When You Don't Choose Love You Choose Fear

 You say that love and fear are the only two primary emotions and that all other emotions come from them but you give not one iota of evidence. Is this just a wild theory proposed by someone or is there some rational basis for it? It does not tally with my own experience of myself at all. There are many emotions which are neither fear nor love. When I oversleep and hence miss something I've been looking forward to there is disappointment but not fear. Fear needs a focus, something to be afraid of, and there is nothing to be afraid of here. When I go out of my way to get my hands on the puzzle page of the morning newspaper there is enthusiasm and a geeky hunger for puzzle solving but I would not call it love. Then there is a very basic emotion, disgust, which has its own dedicated area of the brain; this makes sense when you consider that disgust is our emotional protection from touching or imbibing poisonous, diseased, or otherwise toxic substances. In neurological terms, disgust is more primary than fear, though introspection doesn't suggest that it is. In fact, psychologists and scientists haven't trusted introspection for accurate observation for over a century because it is a terribly unreliable method. In short, I don't agree with your article at all. It may be reiterating the words of notable spiritual writers and speakers but it is a million miles away from anything which has a rational or empirical basis. It's just wild speculation.

 I was writing my comment but some how it seems that either i pressed the wrong key or it got erased and as such i am writing it again.
Fear is one thing from which no one in this universe has escaped 
Every one fears some thing or the other but i am going to tell you one thing which is going to change your life all together and you will realise that you have wasted your precious time and life in fearing what you should not have done.
The interesting and the most strange thing is that we have the worst fears and in other words fiear the thing which have not actually happened but is actually yet to happen. It means we never fear or are worried about today.  We are just worried about tomorrow. Which is not in our hands and is yet to come. This may happen or not happen is uncertain but most of the times it does not actually happen and we go on worrying and fearing making our life miserable where we could have lived in peace without worrying.

I am taking an extreme case: We have got a life, we don't know how long we shall live and we live fearlessly. But if we know we are going to die after 5 years (Like we have cancer) we will  not be able to live comfortable today. We shall just ruine our these five years. Which again is not certain as there may be some new medicine which may ultimately cure us and may increase our life span or we may culturally die tomorrow by some accident. So nothing is sure, but we just the fear makes us not live our life today comfortably.

That is the way we never worry for today when and where we are today but we just worry for tomorrow that is not in our hands and is not certain.

So if we just leave this tomorrow in that is in the hands of god we shall be able to live comfortably without fear and suffering.

If you just relax and think you will always find what you feared yesterday and years back has actually not happened or has rather never happened but you lost that precious time what you could enjoy or could have lived peacefully.

I will suggest, please leave tomorrow in the hands of God and live today without fear. Tomorrow is going to wonderful as God has never planned continuous misfortunes for you rather he has created a solution for all your problems and you are bound to get a solution for you all problems and fears.

So leave the fear and live happily.

My family calls me Pancho and I'd like you to know that _I'm choosing_ to love you all :-)

BAAM! indeed beloved hermano Somik. This passage has so much material to learn from. This is a complementary comment of what I shared in the circle last Wednesday. As usual, the jewels shared by the people before me, inspired me to formulate the three points:

1. The Universal Love, Stillness and Fearlessness.
2. The story of Rea, the dog.
3. A question "?"

1. The Universal Love, Stillness and Fearlessness.
I was so inspired when I came back from Wednesday that I wrote a poem. It reflects pretty much what I said that night:
 

I didn’t know what real love was
until I loved all.
When my mind is still
I see everybody as my own self,
as my own blood.

At the still center within the heart,
same spot where the dagger pierced,
is where I found you, Beloved One.

Painful if we resist.
Joyful if we surrender...
to its petals
to its divine flow
to its detached nature.

We can never know what real joy is
until the mind is still…
a mind at rest and a heart full of love
is the true red pencil that panted
these verses from above.

A sister, right before me, shared how fearless she felt in many ways, physically and morally speaking, and her loving kind nature reminded me the words of Vinoba Bhave:

When it was my turn, I said something like: "Sister, I'm positive of your fearlessness!"

.

2. The story of Rea, the dog.

The beginning of the Wednesday circle was opened by brother Niel. He shared how he conceived fear and love, and made a powerful analogy between ignorance and wisdom. Inevitably, those words evoked in me the early teachings of my dad, a lover of Science, when he used to tell me how the Neanderthal men were, probably, scared to dead when they were in the middle of a thunder storm. Our ancestors needed to invent many human-like gods to explain what they couldn't understand. Then, I knew the perfect story to share.

That Wednesday's afternoon, we had a thunderstorm in Berkeley. In the almost 6 years I have been in the Bay Area this is the second time I hear a thunder, not like Mexico City where thunders occur very frequently. This time it was a thunder storm. Many of the thunders must have been discharged very closely since the ground, homes and buildings were shaking in very powerful way. I was in a positive shock of awe and wonder saying to myself: "

As I was enjoying the thunder storm and the fierce winds and seeing the patterns of the pouring water, the officemate who works upstairs was ready to leave the office with her two dogs... and I thought I was radical! ;-)

The big dog, Rea, was the first one trying to leave. She was visibly shaking and with her long tail between the legs. The little one, Kanji, was afraid too. A concerned sister Eve said:

The Metta Center office is warm, so as I did some mimic to attract Kanji's attention, I invented them to come in.

Eva accepted, carried Rea and brought her by the heater. Suddenly Kanji was happy and jumped up and down in an invitation to play with me. An offer hard to resist. Then all the attention was put into the suffering Rea. Eva told me how the cloth she had tied on Rea's tummy was trying to resemble the love of a hug of a mother when they are puppies. We talk sweet to her, caressed her, but then... another thunder!

. Little Kanji hesitated a bit, but he stayed equanimous ;-)

More sweet words, more love, we didn't stop caressing her and even Kanji started kissing Rea! The four of us could feel the warm not only from the heater but from each other. After a few minutes, the calm words of Eve were in the air, she was lying on the comfy carpet, in the middle of the office, I was on the floor too, Kanji was happy and then:

Rea's tail came out from between the legs! And not only that! She lied down and rolled 90 degrees, inviting us to caress her tummy!

Another thunder, she stud up, but it took her a few seconds to recover. It was a beautiful experiment of mirror neurons (mimicking the movements, feelings and emotions of mammals!) and how to spread love among all living beings. Love over fear. Fear dissolves in the presence of love.

Yes, anger, fear and hatred are contagious, but so as peace of mind, love and courage. What would we like to spread in this World?

May all become compassionate, courageous and wise.

** Someone with muse powers, gifted me a red pencil that night at the Mehta kindness temple... therefore the title of the poem ;-)

I can hear Pancho say BAMMMM!

This is a lovely piece that hits the nail on the head. I understood "love" not in a mushy, intimate sense, but in a universal, connected sense, where my sense of "I" encompasses much more than my own well-being.

Just today, my sociology professor was sharing some wisdom with me. He said that as babies, we have no sense of "I." We have to be repeatedly indoctrinated through our interactions with others in order to develop this sense. We derive our sense of "I" only in relation with others. And therefore, this "I" can be very different with different people.

With love, it seems to me, that we are reversing this indoctrination, and going back to the bliss of a baby. After much analysis, it seems only sensible to want to believe that which leads to good experiences. We don't even have to be blind about this - we could bet on love, and see for ourselves what experiences and transformations follow to decide if we want to love more, or less.

But this love cannot be the kind that binds. In the book "Notes to Myself," Hugh Prather has these gems on love:

"Wanting to be loved, to be lovable, is not really a desire for how I want to be, but for how I want others to be."

'Love is the vision that can see all as one and one as all." "Love shows me where all minds and essences unite." "How do I get love? I have it. I must drop my definitions of love. Love is not saying nice things to people or smiling or doing good deeds. Love is love. Don't strive for love, be it." "All my life I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am my self."

My advisor once shared this story. At a thesis defence, he had a student who was terribly afraid of his questioning. Just before the exam began, with great intention and love, my advisor told him that he had passed the exam as far as the advisor was concerned. From that point on, the student was able to free himself from his fears - he was touched by something much higher than judgment, that he did an outstanding job in the exam.

Love is such a practical tool in our toolbox and it is astonishing that this four letter word does not make it into any business school class! We transform ourselves when we love, and therefore, as we have changed, our world has changed.

With love for everyone who make Wednesdays happen...

The questions posed in the reading is, "Can you think of a time that you felt both been in love and fear?"

I wanted to say yes immediately, simply because my love has caused so much fear in my life. But then I realized that fear and love, even if closely linked, happen at two distinct moments. When I do operate out of love and let it stay in my heart, I operate with great strength and faith and a knowledge that I am connected to something bigger. I don't just believe in this connection. I feel it. Fear may come directly after, but it is a seperate moment.

I may begin to fear this faith that I have found, or this connection that I feel because it doesn't seem to be concrete. I can't physically show it to other people. I can't prove that I know my heart/body/soul are on the right track. But that fear comes from the logical part of my brain. The one who keeps thinking to make sure I am safe and in control.

So, no fear doesn't exist at the same time as love, but if we doubt it, doubt that we deserve it, doubt that we should be allowed to spread it or share it, doubt that we are capable of feeling are sharing it, fear sets in.

Once when I was freaking out over the Christian notions of sins during a meditation, I heard a voice say "Fear is the only true sin. It is the only thing that separates you from god, and your true self. Everything that we have categorized as sinful has it's roots planted in fear."

:)