What Exactly Is A Fear?

[Joseph Maynor]

Curious.

[Privet]

Resistance to possible unwanted change of things that you care about.

You play unwanted scenario in your mind and risist to it.

Or maybe clarity of mind that is given to prevent this scenario to happen.

Usually it feels like excitement and clarity if you don't resist to fear. Your concentration and energy are rising.

Anger is like post-fear, you resist to change that have already happen and which was important to you too.

Anxiety is mild form of fear, when possible scenario is less damaging or further in time.

Depression is accumulated or suppressed anger, when you resist to something for a long time and neither do something about it or accept it (if it's not the clinical/biochemical one).

All negative emotions are basically dissonance with reality, when something goes not the way that you desire.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Privet

[Leo Gura]

@Joseph Maynor Images of the future which threaten the ego's agenda.

Investigate your direct experience.

 

[Joseph Maynor]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Joseph Maynor Images of the future which threaten the ego's agenda.

Investigate your direct experience.

 

I think they are a negative emotion that is triggered by certain thoughts that arise due to the ego trying to self-correct the system in some way.  They're like a whistle-blast of the ego saying it's not happy.  The question is, can I learn to ignore those whistle blasts as I walk through my everyday life.

I will inquire more.

Edited August 25, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Leo Gura]

@Joseph Maynor Ignore? Ignoring is what you currently do.

What you could do instead is become conscious of how you're creating fear.

(Hint: you are creating it!)

[Privet]

@Maxx Good point, what you are talking about is basically a fight-flight-freeze response, but fight-flight-freeze response in animals can't be triggered by thoughts. You can be frightened to death by some stupid thought, which makes human fear personal.

When good zen master sees a lion he smiles.

[Leo Gura]

Of course the zebra runs away because his self-agenda is threatened.

The point of emotions is to serve an automatic manipulation towards self-survival.

When one becomes conscious, the need for unconscious manipulations falls away.

If you like being a frightened zebra, you've got nothing to do. Just stay the way you are. But if you want to rise above animal behavior, you can do it, but it will require consciousness.

[pluto]

I always liked Ralph Smart's "False Evidence Appearing Real" (Infinite Waters).

Personally, fear i see it simply as disconnection to oneness/source/love. If you knew and could see clearly who and what you really are.. fear would be non existent as everything else from that point is seen as a reflection of self or ultimately as self.

Notice when you find yourself through the unconditional love of another fear is almost non existent? Especially when around or with that person?

Edited August 25, 2017 by pluto

[John Iverson]

Did you know venum in the spiderman?? .... Ego is like that.. ego will make you believe of fear is part of you.. the you, becomes now the person .. and the person is the ego you cannot now notice it.... Unconsciously ego will now control you because you do not no exactly who you really are ... and if you become the ego it limits who you are...   in spiderman 3 did you notice spiderman when venum stick to him? Without noticing it venum controls all of his actions  venum is not spiderman obviously.. but spiderman didn't notice it because of the belief....  

[Key Elements]

What is fear?

If you identify with it, it fuels the ego; it fuels the self and gets in the way of making important decisions in life and taking action on it.  It's easier said than done. Most of the times I realize if I want to clean my shelf, I put it off.  Why? "Oh, I have to work on my life purpose. Otherwise, it won't get done." Then, the room eventually becomes dirty and everything gets cluttered. This is very subtle - a subtle kind of fear. We all know that cleanliness is next to godliness. There has to be a balance.

We don't have to live like a zebra - in fear of a lion or other predator. Most of us are over that stage. Our fear is different. Meditation could be practiced when we're doing housework, in our careers, and in our journey through our life purpose. We get into that 'flow state' where work becomes 'effortless.' This is the peace state of mind where we don't identify with the ego.

[Truth Seekah]

Tightness in your body is fear

 

[AlwaysBeNice]

I've had an experience sometime ago which was very clarifying on this.

You can say there's (natural) fear, and there's (unnatural) worry.

99% of the time people feel fear, it's not even natural. 

-

So what happened was, I was meditating on my cat (my hand on him, focusing on him), and a loud motor noise happened and every cell of his being got spooked, like: '!!!!'

This flew over onto me, the feeling of fear, but because it was so raw (instead of it being so entangled with my chronic judgment on fear due to having that unresolved emotion in me), I could see natural fear was just shock, super alert, and it didn't felt bad, it actually was nice for what it was.

About 0.5 seconde later it triggered my suppression and I had the reaction of: 'Oh shit, fear, no no no' (related to death and some fearful ideas of God)

Then I knew: fear is not bad, but our human model around it of judgment, fantasy, suppression, attachment can make it feel terrible.

[Privet]

13 hours ago, Maxx said:

And then the idiot will have his head ripped off. There is nothing bad about survival instincts. It is life.

No, if it's possible he will try to save himself, if not then he still gonna smile because his death doesn't frighten him. Fearless doesn't mean actionless, actually without fear you become more effective and intelligent, not mechanically reactive. Animals have only 3 options: fight, flight and freeze. Humans are intelligent, we can throw our jacket on his face, scream for help, spray some pepper spray, shoot him etc.

If you are frightened you are less likely to come up with some idea how to oversmart that lion, you will just freeze and shit your pants. When you become enlightened you can rise above that animal mechanical behaviour and not shit your pants but do something more productive, for example you might enjoy the last moments of your life with laughter because there's nothing to do.

13 hours ago, Maxx said:

It is just an impersonal empty appearance happening in boundlessness.

It's body-mind reaction, a reflex. What is boundlessness? Awareness/emptiness? Ego arises from emptiness either, every experience arises from emptiness and returns to emptiness.

Fear is just fear, a biological reaction like erection or puking or pain. In animals fear is triggered by danger, in humans by possibility of danger. Possibility of danger is just a thought. This is the difference between humans and animals. They can see danger, humans can imagine danger.

Edited August 26, 2017 by Privet