Fear

[Mara]

The mental life of the average person on our world is bulked with so much “animal fear”, the legacy of which dominates even our higher intellectual powers  and religious faith, as the revelators tell us.  Jesus’ concept of the kingdom of heaven liberates us from this age-long bondage.

170:2:1  The Master made it clear that the kingdom of heaven must begin with, and be centered in, the dual concept of the truth of the fatherhood of God and the correlated fact of the brotherhood of man. The acceptance of such a teaching, Jesus declared, would liberate man from the age-long bondage of animal fear and at the same time enrich human living with the following endowments of the new life of spiritual liberty:

 1. The possession of new courage and augmented spiritual power. The gospel of the kingdom was to set man free and inspire him to dare to hope for eternal life.

2. The gospel carried a message of new confidence and true consolation for all men, even for the poor.

3. It was in itself a new standard of moral values, a new ethical yardstick wherewith to measure human conduct. It portrayed the ideal of a resultant new order of human society.

4. It taught the pre-eminence of the spiritual compared with the material; it glorified spiritual realities and exalted superhuman ideals.

5. This new gospel held up spiritual attainment as the true goal of living. Human life received a new endowment of moral value and divine dignity.

6. Jesus taught that eternal realities were the result (reward) of righteous earthly striving. Man’s mortal sojourn on earth acquired new meanings consequent upon the recognition of a noble destiny.

7. The new gospel affirmed that human salvation is the revelation of a far-reaching divine purpose to be fulfilled and realized in the future destiny of the endless service of the salvaged sons of God.

We get a new life of spiritual liberty free from the animal legacy of fear, but in my experience being free from this animal legacy has been a process of choosing over and over again, repeatedly, to mentally neutralize unreasoned and imaginary fear/s from my life.

My question pertains to circle-making.  Do you think the intellectual achievements of circle-making have anything to do with mentally conquering this animal legacy?  I think so.

 

 

 

[Bonita]

Mara wrote:  My question pertains to circle-making.  Do you think the intellectual achievements of circle-making have anything to do with mentally conquering this animal legacy?  I think so.

Yeah, I think so too.  Circle making decisions are those that are the will of God.  It takes courage to do God’s will.  Courage is the conquering of fear by faith in one’s sonship.  Doing God’s will then becomes an act of love based upon a loving Father-son (child) relationship with God.  Love then transmutes fear.

 

[Mara]

Bonita wrote:  Circle making decisions are those that are the will of God. It takes courage to do God’s will. Courage is the conquering of fear by faith in one’s sonship. Doing God’s will then becomes an act of love based upon a loving Father-son (child) relationship with God. Love then transmutes fear.

I am leaning more toward the courage required to effect the conquest of the legacy of animal fear – a particular way of thinking about stuff such as  fear-full thinking bulking so large in human thinking.  This requires decisions about that which a person chooses to think on a daily basis.  Habits of thinking that are fruitless and pointless.  Jesus said fear not.  For the individual person, such as myself, this requires the conquest of one’s self.  Taking action to defeat fear by refusing let your mind run away with you.  This is not an academic matter.  It is a practical one, leading to better living and circle-making.

[nelsong]

We are also told that our intentions have meaning and value.

this idea smacks of mercy – given sincere effort on my part.

God really knows how difficult it can be to advance his circles.

[Bonita]

Mara wrote:  Habits of thinking that are fruitless and pointless.

Rather than working on getting rid of negative habits of thinking that are fruitless and pointless, why not concentrate on developing positive habits of thinking like the four faith attitudes that Jesus talked about?

140:5.6 The faith and the love of these beatitudes strengthen moral character and create happiness. Fear and anger weaken character and destroy happiness. This momentous sermon started out upon the note of happiness.

[Mara]

I think people have to do the work to overcome chronic fearfulness.  It takes mental effort and people have to find out what works best for them.  In raising the question about circle-making, I hope to add something to the topic “Fear.” I think all of us are well versed in the subject, because all of us have to deal with fear as it crops up in our varied experiences.  I have a practical turn of mind, so I am interested in practical solutions to dealing with anxiety, worry, fear and so on.

Likely there is a biochemical component to some kinds of fear and there are remedies for it.  Other kinds of fear result from trauma.  I am no expert, but I am talking about the garden variety arising from the inertia of our animal legacy.  Overcoming fear fits in there somewhere, as do those animal vestigial traits.  We can work on these things now.  Why wait?

48:5:8  One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking. The mansonia life early teaches the young morontia pupils that postponement is in no sense avoidance. After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.

See fear for what it is and deal with it.  Why dwell on it?  Jesus said “Fear not”.  I’m sticking with him.

[Bonita]

I’m not sure what the garden variety of fear is, but I’m pretty sure that we all recognize it when we see it.  So why do people continue to give in to it?  Why do fear mongers have such a strong hold on our psyche?  I mean, there are people out there every single day trying to instill fear in the hearts of men.  If you don’t do x,y or z the whole world will come to an end, or you will be culpable for the death of innocent animals and insects, or the end of time as we know it is just around the corner, or Judgment Day is going to reckon with you soon and leave you behind to suffer, or you will die if you eat such and such . . . . blah, blah, blah.  It’s high time that we all recognize a con job when we see it.  If it causes fear, it should be questioned.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t think the danger of some things should not be respected.  For instance, I will not walk down the middle of a four lane highway at night in black clothes.  I do fear being run over, but it’s the kind of fear derived from intelligent and wise discretion of reality, which I respect.  I think that’s were the cosmic reality recognition responses play a role in guiding our thoughts toward reality.

Spiritual thinking is a good safeguard against fear.  I think spiritualized thinking bypasses human emotions and makes contact with divine emotions.  Not that human emotions are bad, or that they should be avoided, not at all.  I’m saying that there is always a higher way of thinking and even emotions can be purified by spirit.  Fear is an emotion and it eventually has to be transmuted into awe and then into trust and finally into love.  It’s a process.

Feelings occur due to stimulation of various neurochemical receptors throughout the material body and are translated by the material brain into actions we call emotions. Emotions can be spiritualized because the rational mind is capable of observing them and changing their meaning by contact with spirit.  The spiritualized mind can assign new meanings and values to those feelings and then express them as divine emotions, better known as fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.  There are spiritual feelings too; they occur due to stimulation of the soul to the presence of Deity, another topic though.

Even the angels and other deities have emotions, but they are divine emotions. Spiritualized thinking involves the use of the “mind of Christ”, elevating human thought to divine levels via the spirit gravity circuit of the Son wherein spiritual values are assigned to our thoughts and resultant actions. This involves both evolutionary human wisdom (learning by experience) and the revelatory function of divine inspiration ( personal relationship with God) both of which are enhanced by prayer, the inroad to spiritual insight.

Human feelings cannot, in and of themselves, impart spiritual values to human thought. If one lives entirely at the level of human feelings, one is living at an subspiritual level. A progressing individual masters his/her feelings and emotions and  tries to understand them. This knowledge eventually becomes wisdom to which truth values can be assigned and thus harmonized and spiritualized with reality.  This is the process of becoming more divine and becoming more divine is becoming more God-like.  Divinity is defined as the unifying and coordinating quality of Deity.  Even our emotions can become divine; they can unify our experience by coordinating with Deity.  And fear has no place there.  Fear must be transmuted within the relationship with Deity in order to take on divine qualities.

[Mara]

We have the ability to scrutinize mental situations and recognize each and every thought and experience for what it actually and fundamentally is, according to the revelators.  We have “unsteady and rapidly shifting mental attitudes”.   And also we have preconceived opinions, ideas and prejudices.  I would also add to the list we have habits of thinking.  The work of the Adjusters is interfered with by our innate animal natures, one of which is fear.

109:5:3  But your unsteady and rapidly shifting mental attitudes often result in thwarting the plans and interrupting the work of the Adjusters. Their work is not only interfered with by the innate natures of the mortal races, but this ministry is also greatly retarded by your own preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices. Because of these handicaps, many times only their unfinished creations emerge into consciousness, and confusion of concept is inevitable. Therefore, in scrutinizing mental situations, safety lies only in the prompt recognition of each and every thought and experience for just what it actually and fundamentally is, disregarding entirely what it might have been.

If we want to go on and finish our circle-making, we’re going to have to overcome these mental situations, see those thoughts and experiences for what they actually are, and intellectually achieve self-mastery which is what I think circle-making is about in part.

[nelsong]

Fear is the motivator who’s responses save individuals, families And communities from death or exploitation.

i believe it is learned, not instinctual – which came first threat or response to it?

things learned can be unlearned.

Possibly removing the threat by spiritual progress is easier than trying to subdue responses

[Bonita]

nelsong wrote:

i believe it is learned, not instinctual – which came first threat or response to it?

Are you sure?

69:1.3 Sooner or later the fear instinct fosters the establishment of these institutions of survival by means of taboo, convention, and religious sanction. But fear, ignorance, and superstition have played a prominent part in the early origin and subsequent development of all human institutions.

[nelsong]

Interesting reading The Voyage of the Beagle where Darwin is surprised by critters that have no fear because of lack if predators

 

[Mara]

nelsong wrote:  Interesting reading The Voyage of the Beagle where Darwin is surprised by critters that have no fear because of lack if predators

Those critters may have an intraspecies pecking order.  But I’m no expert.  I’m guessing that my garden variety of fear-full thinking, which is much diminished these days, is not unlike yours.  I found a way that works for me in dealing with it.

[Anonymous]

Fear can be learned and unlearned.  The best example is how one learns discipline.  In military boot camps, soldiers are trained over a period of time and repetition, to depend on others in a group and when necessary to function as individuals, where fear is slowly changed to routine and trust.  Fear can be a useful tool to heighten ones senses and responses.  As an individual looses the sense of fear or changes it to logical conditioning as a response to proposed threat, fear can be used to discipline the mind to react in a logical reasoned treat with the training that life has presented which includes the sense of fear.

[nelsong]

Bonita wrote:

nelsong wrote:

i believe it is learned, not instinctual – which came first threat or response to it?

Are you sure?

69:1.3 Sooner or later the fear instinct fosters the establishment of these institutions of survival by means of taboo, convention, and religious sanction. But fear, ignorance, and superstition have played a prominent part in the early origin and subsequent development of all human institutions

no I am not sure

[Bonita]

I got to thinking yesterday about the possible relationship between fear and a normal consciousness of smallness which is so necessary for spiritual growth (100:1.5).  That feeling of smallness must instigate some basic fear in the animal-like mind, which it might perceive as a possible threat to the integrity of the ego.  Naturally, one’s instinct would be to resist such a threat.  My guess is that the higher adjutants must do quite a bit to help transform that initial fear into something manageable by the ego.  Our long-ago ancestors created ghost fear, but what are the remnants of ghost fear today? Certainly there are many still plagued by fear of the devil, fear of the end of the world, and fear of eternal damnation which are all essentially the same as ghost fear.

I think that the fear of losing control over one’s ego is still at the heart of some religious fear as well.  I mean, the fear of giving oneself wholeheartedly to God.  People have trouble wrapping their minds around that idea.  And I don’t mean joining a monastery or becoming an evangelistic missionary.  I mean committing oneself entirely to doing God’s will, which is essentially a submission of ego and acceptance of smallness.  Fear is, as they say, a giant fraud.

195:9.6 Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them — and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.

[Author]

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