Facing Reality

2002-12-5 04:26:00

My Friends,

This week my business has kept me so busy all I have had time for is to eat, work and sleep. But perhaps there is a positive side to being late in posting the next chapter. I notice that the group is having an interesting discussion on Excalibur and the path that must be taken to overcome. Some of you have been close to guessing some of the contents of the next chapter. Chapter 19 will be a climactic one and I look forward to posting it shortly. I think it will be worth the wait.

Many people who have read the Course in Miracles (as good a book that it is) have a simplistic view of fear. Some wish to ignore it out of existence and others seem terrified to even use the word because they have the worst fear of all - the fear of fear. The fear of fear is the most important fear to overcome for if one fears fear he will refuse to even examine fears that may exist within himself. When one overcomes the fear of fear he can then talk about fear without raising the emotion of fear within himself and can take the appropriate steps in facing fears and overcoming them.

Many there are who wish the word "fear" to be removed from our vocabulary have not yet encounter the Dweller and other situations and vibrations that can induce fear that the novice has never before dreamed of. Until one has encountered all the pitfalls on the path to liberation and has slain the dragons of fear along the way he has no authority to preach to others about its final conquest. So far I have not met anyone who has preached to me about the conquest of fear who is even aware of what he has yet to face.

In saying this, I hope to not stimulate the fear of fear in any of you for each of us must smell the roses along the path and enjoy the joy of the moment when it comes. When we are ready that is the time our tests will come. There will be some fear, but if the pilgrim faces them and is completely honest with himself he will overcome and obtain tremendous joy.

Djwhal Khul says this about fear:
You ask: What are the basic causes of fear? To that question, if carried far enough back into the esoteric history of the solar system there is no intelligible answer to be given. Only the advanced initiate can comprehend. Fear has its roots in the warp and woof of matter itself, and is par excellence, a formulation or effect of the mind principle, and a result of mental activity. The fact that birds and animals know fear puts the whole subject upon a wider footing than if it were simply a human failing and the result of the activity of the functioning of the human mind. It is not incident upon a man's possessing a reasoning mind; if he used his reason in the correct way he could eliminate fear. It lies in what is called cosmic Evil-a high sounding phrase, conveying little. It is inherent in the fact of matter itself and in the play of the pairs of opposites-soul and matter. The sentient souls of animals and of men are subconsciously aware of factors such as:

1. The vastness and therefore the sensed oppression of the Whole. 2. The pressure of all other lives and existences. 3. The working of inexorable Law. 4. The sense of imprisonment, of limitation, and of consequent inadequacy.

In these factors, growing out of the manifested process itself and persisting and growing in potency during the ages, are found the causes of all modern fear and the basis of all terror, above all that which is purely psychological and not just the instinctual fear of the animal.

To concretise the matter more clearly would not help. Of what use is it to be told that fear is a quality of evil (or of matter) which colours fundamentally or characterises the astral or sentient body of our planetary Logos? What have you gained if I outlined to you the problem of the great Life in Whom we live and move and have our being as He, on His Own cosmic plane, seeks liberation and faces His Own peculiar trials and tests? How can words adequate be found to convey a cosmic struggle between Lives so impersonal and exalted in consciousness that the words his, or he or tests prove simply laughable and convey no possible aspect of truth or reality whatsoever?

Treatise on White Magic Pages 298-299

JJ