Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Fear

“Is fear inherent in the soul, as you said the angels feared the contact with the body?
Fear is a shadow cast upon the light of the soul. And of what is that shadow? That shadow is of something that the soul does not know, something that is strange to it. For instance, take a person near the water who has never learned to swim; he is not acquainted with water, he is not at ease, there is his fear. Another person gets rid of that feeling of strangeness, he knows his own power over the water, he has no more fear. Therefore, fear comes from ignorance. As everyone fears to go in a dark room when he does not know what is there, so the soul in entering the body of clay naturally is frightened.”  Hazrat Inayat Khan

Sometimes people do things that I simply do not understand.  I try to understand but it is not always possible.  And then I get it, they are afraid.  Which is totally understandable.  From the paragraph above we could extrapolate that we begin our journey on the Earth in fear, the fear of the unknown.  I have a very clear memory of that moment when my soul decided to take the plunge and enter into manifestation.  Don’t know how I have it but it is there.  I remember the emotion mostly, one of terror and excitement – wanting the experience yet afraid of the unknown.  That emotion seems to always be there just at the moment of a spiritual breakthrough of some sort.  It is there every time.  Isn’t it strange that we come in with the very emotion that we must constantly face?  
Pir Vilayat often talked about this moment of terror that one must go through before any breakthrough.  He also was fond of saying, “A breakdown can often aver itself into a breakthrough.”  The second part of that was always an explanation about how one must push through the fears that accompany the breakdown in order to discover what it is hiding.  Another thing he was talking about at the end of his life was that if a person does not push through then they go backwards.   I think I feel like a yo-yo.
What seems to happen for most of us is that we will get right up to the point of almost wanting to push through, we will feel that breakdown, that despair or deep disappointment or however it manifests.  We might act it out in some way, causing difficulties for all the innocent bystanders.   And then we back off because we are afraid of the fear, the memory we have of that deep terror/excitement state that precedes the breakthrough.  Then, if Pir Vilayat is to be believed, we go backwards for a time and have to do the work - that got us to the breakthrough place in the first place - all over again.  Yo-yo’s indeed.  
As near as I can tell, this is the way that it is.  If it is any consolation to you, everybody seems to have the same problems.  Maybe knowing it is this way will ease the stress somewhat.  At least you will have a clue what is happening even if you can’t stop the cycle.  
Many Blessings, Musawwir

10 comments:

Teacher Laila Chris said...

Hi!

Thank you for having offered the help I need. I don't know how people can help me at this point. There are some close friends that I can count on just in case. They are close friends but they live very far from where I am. However, I still count on them anyway.

I appreciated though
Laila Chris

Anonymous said...

Fear is showing in your article let go.

Anonymous said...

Do you think that we can avoid the breakthrough and still progress?

In my case I fear terribly the thought of myself in a romantic relationship and so I offer myself many consolations and actually do have a lovely life. Is that enough, or do I need to try?

Of course in writing this I read that perhaps I would decide one day and go do it - though it is not as though I have any prospects, but that is also not completely out of my hands, I could look, but feel only anxiety or disinterest at that thought!

Suriya said...

Caroline Myss says Revolution-Involution-Narcissism-Evolution.

Musawwir said...

Yup, that sounds about right.

Anonymous said...

am I the only one who doesn´t understand this?

Musawwir said...

Tell me what confuses you and I will try to explain. The whole purpose of this blog it to have a conversation, so if you do not understand something you can say so and perhaps some of the other readers will also respond.

Suriya said...

Spot on about fear Musawwir
My shoulder and back were aching, I asked my son to take a look , it turns out to be a whole lot of tension ...don t know what is happening...a lot of anxiety ....

Anonymous said...

The fear of the unknown as archetype. Years ago, I had repeated nightmares about descending stairs into a dark basement. At the foot of the stairs was a small living room type setting with old furniture and such. The basement extended forward into darkness - and fear. I decided to 'direct' the dream - to pursue the darkness. The next time the dream came, I began to walk and then finally to run into the darkness. I ran and ran, heart pounding, sweating. And encountered - nothing. The dream never returned.
In some medicine circle practice, the direction of the north represents, among other things, the wall, the barrier of fear. One meditates on the futility of trying to go around, or over, or painfully thru the wall until one realizes that by absorbing the wall, its strength becomes ones own.

Anonymous said...

Greetings Evereone
Fear is not an easy thing to live with in one's life, unfortunately many people do everyday. Fear can take many forms, some of which i believe as PV says can be overcome by going backwards. These i have had to deal with myself,and am still working on. These are personal fears.
Other fears such as living in a warzone, with the daily threat of death, dismemberment, disease, starvation, well these are not so easy.
Fear however is also used by those in positions of power to lead/coerce us where they will. The propaganda that governments feed to a nation in order to have them conform to their rule! To start a war . . . .
Blessings