By: A. W. Finnegan
Many of our life's most beautiful aspirations and potential for dreams reaching manifestation are oftentimes cut short before they ever have a chance to flourish. They are quickly muzzled and forever locked into the confinement of inactivity. This is not because they aren't capable of reaching their destination or potential, but rather because the mind of its beholder is diluting it with doubt and hexing it with life's most effective poison: fear. Some of life's greatest potential, its innermost beauty manifesting in action are all too often silenced by the deadly touch of fear. Fear is your greatest and most effective enemy, silencing life's potentiality in creation before it is even able to show its ability for true expression.
Fear takes many forms. Some of those forms are, fear of the Unknown, fear of failure, fear of darkness, fear of solitude, fear of love, fear of death, fear of chaos and adversity, fear of living deeply, fear of life's twists and turns, and fear of the Self in all its glory and magnitude. Fear is like a sword that severs the arms of action, severs the heart from pumping its life-giving essence through the rhythmic heartbeat of its most beautiful dreams. Nothing kills life more than fear itself. Fear is often the basis of the many ways in which we descend into the depths of misery. Fear is that destructive energy that fills us with doubt about ourselves and the potentiality for living a fulfilling life. This obstacle stands in our way of being truly alive, and keeps those half-living like zombies in a perpetual state of aimless drift. Through fear, we descend to a lower state of mind, immature and undeveloped, at the mercy of life's pendulum knocking us back and forth on the checkerboard of light and darkness.
Through fear, we silence our voice to speak up in times of injustice and wrongdoing. We give in to tyrants and allow them to rule us, because fear tells us to submit or face the consequence of declaring our rights to live as the empowered human being. Through fear, we stay in unhealthy relationships, while silencing potentially great ones. We tell ourselves we are not good enough, we tell ourselves we are not capable, all because of the fear of actually applying ourselves and seeing what we're made of. We fear the chaos that results when we venture into the Unknown. All the while, we endure the misery and unfulfillment that accompanies being forever stuck in the regressive throes of stagnancy.
Have you ever noticed that some people will live a miserable existence? Complaining and always being bitter about the cards they were dealt and the ways in which life works against them? If so, have you ever noticed these same people, when given a chance or opportunity to change things and live a better existence, pass up the opportunity and choose to remain in their miserable state of existence? What would cause such a person to make such poor choices, when they could do a little work and move beyond it? The answer, of course, is fear. They don't like being miserable, but it becomes a place where it is all they know, and in this familiarity they find a sense of comfort. In other words, they are more afraid of venturing beyond what they know, and will instead remain where they are, because moving beyond it is unknown to them. They fear the unknown, because the unknown is unfamiliar, and the fear of chaos they perceive in it haunts them into inactivity.
We human beings are progressive creatures, that is to say, we have a drive to continuously evolve and refine ourselves and the way in which we nurture what we are. We have an inherent drive to find expression. Our inner self seeks to put into action and fulfill that which the Heart desires. The world of desire is what made this Universe, the Creator's Will brought forth the divine spark to impregnate the feminine ocean of potential and the world of form was born with divine spirit.
In the process of our integration into the physical forms, we are subject to its imperfect nature, and we are challenged to master our imperfections and flaws to reclaim our divine origins, lest we become like primitive beasts in perpetual struggle. The path of initiation is the path of identifying and actively reclaiming the inherent possibility of our drive for creation. If we allow ourselves to properly identify where fear is hindering our progress and keeping us in a state of checkmate, we are one step closer to moving beyond it into the realm of endless possibility.
I stated in another article of mine, Inner Darkness & the Power it Holds: The Truth about Anger, Ego, and "Negative" Energies, that ego is not necessarily evil, and has a definitive purpose in this existence. The same is also the case with fear, we have the ability to experience fear for a reason, but left unchecked and lacking self-awareness, we are prone to its expansion, rooting itself into aspects of our life where it is actively harming us rather than serving its intended purpose. It is this stage that we are most carefully called to understand and adjust this energy accordingly.
The prisons we find ourselves in are generally always rooted in fear, ways in which we silence action to overcome the obstacles and adversities we are afraid to face. These are the inner demons that we run from, for many of us our entire life. In the process of not facing them, we become like slaves of our own making. Adversity and chaos is always going to be a necessary part of our existence, and when we realize that both chaos and adversity is going to find us even if we fail to face our demons, we are one step beyond the self-imposed deception. When we fail to face our darkness and inner demons, the external world imposes their own on us. We weaken ourselves to avoid our inner demons, and in our weakening, we are unable to stand up to those destructive forces in the external world, which always seek to control the weak.
Too many people out there who seek truth, seek it in everything else beyond themselves, they try to find causality in everything and everyone else. A scapegoat is always convenient, but taking self-responsibility is always less attractive. We want to say, its the rulers' fault. Its the evil leaders that are to blame, but they are able to rule us for the simple fact that we gave up self-empowerment when we decided to stop focusing on ourselves, failed to overcome our weaknesses and failed to raise ourselves beyond the level of being enslaved through fear. That is the causality of the situation, and why I tend to focus so intricately on the inner workings of our mind and the mechanics of how we operate as beings, first individually, and by extension, the collective.
Too many minds out there, knowing something is wrong, many believe to be actively doing something about it, yet fail when they stay focused on world events, focus on finding the external scapegoat. Likewise, they fail when they seek an external solution that tip-toes around actually doing the inner work. Many want an alkaloid, chemical, or substance to bring them the solution and avoid doing all the inner work. Many want a belief system, a line of research, a thought program that brings them anywhere but to the inner work required to advance themselves forward. This is likely because the inner work is hard, it is work, it requires the uncomfortable feeling that comes along with acknowledging our weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and wrong behaviors. It forces us to look at ourselves in all of its flaws. It forces us to venture into that uncomfortable realm of the unknown, so they remain in the state they are out of fear.
The first requirement in overcoming these fears is acknowledging the problem, the fear itself. We have to develop the ability to identify this fear when it puts its foot forward and trips us to the ground. We have to become our greatest critic, but also our greatest motivator simultaneously. We should also come to the realization that even in chaos there is great opportunity, there is great ability for growth and expansion. Once we can identify these areas correctly, we have an advantage and we are in a position to actually do something about it.
Next, When we are able to properly identify our fears and where they stop us in our tracks, we can then begin to implement change, but be forewarned, it is always uncomfortable at first, we step outside the bounds of what we know, and we are in uncharted territory. However, the more you practice its repetition, the more you will bring forth the intended result, the closer you will come to the goal. Action is the necessary component for building the life we seek. Seek and you shall find. Act and you shall acquire. Recall some of these factors in my article on the correlation between thought-action-circumstance, The Garden of Life: Seeds of Thought and the Fruits they Produce.
Once we begin to more readily conquer the fears that hold us in chains, the sooner we can reach self-ownership, the sooner we can learn to stand up to those using our fears as an advantage point over us. This is the causal factor in why rulers are able to take advantage of us and gain ownership over our own life and its sovereignty. We can stop pointing the finger at others. We can instead take responsibility for ourselves and begin to steer our own destiny. That is the path of initiation. That is the methodology that puts us in a position to begin the Great Work in the external world. Once we are in such a position, we will see the world transform itself in the reflection of balance and aligned with Truth, and when it is aligned with Truth, we will see the gates of paradise open in welcoming embrace, and the rulers will drown in the ocean of their ineffective weakness which they have held over us for far too long. 