"People who understand the true nature of reality, those whom some traditions call enlightened, lose all sense of fear or concern. All worry disappears." ~ Deepak Chopra from The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
Fear. How's your relationship to it?
As Deepak says in his great book, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, when we gain an understanding of the true nature of reality, we lose all sense of fear.
Isn't it amazing how easily we can get swept up by this fear and that fear? Remarkable actually. And, we KNOW that being overwhelmed by these fears is a one-way ticket to a lifetime of regret, but for some reason it can still be so hard to do anything about it...
Time to tap into the wisdom of some of my favorite teachers!
Emerson tells us: "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." And pleads with us to "Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do." And assures us: "Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain."
Hafez: "Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions."
Paulo Coelho (from The Alchemist): "There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."
Abraham Maslow (from his study of self-actualizing individuals): "It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually."
The Roosevelts (first Eleanor then Franklin): "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face." And "The only thing to fear is fear itself."
Frank Herbert (from Dune): "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
Wallace Wattles (the author of The Science of Being Great from his great little book The Science of Being Great): "You can never become a great man or woman until you have overcome anxiety, worry, and fear. It is impossible for an anxious person, a worried one, or a fearful one to perceive truth; all things are distorted and thrown out of their proper relations by such mental states, and those who are in them cannot read the thoughts of God."
Shakespeare: "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
Michael Jordan: "There was never any fear for me, no fear of failure. If I miss a shot, so what?"
Fyodor Dostoevsky: "Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."
Dale Carnegie: "Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it...that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear."
I could go on for quite a while but I think you get the idea. :)
Fear, the mind-killer, is the only thing we have to fear. We MUST conquer our fear if we hope to live our hero's journey to the fullest.
Here's one question that's helped me dissolve a lot of my fears: "What would I do if I wasn't afraid?"
You know who answers that question? Your Highest Self. And that's a good person with whom we should have an ongoing dialogue, eh?!? :)
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