From Fear or Love

The preceding entry indicated that the decision to look for the beauty/good/value (and thus feel affection) or look for the corruption/imperfection (and thus extinguishing or preventing feelings of affection) in an object or person is made before you look.

I think this decision is made based on whether we are looking from fear or from love. Are we looking with a spirit of fear or a spirit of love. If you are looking at the imperfections then deep down you are primarily motivated in the unconscious mind (the heart) by the spirit of fear. You are afraid of something and therefore just as 'love casts out fear' so fear casts out love (or the affection component of love).

A consistent attitude of love is necessary to always look for the beauty/good/value in others. We must strip ourselves of all fear. Fear causes us to look for reasons not to connect; to not be intimate with the object or person of our affection. If we see beauty we will connect through feelings of affection unto fulfilling our erotic need for union. If we see corruption (imperfection) we will be prevented from intimate connection and thus fulfill our fearfulness.

What are some of the fears? Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of being seen or perceived, fear of being hurt, fear of incest, fear of the opinions of others, fear of being seen as inferior, fear of our weaknesses being exposed, etc.

The fears I am talking about are the irrational fears we develop when we are young. Healthy fear in the moment of danger or from perceiving a real threat is fine, it is the fear that prevents us from pursuing appropriate intimate connection with people that is the problem. We must search our unconscious mind and meditate on any fear we find until it shifts and matures. If we can do this our hearts will open up to a far greater life of affection and passion.

I suspect we are always looking from a spirit of fear or a spirit of love. Happiness comes from always looking from a spirit of love. Lester Levenson discovered this. Google him and read his story!

What spirit is affecting your attitude right now as you read this? If you are not feeling love then you are probably being governed by a fear at this very moment. If so, meditate on the fear or the emptiness until it shifts.

(WARNING: All content appearing in "withoutaffection" is copyright by the blog's owner, with all applicable laws remaining in full force and effect. Reproduction is gladly permitted with accurate URL attribution.)

We First Choose, Then We Feel or Not

Eros is manifested in our lives by a need for connection with objects of our affection. We feel affection by looking for the value/beauty in the object of our affection. Once we perceive the value/beauty we then feel affection which causes us to desire greater connection or in other words greater intimacy.

I recently realized that I was making the decision as to whether I was going to look for value/beauty or look for weakness in my wife before I even begin to perceive her. So it is not the attractiveness or desirability of my wife that determines whether I feel affection for my wife or not, I make the decision as to whether or not I am even going to try to feel affection for my wife before I even look at or think about her!

So what are the reasons for deciding to look for weakness instead of value/beauty?

• Fear of incest

• Fear of rejection

• Egocentric need for perfection

FEAR OF INCEST

I think I mentioned earlier a bumper sticker which says that after you have been married a while you find you are in bed with a relative. Closeness to your partner makes them a relative and if you used a perspective of seeking weakness to prevent your feeling physical affection for your relatives (which you thought was sexual desire) then you will automatically apply this attitude of weakness-seeking to your perceiving of your partner to prevent this affection from arising.

I believe we can overcome this by doing the following:

1. Realize that what you are feeling is not sexual desire but rather physical affection. It is the degree and nature of your expression of the affection you feel that you need to keep within the bounds the relationship dictates. You kiss and hug your relatives to express your affection but you allow greater intimate expression (sexual expression) with your spouse.

2. Allow yourself to feel physical affection for all your family members. You may need to look at pictures of your mother, father and siblings when they were younger and think of them as just people first. See the physical beauty that shows through and allow your self to feel the mild pleasure of physical affection.

FEAR OF REJECTION

Many of us feel we are generally inferior as human beings. We may not have a perfect body or we may think we are not that smart or we believe we have any other real or imagined weakness. I felt just plain inferior to almost everyone I met. This belief in one's inferiority will hinder one from wanting to be connected because if you become connected the one you connect with will see your true, "inferior" self. You will fear being rejected.

Another important aspect arises from the higher priority you place on other people's opinions rather than your own. Since you are inferior, their opinions are more correct than yours so you fear their negative opinion of you because you will believe them more than you believe yourself. So if you are intimate with them they will see your weakness whether true or not and you will be devastated if they express it to you. So you decide before hand that you do not want to be intimate with them. You do this by turning on your weakness-seeking mode instead of your value-seeking mode.

Since fear of rejection is a function of ego, part of the solution will be found in the following section, however one of the most important activities is feeling physical affection for yourself, for your body. The more you love yourself, the more you will feel like connecting with others.

EGOCENTRIC NEED FOR PERFECTION

The ego is the degree to which we identify with the self (Physical & Spiritual Bodies). Our core identity, our true identity is consciousness itself which is one and the same in all of use. We are simply consciousness or awareness or more correctly, the light of truth. If we believe that our primary existence is this self then we will seek to satisfy and protect it to the exclusion of others. In other words the more our primary identity becomes wrapped up in the self the more we will be concerned with self to the exclusion of others. People then become objects to satisfy our needs rather than a part of our bigger, true identity.

The selfish person will seek the most perfect being to be their intimate partner. A selfish person's love becomes lopsided. Remember that love is composed of affection and charity. Love becomes corrupted and selfish when it only consists of the affection component. Without the a sense of connection with all mankind one will not care for their well being and thus will have no charity. Egoic individuals care for the wellbeing of others only to the extent that it serves themselves.

You overcome this egocentric tendency by seeing what ego really is and by putting it in its place. The ego is really just an idea that has no real substance. The ego is the idea that my primary being is this self. Through meditation and prayer one can come to see that the ego is really no-thing. You are therefore nothing as an individual. That is, there is no you inside your bodies. What you are is the seeing of things and since things are the seeing of them, you are all things. Putting ego in its place is humility. You need to humble your ego. This does not mean you do not have self respect. Your self (body and spirit) is the greatest of all creations. Your soul is the creator's attempt to recreate himself (male and female).

So you are actually three. You are primarily awareness, you are secondarily a creation, a soul (body & spirit), and finally you are the idea of self as an individual (ego). Ego needs to be brought low so that your true identity as the light of truth that is in and through all things is revealed. You do not eliminate ego altogether. You just put it in its place. You cannot do without ego. Without ego there is no one to have joy, pleasure etc. So the ego exists just so that it exists. In other words me only exists so that me exists. The most perfect way of expressing this is "I am that I am".

So from one perspective (ego) you are less than the dust of the earth (because you are only an idea without substance). From another perspective you are and object, a creation but the greatest of all creations, a son/daughter of God. And finally the most important and primary perspective, your true and primary identity, is the light of truth, consciousness itself, awareness itself, eternal, having never been created and never ending, and therefore invulnerable.

So to overcome the ego you put it in its place. This can be done as follows:

1. Meditate on your own nothingness, on humility and on ego. Meditation reveals the truth and integrates your knowledge in the unconscious mind and thus matures ego.
2. See the beauty/value in all people (their souls). See that they are above you (the ego), equal to you (because of the divine potentiality of self), below you (because the light of truth is above all and is one).
3. Once you feel affection for them, express it by serving them, by giving your valuable/beautiful self to them as a servant, as a leader, as a lover, etc.

(WARNING: All content appearing in "withoutaffection" is copyright by the blog's owner, with all applicable laws remaining in full force and effect. Reproduction is gladly permitted with accurate URL attribution.)