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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Spiritual Fears

Today, I wish to discuss about fears of our spiritual self. Before I proceed, it is important to clearly differentiate between fears of our spiritual self and the usual fears of our mind. I wish to put forward, a simple exercise for this purpose: To begin, please go to a calm spot where you can sit quietly, breathe deeply and think about what is making you feel fearful, examine your fear(s). Is it the fear of losing a job, not being able to pay bills, being thrown out of your home or of someone harming you? These are the fears of our mind, solution for such fears is simple: One needs to identify each of his/her fear and then consciously make an effort to face them. This post will be of little or no help for such fears. Rather, while you were thinking about various fears, if you have had this situation, '....I am well off in regard to every necessity in my life i.e. a suitable job, enough monetary resources to meet one's needs and pleasant living experience, yet I feel a lacuna within myself, that needs to be filled...for embracing happiness and I fear....', these are the fears of the spiritual self. Please read on, I hope this post will be of some help to you.

I wish to talk about an important concept which will give us a better outlook about the origin and a possible solution for such fears of our spiritual self. Just as gravity plays a vital conceptual role to explain various aspects of physics in the material world, it does so in the spiritual world as well. When one is not well grounded spiritually, he/she is floating in mid air, and is susceptible to be thrown by a strong breeze towards one side for a moment, and onto another side the next moment. This irregular motion of our spiritual selves,  will subject our mental and bodily selves to many collisions, which will effect our momentum towards life, thus reducing our vitality and happiness. Hence, it is essential for us to understand the importance of spiritual gravity and work towards being well grounded spiritually.

The method of approach for such an exercise is simple. Ask your spiritual self if the thing you fear has actually happened or if you are projecting something you are afraid could happen. Next ask yourself how realistic that fear is. The purpose of this exercise is to remind yourself of the many times your fears haven't come to be, but have simply resided in your psyche, haunting you like the monsters that were under your bed or in your closet when you were a child.

It is noticing what you have been through, that is the primary focus of this process. Take a look at each event that is now your past, understand how you dealt with people who were in your life in the past. Take time to count them and understand where you stand in regard to each of such events/people, and where did you leave them at. The necessity for such an exercise, is as simple as understanding how one can find something, at the same place where he/she has lost it. To be spiritually grounded, one needs to settle each element of fear/doubt to rest. To achieve it, we need to understand and appreciate the fact that, we in our life, have left many actions and emotions incomplete, allowing them to float around, we need to work towards a possible closure for each of such events...to be grounded spiritually. 

A big part of this exercise is to learn that the answers to what influences our present lie in our past and to enjoy our present, we need to respect our past and put it to rest with complete dignity. This is actually a very good remedy to stave off fear of hypothetical future situations. The next time you have one of those moments when fear overtakes you, I hope you'll try my suggestions to look at what is making you fearful, consider it and work towards a possible closure (which will allow you  to let it go) so that you can focus on what is really important -- making the most of your day.