FEAR

Chris Hanlon

You have to trust the person who says the arrow will break with your throat.

Definition was good. Anticipation of pain.
How much is part of your nature, though? Is a lamb wise to run at the whiff of a predator?

In L.V.X.,
chrys333

DavidH

Good point (no pun intended). Is some fear good? Pain is good because it tells us to stop something. If you put your hand in fire and there is no pain then your hand will burn off! But what of fear? In GO RIN NO SHO, the Samurai book by Musashi, he says that a warrior must be "dead already" when he goes into battle if he wants to live. If he goes in afraid of dying then he will die. If he considers himself dead already (no fear of death) then he will be the one who survives.

So when is fear good and when should it be ignored?

Is all fear based on the fear of death? What about fear of public speaking?

Anyone have any practical exercises to work on fear?

Frater SOL

"Fear is the mind killer."

616

Frater SOL

The root of all fear is self-preservation - & self-preservation is intrinsically bound with ego. In knowing the ideal we create the imperfect. This forms a dichotomy that is the prerequisite for fear. If self-preservation is the ideal, then there will be fear of that ideal's opposite.

"All men know that beauty and ugliness are correlatives, as are skill and clumsiness; one implies and suggests the other. - Ko Yuen's Tao Teh King II:1"

I'd recommend the practice of pairing every idea against it's opposite, so that in seeing their Unity there will be nothing left to fear.

616

Aum418

source: www.geocities.com/hdbq111/essays/fearcourage.html

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." -Bertrand Russell

What is fear? Fear only comes to that self which is attached or identified - specifically, with thoughts, emotions, or objects, confusing them for the supreme, indivisible Self. The most common fear is of that which is unknown: ideas that are taboo or seemingly strange, the night-time, winter, and especially our own unconscious. It is interesting to note that the word 'Hell' comes from a word meaning 'to cover or conceal,' which reminds us that the real Hell is our own, unintegrated self which reveals itself in our fears and weaknesses.

The seventh line of Liber Librae informs us "Thou therefore who desirest Magical Gifts, be sure that thy soul is firm and steadfast; for it is by flattering thy weaknesses that the Weak Ones will gain power over thee. Humble thyself before thy Self, yet fear neither man nor spirit. Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure: and courage is the beginning of virtue."

When one is not wholly equilibrated & integrated, one's weaknesses can cause one to "fall." The weaker parts of ourselves are those things which are still unbalanced and liable to have attachment. Liber Librae tells us to "humble thyself," a lowercase self, "before thy Self" with an uppercase: The self which is connected to the senses (Nephesh) and ego/thoughts (Ruach) is subject to suffering, therefore we must humble it before the supreme Self, which is, according to the Atma Upanishad, "ever pure, indivisible, and uncompounded, far beyond the senses and the ego." This self is, Qabalistically, the Monad in Kether, or the Supernal Triangle above the abyss which is the last frontier for the ego. Liber Librae continues to tell us that we should fear nothing, "neither man nor spirit," which echoes a line from Liber AL vel Legis mentioned below. In the most forceful part of the line, Librae says simply that "Fear is failure" and that it is "the forerunner of failure." What quality should one cultivate to conquer fear? Courage - symbolized by the triumphant hawk of Horus. A certain courage is needed to go beyond attachments and delve without fear into the black womb of Night.

“We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution... So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is freedom it can never do anything wrong… a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Liber Librae, line 15 continues with the theme of fear: "Nevertheless have the greatest self-respect, and to that end sin not against thyself. The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices."
To sin against oneself is to restrict oneself - in this case, to a certain ideology. Attachments to one's beliefs or dogma creates the possibility of fear when confronted with knowledge that does not "pander... to thy prejudices." In this way, Liber Librae advocates being open to all knowledge and never condemning it, especially "knowingly and willfully" which is a conscious repression of a part of oneself which is not integrated & balanced.

"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety." -Henry Louis Mencken

Liber AL vel Legis mentions fear in a few places. One place is in Chapter II, lines 46-47, where Hadit says, "Dost thou fail? Art thou sorry? Is fear in thine heart?Where I am these are not."

Crowley says in his New Commentary for this line "If one have a right apprehension of the Universe, if he know himself free, immortal, boundless, infinite force and fire, then may he will and dare. Fear, sorrow and failure are but phantoms." Failing implies that one can fail- in a sense, that one can 'die,' but Horus brings us the Aeon of the Crowned & Conquering Child (each one of us) who fears no death but knows himself/herself to be eternal. To be sorry is to live in regret - it affirms division in the Will & implies attachment to the temporal. To have fear is to forget oneself as "free, immortal, boundless;" fear also implies duality - a fear of something other than oneself infringing on oneself. Sister Mary Tricky once said, "Fear is faith that it won't work out." Hadit knows it will work out, for he is beyond time, senses, and the ego. Hadit is not where there is failure, sorrow, or fear (which is the forerunner to failure); he resides where there is no duality like the supreme Self who is "far beyond the senses and the ego" and he who, "in him all conflicts and expectations cease" (Atma Upanishad).

"Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them." -Brendan Francis

One explicit line about fear appears in Chapter III, line 17, "Fear not at all; fear neither men nor Fates, nor gods, nor anything. Money fear not, nor laughter of the folk folly, nor any other power in heaven or upon the earth or under the earth. Nu is your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the strength, force, vigour, of your arms."

This explicitly states to fear nothing - I doubt in the mystical sense of Nothing since she is "your refuge." This echoes Liber Librae and a quote by Marie Curie - "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood (Binah)." This line is explained further in Crowley's Old Comment to this line: "The infinite unity is our refuge, since if our consciousness by in that unity, we shall care nothing for the friction of its component parts. And our light is the inmost point of illuminated consciousness." This echoes the Atma Upanishad once again which states "in him (Hadit) all conflicts and expectations cease." In the "highest" sense, Hadit is one with Nuit, there is no difference - just as Atman is one with Brahman according to the advaita tradition.

"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself." -Samuel Butler

In Liber LXV, Chapter I lines 45-46, it says: "Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things. Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then - yield!"

The "outermost places" are the deepest recesses of one's unconsciousness or Hell; to go to the outermost places and subdue all things means that all things would be part of oneself. One must subdue fear (attachment to ego or identity) and disgust (attachment to cultural, relative morality or dogma) to overcome all things and have no division between oneself and another part of oneself or the Universe.

"The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the greatest cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness that brings heaven in a moment."
-Swami Vivekananda

To summarize - fear, failure, and sorrow are all interconnected in that their existence implies duality...also duality implies their existence. To divest oneself of fear, one needs "courage" - to discard oneself of temporal attachments and to see oneself as the supreme Self of Hadit or Atman who is one with Nuit or Brahman. This oneness must be experienced to completely eliminate fear, in K&C of HGA, in Samadhi.

"He who fears something gives it power over him." -Moorish Proverb

IAO131

Uni_Verse

Great post Aum, it sheds a little light on what fear 'is.'

Fear can be thought of as an ally. When we hesitate to take a step forward, one should remind their self that you have been presented with something that must be conquered. Certainly, you could step backwards and attempt to avoid it. But the second you feel that pit in your belly, the one thing you do know is that one day you are going to have to face it.

And when you do, well, it never seems as bad as you thought it would be

That could just be my own overactive imagination...

Aum418

@Uni_Verse said

"Great post Aum, it sheds a little light on what fear 'is.'

Fear can be thought of as an ally. When we hesitate to take a step forward, one should remind their self that you have been presented with something that must be conquered. Certainly, you could step backwards and attempt to avoid it. But the second you feel that pit in your belly, the one thing you do know is that one day you are going to have to face it.

And when you do, well, it never seems as bad as you thought it would be

That could just be my own overactive imagination..."

Thanks.

Fear is certainly useful in an evolutionary sense. That sympathetic nervous system sure is useful in fight or flight situations. The thing is that most of us are not confronted with these situations 99.999% of our life and so that kind of unconscious reactive fear is useless (except in those rare cases).

Also, the introspection of fear is probably one of the most efficacious tools. Remain cool & impersonal and investigate your fears. What are you most afraid of? Losing your identity? Losing your life? Losing your family?
Getting married? These can all be contemplated with a level-head to much benefit: we often have irrational fears that can be dispersed with a little concentrated investigation.

IAO131

DavidH

@Aum418 said

"to discard oneself of temporal attachments and to see oneself as the supreme Self of Hadit or Atman who is one with Nuit or Brahman."

You said you must be "one with" Nuit. I am not trying to be a pain here, but today I have been having lots of thoughts about Oneness and Love, etc. So, my honest question is this: How can you be one WITH something? If you are truly ONE then there is no WITH. You are either one or you are separate from, or somehow connected but not completely united.

D

gmugmble

@DavidH said

" How can you be one WITH something? If you are truly ONE then there is no WITH. You are either one or you are separate from, or somehow connected but not completely united."

You are trying to read to much into what is just a grammatical convention. The word "one" is an adjective, and adjectives in English cannot take direct objects; so the complement of an adjective has to be embedded in a prepositional phrase. Choice of preposition is partly arbitrary; the adjective "one" happens to take "with". There's no deep significance to that. (I can be a pain with the best of them.)

DavidH

Howdy and 93!

I understand it is just a convention but then again, it is deeper. Language reflects how people feel and think, especially in esoteric subjects. I brought it up to make ONE think.

MaKheru

"Fear of death is the beginning of slavery." - Hagbard Celine

Aum418

" How can you be one WITH something? If you are truly ONE then there is no WITH. You are either one or you are separate from, or somehow connected but not completely united. "

Because language is misleading. You are right. There is no 'you' let alone 'with' in Unity/Nothingness.

"How infinite is the distance form This to That! Yet All is
Here and Now. Nor is there any there or Then; for all
that is, what is it but a manifestation, that is, a part,
that is, a falsehood, of THAT which is not?
Yet THAT which is not neither is nor is not That which is!
Identity is perfect; therefore the Law of Identity is but a lie.
For there is no subject, and there is no predicate; nor is
there the contradictory of either of these things."
-Liber 333: Book of Lies, ch.11

@418Hadi said

"I just wanted to add this: Christian Scientists have an anagram for fear:
False Evidence Apparently Real. I can't elaborate on that, but anybody here who knows some CS should understand it.

93/93

418Hadit"

Isnt that Gary Busey's acronym (not anagram)?

IAO131

A Shadow

I think there is fear you can ignore, and then there is common sense you shouldn't. Sometimes the test is to trust yourself and your "instincts" or knowledge. Fear can be a hindrance. So can blind faith. I recently made a mistake by deluding myself and "believeing" or having trust where i shouldn't. MY fear or sense would have served me better.

daredevil92103

fear has always been a big obstacle in my life. but here is my two cents on taking care of it.
fear is from either thinking of the past, or more commonly imaginining something that has not happened yet. in the present there is no fear. there is just this. if you can master your mind, you can conquer fear.
dunno how much this helps, but i had to say it.

sethur

Fear is a natural evolved response, and needs to be conquered because the animal mind will respond to certain stimuli, or lack of stimuli, by panicking.
When I teach basic meditation I explain that it is not "natural", as many Newage teachers insist. For most of our evolutionary history we have been surrounded by predators, and sitting in an asana for an hour letting your mind go blank and not responding to external stimuli, such as noise, was a good way to get killed. The animal mind will try to attract your attention to the assumed possibility, even inevitability, that because you've been like this for so long there is bound to be something about to eat you.
Fear is a sign that things are going right, and initiation without fear doesn't work IMHO. Conquest of fear is indeed the beginning of wisdom, though from memory Russell didn't think much of Crowley.

Parsifal

Fear arises from Ignorance.