Evelyn
December 10, 2004
Once an individual faces the Brick Wall, he reaches the point where he can go no further, and at this point
he must make a choice whether to go on or to face his own extinction.
The book that Karen Holmes wrote, that Seth and Suzeranda wrote — "A Manual on Creativity" — goes into far greater
detail on this, on what it takes to create your life — the sense of creativity. But for this
class session, we will look at fears and how they interfere with being able to create your life.
Vera's lecture talks about pancreatic cancer, how it is based on the fear of loss and the fear of death. Once you
begin to understand that the three fears — loss, death and failure — are responsible for every major
fiasco that can occur in your life, then you can start to understand and appreciate when you see it in someone else,
how difficult it is to overcome these fears.
If you have the fear of death, it means you cannot get the life you want. Once you discover that, in truth, you
can't get the life you want, or it appears that way, then you do indeed die. If you are afraid of loss, you hold on to
that thing or person so tight that you twist the relationship out of any semblance of possibility. If you are afraid of
failure, then you will fail. What you fear, you run from, and when you run from something it gets bigger and more
ominous all the time, and it isn't until you stop and look at it without fear that it begins to dissolve and go away.
The first thing I would like to discuss this evening is the fear of loss and how it relates to compassion.
If you are lonely and depressed, and you fear being hurt by someone, you possibly have had a relationship that
failed and was painful, and so you put a wall around yourself to prevent yourself from being hurt again. Now this
is not to say that you have to jump into every relationship possible and to embrace that person as if this he or she
is your long, lost lover, for example. What it does mean is that there has to be a balance in your relationship so
you don't put a big wall around yourself, and also that you don't hang on so tightly that you strangle or smother the
other individual. The fear of loss leads to the idea that you can't have the relationship you want, and so you end
up, basically, alone and unloved. A relationship based on smothering another individual will never last because
at some point in time that other individual will declare his or her independence and go. Likewise, if you push that person
away, obviously, the ultimate conclusion is that there will be no one left.
I would like to remind you that the middle ground is where you prefer to stay, where you have a close and touching
and intimate relationship with certain people, your family or your spouse, or whomever, and possibly deep
friendships and spiritual relationships, and by this I mean where you share your talents and gifts and that it is a
win-win situation for both people.
Most people do not find themselves in win-win situations very often. In the new era of peace, this is where every
relationship must be. There can be no sense of sacrifice, because sacrifice builds hidden resentment. It is a wall,
where you feel that you must sacrifice something. In other words, your relationship has to be where everyone
comes out ahead and no one has to pay a price or suffer.
Fear of death relates to the idea that you can no longer get the life you want. It is not necessarily that you fear the
death process, but you could say it is the "end of your life" that you fear, the idea that there is no way anymore that
you can get what you want, and so the ultimate conclusion is that you indeed lose your life.
It is possible at this point to understand that you can get your life, and that is the subject of our talk this evening, on
how you overcome these fears and begin to walk forward.
This is a generalization. There are seven ideas that we will eventually address, but tonight we will do it as it relates
to, and in conjunction with, the Sin of Gluttony, and how a lack of compassion and a lack of capacity make it appear
that you can't get the life you want.
If you have put up a wall around yourself, and won't let anyone touch you in any way, or you won't let anyone come
close, you can live for a long period of time, like Robinson Crusoe was on his island for a long time by himself. It is
possible to become a "grumpy old person," you could say, to become reclusive and still feel that you have your life.
If your belief structure says that you like to be alone and you work better by yourself, you can function very well this
way. But, when your concept of the life that you want takes a turn, and you feel you can't get it, that it become
important, and this becomes apparent.
If you are ready to assume responsibility for creating changes in your life and to make the attempt to overcome
these fears and belief structures, you can begin the process — if you are flexible enough to make it happen.
Say, for example, you are an alcoholic and someone brings you to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and you begin
the long and arduous process to find your life again. You might have lost your family and your job. You might
have lost an intimate relationship, possibly even your financial stability or your home. At that point in time, if you are
aware that it is possible to work yourself back into a situation of having it again, then you can follow through on
that idea and make it happen. You can set aside the idea that alcohol is an important part of your life, and find
something else to fill that spot. If you cannot stretch your will to make it happen, then, basically, you can reach a
point that your health becomes so bad — whether it is liver failure, or cancer, because it has gotten out of
control — at that point you can suffer so grievously that you die from it.
The idea is to walk forward and to create the life, knowing it is possible to do it. There is a saying, "if a scientist
knows it is possible to do something, then you can do it." It is not that things are possible or impossible, it is just
what you believe is important. Then you walk forward and make it happen. You can't fall back into your old ways
and habits, though, because you fall back into the same trap or dilemma.
The highest good for all people is the way out of the situation. Any dilemma appears to have two possibilities, two
possible paths you can take, but actually there are three, and the third is for the highest good for all people, but it
just isn't always very apparent.
We will talk now more about the fear of loss, and how that can interfere with your capacity. This relates to
pancreatic cancer, and the idea that your capacity to create is no longer available; the capacity to do it is not there.
If you believe you must do something, but there is no way you can do it, you are in a dilemma situation. But, if you
notice, the middle ground has elements of both sides, and it allows everyone to come out ahead. For something to
occur, everyone must be in agreement for it to happen, and if you function for the highest good for all people, there
is no one who is not in agreement with you. If, for example, you were to offer everyone a fair and equal share of
something, there is no problem. It is only when you attempt to force an idea on someone else that it becomes a
problem because, at that point, you are interfering with that other individual's capacity to create the life he or she wants.
So you see, if you are holding someone in some sort of bondage by jealousy or control games or whatever, if you are
attempting to force your will or your own passion on that other individual, and eventually there will be a backlash, and
you will fail at that relationship. To walk away from this dilemma, the only solution is where everyone comes out
ahead. If you would like to help someone create the life they want, they in turn will have no problem helping you
do it. If it benefits you and it benefits the other person, then that is the solution to the problem... unless someone else
is involved, also.
The highest good for all people is where everyone comes out ahead, where everyone can benefit and no one would
object to it.
I have one last thing to say about the the fear of death, and that relates to, as I said, the idea that you can't get your
life. If you are always functioning for the highest good for all people, there are no limits to what you can create
and no limit to what you can do. It is even possible to live for a very long time because what you are doing
is side-stepping every issue, every obstacle. The obstacles that could appear in your life just fall away. I would like to
give you an example of this:
If you are graduating from college from medical school and you are going to start a clinic for poor people,
and it
appears that there might be a problem with funding, unless you are doing it in a situation, such as in a high-rent
neighborhood, there is no reason why anyone would object to you doing so. If you are coming up for a cure for
cancer, why would anyone object to you doing this? As long as no one would object to what you are doing, there is
no limit to what you can create. That is the topic of our next discussion, which will come shortly.
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