Facing Existential Fear

Friends,

The excerpt this week is edited from a blog by Craig Hamilton entitled, “Is it Safe to Let Go? Facing Existential Fear on the Spiritual Path.”
“Question: The more I’ve been engaging with spiritual practice, the more I’m starting to feel a deep existential paradox…. while awakening feels within reach, it’s still so terrifying to let go. The more I lean into letting go, the more I become overwhelmed with fear. I’m not sure how to move beyond the fear.”
“Answer: Many spiritual practices revolve around letting go and letting things be, and when you engage this practice in earnest, it’s natural—even inevitable—for existential fear to arise. Any genuine practice of letting go will eventually take you beyond who you thought you were…”
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“We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.”
The Talmud

Talmud

“Let me be Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan, or Sufi; I care not what my religion, my race, my creed, or my color be, if only I can win my way to Thee! But let me be none of these, if it enmesh me in labyrinthine ways of religious formalities. Let me travel the royal road of realization which leads to Thee.” Paramhansa Yogananda

Yogananda

“If you do not ask yourself what it is you know, you will go on listening to others and change will not come because you will not hear your own truth.” St. Bartholomew

St. Bartholomew

“Throw off all thought of imaginary things and stand firm in that which you are.” Kabir

Kabir

Prayer of all healers and lightworkers:
“I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.” ACIM

A Course of Miracles

“If the you of five years ago doesn’t consider the you of today a heretic, then you are not growing spiritually.” Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton

“The power of the words I AM can change how you see yourself and how you see others. We have been conditioned to believe that who we are is ordinary—that who we are is what we have, what we do, what people think of us, what we own, and none of this is who we really are. Who we are is infinite light divine creation, and that creation is within all of us.” Wayne Dyer

Dyer

“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder. You always have the choice.”
H.H. the Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama

“When the Buddha taught, he … taught that there is a kind of innocent misunderstanding that we all share, something that can be turned around, corrected, and seen through, as if we were in a dark room and someone showed us where the light switch was. It isn’t a sin that we are in the dark room. It’s just an innocent situation, but how fortunate that someone shows us where the light switch is.” Pema Chodron

Chodron

“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing – that when we look for what’s best in a person… we are participating in something sacred.” Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Thomas Merton

Merton

May my focus on the light within be as dedicated as the attention my dog gives to his tennis ball. Unknown

Dog Devotion

Everything in your story is constantly changing, including the story you tell about who you are.

Don Miguel Ruiz

“The lamps are different, but the light is the same.” Rumi

Rumi

Truth, or awakening, is simply the recognition of what is already perfectly in place. It is not a doctrine and it is not a creation. It is the most profound and joyous discovery a human being will make. Mooji

Mooji

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow

Facing Existential Fear

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