Someone recently asked me to explain why fear contradicts Love, why they can't coexist in the same place at the same time. I gave a brief answer but it was inadequate. For once I was lost for words! I know the answer from experience, but for some reason I'm having trouble articulating. I think this person is looking for an explanation that goes beyond "Fear is the opposite of Love" and False Evidence Appearing as Real. Thoughts?

Bob

You know what Bob, I was thinking about this and spirit just told me that it's one of the many Universal Laws.  It's impossible to have fear if one has Pure Unconditional Love in their heart (chakra). It just is.

With Love,
Mairlyn   ;D

You knew WHO it was who asked me that, don't you! (Please don't say).

Love,

Bob

;D - back!

Okey dokey. ;-)

I don't have much of an answer, but I used to meditate on this thing about fear, that there wouldn't be enough money..and an affirmation about abundance...
I found throughout my life I had a belief that there was lack of prosperity. along with the belief with fear around it I observed lack everywhere.
then later I started focusing that I didn't care about things, only to know what love was, and win-win situations. the fear receded about the lack everywhere. I even started seeing myself as a happy bag lady. :D
there may have not been enough money to go around in my circle of family and friends, but I found there was enough love to go around as it didn't have a measure on it, like a weekly paycheck does. when u have a love of life inside it starts to grow like money in the bank draws interest too, love draws interest slowly and this replaced my idea of what abundance means. fear is in degree, all the way to panic states, but with a focus or interest in this love thing, fear recedes slowly until all of it goes away, all the little fears as well, like being afraid of bugs, even that goes away to feel love of whatever, more and more, it seems to be our natural heritage to have our being this way. yet sadness can still be felt, and I'm not sure if this sadness is also the remnants of fear which needs to be replaced with faith. I don't think it's normal to cry in a commercial on TV!!! ::)
however, the love is existant right along with the grief of it all so I am thrilled to be alive during this shift in consciousness, growing right along with the rest of you!
love, alysia

Thanks, Alysia. I never have a problem understanding what you write.

Love,

Bob

Bob,

After rightly embracing the biblical dictum, "Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 5:18)," the New Age movement has turned it into the simple-minded cliche, "Fear is the opposite of love."  This cliche overlooks the variety of positive fears--reverential awe, fear of failing those in great need, fear that unleashes courage, etc.  There is no courage without danger and danger evokes fear.   The highest form of love is courageous in a way that transforms fear into this marvelous virtue.   The quality of love can actually be elevated by certain types of fear.

The kind of fear that love expels is the type that either immobilizes constructive action or puts us in a selfish survival mode.   Fear in this sense blocks progress in astral exploration and can even attract negs.  True love takes risks and therefore expels the type of fear that either plays it safe or focuses only on self-interest.  I love the title of Jampolsky's book, "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway."

Another simplistic cliche is: "all hate is fear-based. " It is politically correct to say hatred of gays is fear-based homophobia and that such bigots must be insecure in their masculinity.   This cliche is a dangerous oversimplification of the variety and complexities of hatred.   Some so-called homophobes are very secure in an overly macho sense of masculinity, but hate gays on the basis of an unholy alliance of their concept of perversion and their intolerance of diversity.  

A third related cliche is: "Hate is the opposite of love."  In fact, love and hate often stare at each other over a very thin fence.  Prior to his conversion, St. Paul hated Christians with a violent passion fueled by a clear conscience.  He took delight in beating, jailing, and killing Christians.  But after his blinding light encounter with Christ on the Damascus road, this passion was transformed into as intense a loving devotion as the world has ever seen.  

In his encounter with Christ during his NDE, Howard Storm is in effect told that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.   Or put differently, indifference is the most spiritually debilitating form of hatred.  The latter point reflects an Aramaic linguistic mindset that helps authenticate the legitimacy of Storm's Christ.

Of course these are just my views.

Don

An interesting subject.

It seems to me that sometimes I can feel a multitude of emotions at the same time.  Sadness, laughter -- really, some of the things we are sad about are truly funny when seen in a certain light.

I think we can hold conflicting ideas and emotions in our hearts and minds and that we do it all the time if we are open to the expression of our entire selves. It's kind of exciting to open our hearts completely to all that is there.

But, back to the funny part.  Just today I was trying to buy my husband a Christmas card after almost 15 years of marriage.  None of them say the right thing for someone right in the center of a mid-life crisis! :)  They really don't!!!!

"Blah, blah, blah, blah, love,
blah, blah, blah, blah, love,
forever, blah, blah, perfect, blah blah,
always, blah, blah...."

I think I might hate Christmas....

Life is so complicated and tiring sometimes that I think we just shut a lot of it down at times but we are so multifaceted as humans here.

I do think we can feel fear and many other things and still decide to deliberately act out of love, kind of like jumping off a cliff.  

Here goes!!!!

love, blink

Hi Blink, probably off topic here, but the older I get (my birthday was 2 days ago) more off topic....the older I get the more off topic I seem to get ::)

going off what u said, about hating xmas..never been one to keep up with what holiday is approaching that I must express the usual behavior of candy or gift or card etc. its my kids make me do it, so I am with holiday cheer for them....
now, if I did have a husband who was also in mid life crisis..I should be very worried :'( and have to be creative then. I suppose if you have a printer with your puter, you could make your own card? that sounds like fun actually. anyhoo I hope your family is with much good cheer this season and all year long. love, alysia

and I agree with Don for once ;) indifference is such a bitch......definetely indifference is not loving.

lol...I typed a bad word and "pregnant dog" came up! har!

Very very off-topic.  But what the heck!

Yes, creativity!!!  But you see, my mid-life crisis has made me suddenly and perversely completely averse to the entire Christmas hoopla.

I waited until Friday to buy my first gift.  I was kind of depressed and "indifferent" and I have to say that it was amazingly useful in a way.

I went into the mall and walked around for a while and picked up things right and left with hardly a thought in my head.  Amazingly, they were just the right gifts.  Something about "not caring" made my feet walk right to the perfect gifts and my arms reach out and and take them without even wondering for one second if it was "right" or "perfect" enough.

So, maybe a little depression and indifference isn't such a bad thing!!!!

I'm always learning....and thanks for being there, Alysia.

with love, blink

Don,

I think the difference between the New Age cliche and the biblical dictum is the difference between accuracy and precision. I don't think these are oppositional or contradictory.

Did St Pual actually kill Christians? I have understood that he was present at the stoning of St. Stephen, the first martyr, but no one was sure whether or not he actually participated (cast stones) and I haven't heard about him being personally responsible for the deaths of any Christians.

That post was great. Thanks.

Bob

Hi Bob,
if love has something to do with interest and care, then it would be contradictive (I don't say contrary/opposed) to fear, as fear of something usually doesn't include an examination of the object of the fear, but keeping a not changing image of that object, or influenced by this, to see additional aspects, but only fear-related aspects of the object of fear. For example, in the case of fear of foreigns it is often reported that becoming known and familiar of the foreign people reduces this kind of fear.
When someone is in the woods, not armed, and a not friendly bear is around, and one get interested in the bear, what is it doing, how is it doing, what's a bear's life about etc... the fear would go away; well IF you can manage thinking like that! It seems to work only if one is in the process of this way of thinking; because when you come to the conclusion that the bear is actually and really dangerous- well, then one is in fear or one tries again to get into a state of interest, care, understanding. Don't know if that would prevent from being eaten. But better to become a meal without fear than with.
Bye, Spooky

Bob,

If you just read the story of Stephen's stoning, you might wonder if Paul was just a complicit bystander.  But Acts 9 makes it clear that he spear-headed the persecution of Christians, and rherefore, likely organized Stephen's murder:

"And Saul [= Paul] STILL breathing threats and MURDER against  the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogue at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem (9:1f.)."

Relevant here is a neglected early second century Jewish Christian work called "The Ascents of James."  The Christian community producing these traditions never forgave Paul for his pre-Christian brutality.  The Ascents of James never mentions Paul by name but always designates him "the enemy."   It narrates incidents like this: One day Jesus' brother James was teaching on the Temple steps.  Paul organized a gang of goons to beat up his audience.   Paul even grabbed James and through him down the flight of stairs.

Mel Gibson is missing a great chance to tell a story that has never been told well cinemetically.   Mel should tell the little known story of Paul's early life and how he sincerely viewed Christians as a menace that needed to stamped out.   The movie should incorporate biblical stories of his persecutions with the lurid tales of the Ascents of James.   Paul apparently never met Jesus, but was in Jerusalem at the same time as Jesus.   Mel could take creative licence by including stories of encounters between Jesus and Paul's acquaintances, some of whom were horrified by Jesus and others deeply moved by him.  The movie should build to the climax of his unexpected vision of Jesus, his temporary blindness, his early fearful attempts to share his faith, and his fearful flight in confusion to the Arabian wilderness.   Then his belief system shattered, he simply goes home to Tarsus and resumes his career as a tent-maker.   It is only Barnabas's loving pursuit of him there and his tireless efforts to convince Jesus' disciples that Paul is not faking it to gain intelligence that finally put him in good standing.  Then, with Barnabas at his side, Paul launches out on the missionary tour that changed the world, this time with great courage.  It can be argued that, without Paul, Christianity would never have become a world religion.  Done correctly, a movie on his early life could be incredibly powerful.

Don

Yes, I do feel strangely compelled to finish my Christmas rant right here on this thread.  It's probably wrong and makes me a little afraid, but I know you all love me....:)

One thing I noticed was that my "indifferent" shopping was a little like a retrieval!  The slight indifferent edge made the "travel" easier from one item to the other.  Lacking "fear" (because I just didn't care enough) somehow made the process easier instead of harder.  There was a "blank" in my head because I had no idea what gifts I was going to buy, just like the open-mindedness with which a person will start a retrieval exercise. The gifts were then "retrieved" for my loved ones with relative ease.

My "indifferent" shopping experience to give my loved ones the commercial tokens of my love made me think a little bit.  It was interesting how "not caring" made the choosing and even the satisfaction of my gift buying better.  Normally I will fret a little and be "fearful" that I am not choosing the "right" gifts or they are "too expensive" or "too cheap."

You see, at least here in the United States, if it hasn't reached your part of the world, we are trained at an early age through commercials on television and a myriad other ways to be very afraid if we are not the "perfect" consumer that we were "born" to be.

It is instilled deeply within our psyches at a very early age until what is supposed to be a "magic" time of Santa, celebration of Christ, or simply a midwinter festival becomes a maddening search for materialistic fulfillment.

Anyway, it's all mixed together for us, the fear and the love.  Fear of not being the "perfect" consumer.  Fear of not showing our "materialistic" love in the perfect way.  This teaching that we are all exposed to is lesson of "lack" and contributes to a basic insecurity (or fear).

However, if we have food to eat and loved ones in our lives (like this forum, imperfect as each of us are!) we have quite a lot.  

And even if we "know" that fear of "lack" is all an illusion, for some of us it is difficult to let go of a belief system like this. It is tied to primitive notions of survival at a very young age.  What makes it even worse is that we are also "taught" through advertising and cultural conditioning that we won't be "loved" unless we adhere to impossible standards of materialism.  It is a "lose-lose" situation for everyone....

So, I guess I don't really want to be fully engaged in that cultural tradition.  Perhaps a little holiday depression and indifference is a HEALTHY reaction to it all.  What do you think?

I guess that's all I wanted to say, in my own simplistic way today.  I feel much better now, so thank you all.  Just being able to share this with you has helped me a lot.

May the spirit of love and the real meaning of the holidays, which are about family and community ties, and sharing love, be with all of us.

blinik

Rant away please and don't be shy... ;D

Hi Blink,
your report reminded me of the difference of attempting retrievals 1. "into the blue", 2. "on demand", to retreive or meet a certain person.

In the second variant is much pressure, fear of failing, "but I promised it", the exhausting verification process etc. That's why I do this very rarely. (Sceptics will probably eat me now...)
Spooky

Yes, these are two completely different approaches, Spooky.  

"On demand" creates a kind of intrinsic stress because of the desire to help someone here in our environment.  Instinctively, I can only imagine approaching that from by giving myself more than one "shot" at it.  This way I am relieved of the stress of trying to get all the information in one go.  Do you approach it that way?  

blink

Yes, Blink, I had several sessions when I tried to contact a friend's friend who passed away some years ago. I gave myself time enough. In this case, we've got one very good hit, some quite good ones and much infos which may fit with the personality of the deceased person. However, I feel I put myself under pressure with this kind of aim; I would like verifications, but this is probably the cause why I fear of fail and that is of course not conducive to afterlife-traveling.
Oh, this contact finally lead into a sort of retrieval from a region where they were permanently demonstrating against the evil in the world and against the political leaders.

Well, I finally got all christmas presents, yes, I am also infected with this ritual. Another thing: Especially when it's Christmas, meeting with family in the nicely decorated room, the fear is growing that something could destroy this cozy idyll- someone could die or injured etc...turning back to Bob's thread, seems my love isn't strong enough to blow the fear away! Oh well, I think I've got it, holiday depression...
Wish to be freed of having aims, special dates, all what is soo important and what reaaly counts! Wanna break free!
(Sorry people)

Spooky

Hi Blink and Spooky..if someone asked me to do a retrieval personally, I would tell them I may need as much as two weeks (back then, as was new at it) then if my first outing didn't work I could try again.

just my way of working it. for the first few days I'd just set intention by reminding myself I was going to try. this seem to just build up the energy/thought around it, to get rid of fear of failure. also during first few days I would imagine I was talking to guides about the intention..asking them to help me to help another...
it was like set intention..then release. set intention...then release..then finally plunge into it head first....dive in...
some interesting developments by setting intention only!
just sharing..anyone who wants to eat me can have a little nibble if they want! ha ha!
just kidding around. you know retrievals, definetely, a two way street.
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