Within a day or two you ate actually putting more effort into mental activities.

I've tested this back and forth about four times now with the same results. People may have vastly different results but I think it may have something to do with the actual problem solving load they put on their mental process daily.

The teachers and artists are really going to like this stuff." ...Brennan

 I find this type of feedback very helpful in that, my friend has taken the time to evaluate the Elixir over a few months time, not a few weeks, and have tried it a few times with a result that is repeated. I find it very valuable.

Evolver

Last Sunday (Feb. 20) I attended an event with a friend hosted by Evolver and the local spore group that had a discussion on the lack of "Rite of Passage" ceremony in our modern society. I found it very INTERESTING but I found it to go around the MAIN POINT. We talked about addictions, death, adolescence, menstruation, menopause, and a lot of the different stages of LIFE. We talked about COMMUNITY about SUPPORT and about how SOME get stuck in the different STAGES OF LIFE.

There is nothing that I heard during the event that I would disagree with or even to do differently. In ALL of the discussion I never heard any mention of SPIRIT. I do not mean RELIGION or any similar topic, but the realization that LIFE is more than the PHYSICAL. We did mention SHAMANISM and the use of PLANT MEDICINES, but without some anchor in the SPIRIT part of LIFE it is very LIMITING in the benefits.

I believe we need to approach LIFE with a broader understanding than just the PHYSICAL. We can go through these Physical Passages with extreme difficulty when we are only focused on the Physical. In some aboriginal cultures when one comes of age, they are no longer children of the adults that raised them. At this time Father Sky and Mother Earth adopt them, in this way they are never alone. Today we would see this as very SYMBOLIC and of very little real value. In the ancient ways this was more than symbolic, there was a much more REAL relationship with Father Sky and Mother Earth.

It is this RELATIONSHIP that we have lost. We lost this relationship when we abandoned our BELIEF and replaced it with PHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE. For the last 200 years or more we have followed the adage “Knowledge is Power” and this knowledge has replaced our BELIEF. In our haste for knowledge we have demoted our BELIEF to religion and/or superstition. I have been told “Facts are more REAL than Belief”. Do you find it interesting that you can have a number of labeled “Specialists” debating over the interpretation of FACTS? Does this not signify that our FACTS are not as absolute as we may BELIEVE they are?

It is not a matter of one or the other (Knowledge or Belief) both has a critical part to play in our Life, one does not trump another. There is a good example where both have a place to play;

A California medical doctor was in a skiing accident and broke his lower spinal cord. The prognosis was that he would be paralyzed from his waist down, for the rest of his life. He was a medical doctor and knew the medical science and the knowledge that the spinal cord does not heal itself. It was over two years later when the doctor was interviewed on the NEWS because he was actually walking around his doctor’s office visiting his patients. In the interview he was asked how he explained his incredible recovery. The doctor responded “Life always overcomes difficulties” he went on to say “He kept sending the message from his head to his legs ‘to move’ and that LIFE would find a way to connect the message to his legs.” He continued sending the message for 2 years before he had any sign the message was getting through.

What is so amazing with the story of the Doctor is that his BELIEF in LIFE took him beyond the FACTS and the KNOWLEDGE that SCIENCE is consumed with. He knew the SCIENCE and it was his BELIEF that took him beyond that KNOWLEDGE. He kept his BELIEF in spite of the KNOWLEDGE and even with everyone (physiotherapist, other paralyzed patients, friends and co-workers) around him BELIEVING he would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his Life. To keep his BELIEF up even with no sign of him walking again for 2 years, it is truly incredible.

We know that Medical Science has immense value, but when we put all of our BELIEF into this KNOWLEDGE we can only go so far. When we can respect Science for what it can do and we put our BELIEF in LIFE we can do the IMPOSSIBLE. The doctor KNEW the knowledge of medical science and KNEW the limitation of this knowledge, he also had a RELATIONSHIP with LIFE and this RELATIONSHIP was his BELIEF that LIFE always overcomes difficulties.

What has this to do with “Rites of Passage”? When we go through the many different phases of our Life in a strictly PHYSICAL aspect it becomes a lot more difficult. We NEED to have a very fundamental RELATIONSHIP with LIFE and then we can truly appreciate the many different PHASES LIFE has for us, to enjoy. Without this relationship we become fearful of what we are losing and what is ahead. We see our self in isolation and more vulnerable to being a VICTIM OF LIFE, and not a intricate part of LIFE.

It is this RELATIONSHIP WITH LIFE that I found to be missing in the discussion on Sunday (Feb. 20).