Friday, January 9, 2009
Fear versus Love Email Quote
I received the email text below immediately following my last post! It was so appropriate to my experience in Alaska, I choose to post it here to share with all of you. If "LQ" will email me, I will be certain to give them full credit as this is a beautiful piece:
"Fear is the great designer of dualism, evoking unbalanced perspective, uninformed reason, and irrational response. British philosopher Bertrand Russell said, “Neither a man, nor a crowd, nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
Fear builds walls that block the light which illuminates rational thinking. Fear is contracting – it cuts us off from our natural inclination toward compassion, enthusiasm, and awe. Fear cries out for boundaries, divisions, compartmentalization, and absolutes. Fear causes us to isolate ourselves from the unknown and unfamiliar because we assume them unmanageable and threatening. Fear separates us from the inherent bounty of life on this amazing planet, blocking the joy of our natural alliance with one another, and distracting us from the wonder of our innate biological kinship with Nature. When we are in fear, we focus all our attention on mostly-imagined points of danger, and lose our capacity to find courage, sanity, and peace within ourselves – the very things that make life rich and joyful. Perhaps this is why, in the New Testament, the phrase "be not afraid" is so often repeated.
Someone once described FEAR as an acronym: False Expectations Appearing Real.
Love is the opposite of fear. Love is the grand enabler of unity, casting out fear, dissolving boundaries, uniting divisions, coalescing compartments, placing absolutes into appropriate context, and helping us recognize that control is an illusion. Love is expansive. It offers understand that we share far more similarities than differences, and that even our differences are merely variations on the same theme.
Rephrasing the Creed of Senica Elder "White Eagle Medicine Woman," love reminds us that Mother Earth is our country, humanity our people, life our religion, gratitude our prayer, and freedom our birthright. Love brings clarity, understanding, and a sense of safety by enabling us to recognize all people as our allies, the Earth as our doting Mother, and a wise and loving Divine Creator as our benefactor and teacher, each providing everything we need – water, food, shelter, raw materials, beauty, companionship, affection, appreciation, wisdom – in abundance, given freely for the benefit of all humanity.
Choose love. Try repeating the phrase, "Be not afraid," to yourself as you walk through your day. Don’t allow your mind to imagine awful things that haven’t happened. When something difficult occurs, stifle the inclination to connect it to other things you found difficult – doing so forms a “pattern of negativity” in your mind and adversely affects your expectations of life experience. Avoid talking in divisive terms like "us" versus "them." Be present for loved ones who are frightened. Make a conscious effort not to be distracted from what you CAN do, by your fear of what you can’t do. When you are afraid of not having enough, focus on your feelings of gratitude for how much you have. Remember that fear is a natural emotion. It's best to face it so it doesn’t get the better of you. Examine it, name it, test it, and replace it with love and compassion for yourself and others. Choose love.
I wish you a joyful day of loving kindness.
Warm blessings, LQ :)"
Let go of Fear and replace it with it's opposite--LOVE. As I said earlier, Love is all there is...everything is love. God is love, I am god, therefore I am love...
Namaste!
love light & hugs
leslie
"Fear is the great designer of dualism, evoking unbalanced perspective, uninformed reason, and irrational response. British philosopher Bertrand Russell said, “Neither a man, nor a crowd, nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
Fear builds walls that block the light which illuminates rational thinking. Fear is contracting – it cuts us off from our natural inclination toward compassion, enthusiasm, and awe. Fear cries out for boundaries, divisions, compartmentalization, and absolutes. Fear causes us to isolate ourselves from the unknown and unfamiliar because we assume them unmanageable and threatening. Fear separates us from the inherent bounty of life on this amazing planet, blocking the joy of our natural alliance with one another, and distracting us from the wonder of our innate biological kinship with Nature. When we are in fear, we focus all our attention on mostly-imagined points of danger, and lose our capacity to find courage, sanity, and peace within ourselves – the very things that make life rich and joyful. Perhaps this is why, in the New Testament, the phrase "be not afraid" is so often repeated.
Someone once described FEAR as an acronym: False Expectations Appearing Real.
Love is the opposite of fear. Love is the grand enabler of unity, casting out fear, dissolving boundaries, uniting divisions, coalescing compartments, placing absolutes into appropriate context, and helping us recognize that control is an illusion. Love is expansive. It offers understand that we share far more similarities than differences, and that even our differences are merely variations on the same theme.
Rephrasing the Creed of Senica Elder "White Eagle Medicine Woman," love reminds us that Mother Earth is our country, humanity our people, life our religion, gratitude our prayer, and freedom our birthright. Love brings clarity, understanding, and a sense of safety by enabling us to recognize all people as our allies, the Earth as our doting Mother, and a wise and loving Divine Creator as our benefactor and teacher, each providing everything we need – water, food, shelter, raw materials, beauty, companionship, affection, appreciation, wisdom – in abundance, given freely for the benefit of all humanity.
Choose love. Try repeating the phrase, "Be not afraid," to yourself as you walk through your day. Don’t allow your mind to imagine awful things that haven’t happened. When something difficult occurs, stifle the inclination to connect it to other things you found difficult – doing so forms a “pattern of negativity” in your mind and adversely affects your expectations of life experience. Avoid talking in divisive terms like "us" versus "them." Be present for loved ones who are frightened. Make a conscious effort not to be distracted from what you CAN do, by your fear of what you can’t do. When you are afraid of not having enough, focus on your feelings of gratitude for how much you have. Remember that fear is a natural emotion. It's best to face it so it doesn’t get the better of you. Examine it, name it, test it, and replace it with love and compassion for yourself and others. Choose love.
I wish you a joyful day of loving kindness.
Warm blessings, LQ :)"
Let go of Fear and replace it with it's opposite--LOVE. As I said earlier, Love is all there is...everything is love. God is love, I am god, therefore I am love...
Namaste!
love light & hugs
leslie
