Do Not Be Afraid!

One important and significant thing you should do before we could go into the detailed discussion of this topic is now stop reading, close your eyes for some minutes, and then freely write a list of your fears of your own. I would dare to bet that you will have a long list of fears: fear of death, fear of joblessness, fear of being neglected, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of illness, fear of accidents, fear of being killed, fear of darkness, fear of gosh, and fear of responsibilities… in general fear of everything that we can not list down here.

With the above list of our fears, I dare say that now we are dragging our feet to all corners of life with a big and heavy bag of all types of fears at all levels. We drag our feet because we have accidentally or intentionally allowed fears go into our life and then become a burden of ourselves. And from that time, naturally the fear become a vital part of our life as if we can not without it. And perhaps because of this harsh reality, there are a lot of books of fears management which have been written and millions sold out around the world. This shows that fears are something or illnesses needed omitting so that we could fly up and enjoy this life. And now I believe that you really want to leave out all fears having been allowed to be with you in life. To completely do this, we need to know where they are from, why we are so fearful, and how they affect our life.

According to Krishnamurti, fears are originated from two powerful sources which are education of your society and family you live and finally our thoughts.

From the family and the society we live: When we were born, we were not asked to choose our family and county we wanted, it is a harsh true reality that everyone has to accept as a fate of life. In this living environment and condition, surely we are influenced by many factors that shape our characteristics, behaviors, viewpoints, believes, sense of values, directions of life and even fears. In the family life, from the beginning to the time we are regarded as a real mature, we have had to suffer a lot of fears begun from our parents’ ways of education in which there are more curses than motivations, more tears than joys, more bans and regulations than permissions and freedom etc. All are existed on behalf of their love for us. Let’s get back to the childhood to find out what they have done for us. When we had a big dream that we thought we could turn it into reality, we joyfully came by their side and told them about it, and immediately they smiled and told us “My beloved son, a dream is a dream, it never comes true. At your age, I also had a lot of dreams but you could see that now I’m old, there is none of my dreams come true.”; or at home they told us a lot of don’ts and cants with heavy punishments if you try to not obey the set law; or just to force us do something that we resisted or did not want to do or not ready to do, we were threatened by being left alone in the dark, by some ghosts, by some bugs or animals, being put on the top of the roof without ladder or put into a dark room with a lock outside… In the social life, at the very first time we went to school, we were taught to be afraid of failure in examinations, we were advised to be fearful of the strongest in the class, we were taught death is something fierce and ended, we were educated that money was everything,… and from that time on we are afraid of failure, of death, of difficulties, of barriers, of illnesses…

From our thoughts: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” – (Genesis 1, 1:2). This verse shows that everything invisible becoming visible from God’s will or thoughts, so we are created like him and be shared the same ways of creating this world. Nowadays, a lot of self-help books related to the power of thoughts are available on bookstores in all over the world to prove that thoughts are very important to us in creating ourselves, our future, destiny, and even our world. If you take a look at the world around, you could see that everything visible to us now is originated from the invisibility – our thoughts: a car, a home, a TV set, an airplane, a ship, and the likes. From this point, I can tell you that fears are nothing but thoughts which can create and destroy as well. The more positive thoughts build the more negative ones destroy. When you search the word “fear” on the Bible software, you will get totally 260 verses related. It means, as I have mentioned above, “fears become a vital part of our life”. And the result of fear is that you are not loved and you will be punished as Sain John Apostle indicates in his first letter “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drive out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” – (1John 4, 18).

Now we can certainly know that there are two doors that fears can go in our life: family and social education, and our thoughts. But thoughts play a key role in forming our fears. As you know, because of fears, we will hide ourselves in a box instead of open to the world, we close our heart and mind in the relation with our brothers and sisters, we become selfish and cruel in alternative of generous and kind. Fears can turn us into losers, murderers, betrayers, burglars, cheaters, addicts etc. who we actually do not want to become, I am sure of this. So, to drive out fears we need to accumulate love and positive thinking which can bring you peace, love, joys, happiness, prosperity, and freedom.

You should know that you are a magnet of the universe, so you can attract everything in this universe to you depending on your ways of thinking positive or negative. If you always think about love and happiness, you will be loved and happy in life, and vice versa, if you think about fears you will be an image and a victim of your fears like we have discussed above. We have just one life to live and God wants us surely to be happy and enjoy this life with his favors. So, our responsibility is to choose ways of living: happy or unhappy, loved or hated, faithful or betrayal, rich or poor, successful or failed, free or dependent. And you should remember that fears are nothing but our thoughts and they are surely coming to our life whenever we think about them. That’s why at the beginning of his mission as The Holy Father, John Paul The Second says to the world “Don’t be afraid!”. This phrase should be a maxim of our life if we want to live our life fully and significantly.

Awakening

Joseph Pham

There is one thing I can make sure that at least you have had a white night once of a time in your life, I mean a sleepless night you have experienced probably with your classmates around the campfire at the seashore or in the forest, maybe with your family at the new year eve, or probably in a hospital to take care of someone special,.. or simply yourself alone to think about something that you care for…So I want you to stop here now for some minutes to contemplate the feeling at that time.

Certainly when we  had a white night with whom or for whatever, we would experience this that we are awakening and others are seemingly sleeping. It seems that the night is longer while we are awakening than while we are sleeping. It is simply because of that sleeping is a state which our body and consciousness are temporarily off in term of time, while awakening is a state of fully consciousness of time which is flying regardless slowly or fast. Therefore, we are moving forwards instead of stopping, we are seeing instead of none, we are experiencing instead of none.

“Awakening” is a topic that great spiritual teachers like Anthony De Mello, Krishnamurti, and Osho loved to talk about in their life. They all shared the same in common this field and helped us to absolutely understand the command that Jesus Christ – the Greatest Teacher of ever has taught in His life “Be on your guard! Be alert!” – (Mark 13, 33). And so what is awakening and why do we have to be alert? And are we on our guard and alert?

In the literal sense, “awakening” means no sleeping. In the figurative sense, “awakening” means being completely aware of oneself and of what is happening outside the world. So if we are in the state of awakening, we can live fully our life and avoid serious mistakes caused by the non-awakening. Now, let’s take a small experiment about this in our life to see more clearly about this point. What will happen for us if we fall asleep while driving? Surely we may have a serious accident, or if we are lucky we will say thanks to God for saving us.

According to father Anthony De Mello, we are human beings who “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” – (Matthew 26, 41b) always have a tendency to enjoy sleeping more than awakening. And that is why he confidently declares that the human race is sleeping alternative to awakening. We always love to sleep for the feeling of being very comfortable while sleeping, especially when we are hurt spiritually or physically. Furthermore, sleeping is a very good way to escape from facing the world outside where a lot of crimes and injustices still exist. Reading Anthony De Mello and Krishnamurti, I could see that they have the same in common, “sleeping is a state of stupidity”. And if we take time to think about this, we will see that it is true in our life, because each day many accidents happen in the world caused by this state.

They also said that an action or a decision that seriously harms oneself, others, and the world can be considered as a lack of necessary awakening. And from this point, we can see that, throughout the world history, world wars, civil wars, racial exterminations, racial discrimination, environmental damage etc. took place and still go on happening if we are still in the state of sleeping. For the lack of awakening, we try to kill each other nations to nations, races to races, skins to skins, families to families, and even bothers and sisters under a roof. For the lack of awakening, we allow ourselves to fall into gambling, alcoholism, drug abuse, drug addiction, adultery etc. and finally die for them. Also, we let ourselves live in negative emotions and bad characteristics like anger, greed, selfishness, , deception, betrayal, and the likes.

One more point about awakening we need to know here is that, also according to Anthony De Mello and Krishnamurti, a state of being totally conscious of that we are awaking means that we are sleeping and vice versa when we know that we are sleeping means that we are waking. This idea seems to be a very conflict. I also feel conflict when I first read them, but now I could see that there is no conflict here if we stop and think carefully about it in term of looking at ourselves with all dimensions of thinking and actions we have made. And to help you get a firm foundation to completely understand this seemly a conflict, I find a Bible verse stating the same “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” – (1Corinthians 10, 12). For example, when we think that we are so good, it means that we are not good at all, and vice versa. This is true, because when we are conscious of that we are so good, we will be fell into a state of being self-satisfied in which we will not want to master ourselves more. This is a one’s shortcoming. So, the key here is that we need to be humble enough to know ourselves fully and exactly so that we can adjust and change ourselves at the time needed without any regret of having done this or done that in life.

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” – (Matthew 26, 41a) is a command that Jesus Christ gives us to keep on living this life without making so much mistakes that could be harmful to ourselves and others. If we are always fully aware of this command and live it perfectly in life, we will surely be very happy and make many significant contributions to this world, or vice versa, we will live in sorrows, fears, doubts, and destruction. This lesson also helps us avoid falling into the temptation of being over arrogant, but always be humble to learn, to live, and to love as God wants.

And now I would like you to spend time to think more about the farewell letter from the Nobel Prize writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez to see how he lives his final moments of life fully. He wrote when he was aware of that he would die someday for his serious cancer. And here is a short piece taken from the letter “I would values things, not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light. I would walk when others hold back. I would wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talks, and how would I enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul. My God, if I had a piece of life…I wouldn’t let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them…. I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to love! To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own…. I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain, without knowing the real happiness is in how it is scaled…. I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he helps the other get to his feet.”