Greetings,

This has probably been answered but I'm seeking to refresh my understanding 
While exploring the 'higher' planes thru OBE or phasing, when we move beyond what we consciously understand and love, is that when fear sets in?
or
Do we need to be emanating PUL to carry consciousness further into the unknown?
If we are not emanating PUL, can we just have set our intention to bring PUL into the unknown and thereby avoid fear?

(My experience is that since I cannot see and still rarely hear while OBE or phasing, I don't know what or why I'm fearing, but I do return to C1 with a sense of fear. I would like this fear to not happen.)

Bets

I am going along with you both here....it is as if we are afraid of our own "bigness" like a child who is afraid of its own shadow....

lol, blink

Ahhh!!!,

But not all beings in existence or out there, or during an OBE, are benign entities are they? now?

alan

HI,

Just like love there is no single definition of the word 'Fear' We could fill a thousand books with analysis of this frightening word.

Anyway some fear is neccesary and healthy is it not?

alan

My instinct on fear is as above towards what Alysia says - that it always originates in ego or the perception of self. Because we're in reality indestructible, but ego being a C1 construct doesn't know that.

Fear is not a simple issue, or one easily overcome. It's a central issue on the spiritual path since progress entails progressively 'killing' the ego or the belief in an individual independently existing self. It's taught in Buddhism that it's a fallacy to seek to and in fact an impossibility to eliminate fear.

We can sometimes as Alysia says by meditating on it get to what's causing it, and with that insight come to realise that our reason for fearing something makes no sense and so it evaporates. But until realised there will always be situations we can't get underneath, and where we'll get sucked into identifying with our fear as being real.

'Fearlessness' is another acronym for realisation. But even then the reality is not that fear does not arise from time to time, but rather that we've learned to look at it from a higher awareness and consequently not get sucked into believing (identifying with) it. Resulting eventually in equanimity - awareness 'that there is fear', but not being influenced by it. (fearing but not fearing you might say)

Another acronym for ego is that it's the edifice we build to avoid facing our fears - the delusional mind edifice that by using denial, suppression, substitution and so on seeks to keep us with our heads buried in the sand. It never succeeds, these strategies bring their own suffering, and the suppressed fear still eats away at us.

Fear is in this case very widely defined - everything from the bowel loosening totally consuming panic that follows from the worst situation imaginable, right down to the 'something's wrong' gap we feel because we weren't able to have our usual shower or cup of cocoa this evening before going to bed.

The realised person has developed the ability to stay open - to as above connect with their fear, to see what's going down, to go into it, and where they can't unravel the cause to at least acknowledge it without getting sucked into total identification with it.

Closing down presents many dangers. The behaviours above and their like inevitably lead to harm and suffering for self and others. Classic delusions include chasing money and material goods, delusional mind states (e.g  numbness, arrogance, greed, aggression, victim mentalities etc) and a lack of loving kindness (most especially towards oneself, but inevitably as a result towards others). All are harmful 'feel good' compensatory urges which we mistakenly think will assuage the multitude of fears in our lives.

These three categories of delusional behaviours are known as the three Lords in Buddhism, I seem to recall - unless we can transcend them they rule every aspect of our lives....

hi Ian..another way to look at fear is that it is divisive. while love is cohesive.

we often say here where there is PUL, fear cannot be, and if you test this out for yourself, when you're feeling love, you cannot feel fear.

be careful not to limit yourself by beliefs though, because if you are feeling really good, like on a day when you feel love, you might tend to not believe that you can always stay in the feel good place, and so the ego might express in that moment, to look over your shoulder as surely it cannot last. but that too, is just a belief, that you cannot stay there.

when we do explorations out of body, or phasing we are instructed to think of a time when you were relaxed and feeling love for something. a pet, a place that made you feel good, like a vacation spot, there can be many examples where we felt love. then we use the feeling to explore inner space with. it's sure a lot better than thinking, oh rats, I'll never get there because I'm afraid of...feel in the blank...we do this constantly.

I agree with you basically to work with fear. matter of fact I think I've conquered nearly, my fear of driving a long distance on the freeway just by doing it. maybe thats all we need to do is walk into it, then we tend to say, hey, that wasn't so bad as I thought! we just move past it and surprise ourselves. Love has to be worked with also, side by side I think, because when a fear is conquered u end up loving yourself more for doing it.

it sounds to me like it would be so easy to dissociate from the ego by making it a scapegoat. yet thats the same as saying the devil made me do it. wasn't my fault. shucks, darn devil. so what we need to do is talk to the ego like it's a friend. ego always speaks first though, but since you know it does, you can tune into the 2nd voice of wisdom without separating yourself from your ego, which is fear, which is controlling, etc.
maybe we can employ the ego to do what we want it to do, so that it won't feel left out and think you want to kill it.

lol. do u know what I mean?

LaffingRain wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2008 at 11:33pm:


I think this is right. You just kind of talk yourself into the first step is all....after that, your own momentum will get you through. It is possible to consciously let fear drop away unless you are having a panic attack, and, even so, it is possible to learn to recognize -"panic attack"- and not "own" such a thing, if you know what I mean.

We pause for a moment and recognize it, as if it were a buddy of ours, and we can even pat it on the back a little and indulge it for a nanosecond....but this is the purpose of disciplining the mind: we can let it go.

So, fear has no real power. It is something to observe, like all other things...and then we move on.

love, blink

Hi

I am really amazed at the resopnse and interest shown by the forum to that most negative of emotions Fear

alan