Love and fear. Should they even be mentioned in the same sentence?
By emptychair
@innertalks (23742)
Australia
February 15, 2021 7:11pm CST
An Osho quote
"Why are you so afraid of the world?
The fear of the world is really fear of love."
Osho, an Indian mystic, (1931 to 1990), said this.
Is this true, though?
Love is behind all things, but fear puts you behind itself, in front of love.
And so, if we can drop fear, we will see only love, in the world, and in our self.
Some people will tell us that love is a choice, and that we need to make the decision to love, and only then can we move away from the grip of fear.
The problem is though that when we make decisions, we need to make them in matching agreement with both our surface self, and our deeper self.
A surface decision, made on the spur of the moment, based only on surface feelings and thoughts, will almost always be the wrong one for us, if we haven't also thought over it more deeply, and contacted our deeper feelings about it too.
A good decision is based on our deeper and surface selves, being aligned, in agreeance, with the decision.
This is true because the deeper part of ourselves is more connected to our soul, and to our heart, or to intuitive truth, and so it knows usually what the right decision must be, but we do need to chew it over on the surface of our self too, to be happy with it at that surface feeling and thinking level too, which includes our personality, and very being at the moment, or of who it is that we think and feel that we are right now, or in other words of how much of this deeper self it is that we are currently acknowledging, and living awarely, and consciously, from.
"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."
Bertrand Russell, the British Philosopher, (1872 to 1970), said much the same thing as Osho.
Which adds to the weight of each statement as being true, I think too.
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
One thing about Osho, he was not afraid to live from who he thought that he was.
We need to do the same!
6 people like this
6 responses
@just4him (323168)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
16 Feb 21
@innertalks I agree. You found the verse I was looking for earlier.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
16 Feb 21
@just4him That verse comes close to being my most favourite verse in the whole Bible. I always have this verse close to my heart.
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
16 Feb 21
Yes, absolute fear would be the absence of love, but because love is everywhere, even as God is everywhere, if we are open to receiving him, even in fear, we can still feel his love, trying to reach us too.
There is no such thing as perfect fear, or complete, or total fear, in my mind.
Fear is always just to a certain degree, depending on how much love we are still keeping in our hearts, and living by, instead of our embracing the fear with our minds instead.
Fear is always just a dilution of love, because we have not reached perfection in that love yet.
I do not think that complete absence of love is possible, unless we are the ones holding it out, from ourselves.
On the other hand, though, perfect love has been described in the Bible like this:
New King James Version
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."
1 John, chapter 4, verse 18.
When, and if we are ever made perfect in love, we will feel then no fear either.
Until, then, if we do feel fear, we should make the choice to try to return to love, as this also means to return to God's ways for ourselves, as if we are fearing, it is usually a lack of trust involved too, and we have moved away from trusting and loving God sufficiently enough to overcome that fear that has slipped into us now.
@Laurakemunto (13787)
• Kenya
16 Feb 21
@innertalks good piece thanks for sharing
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
16 Feb 21
Yes, that's true, but sometimes fear can sneak up on us, without our choosing it to do so, and in that instance, we should recognise the fear in ourselves, and choose love instead, and so allow love to flow in us once more, and wash all of that fear away.
@kaylachan (84834)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
16 Feb 21
Yes, we should. I belive most do and have. Until COVID happened.... and politics meshed with science and medicine. Now more people are living in fear, of things they never thought twice about being afraid of before.... because they "might" get sick or they "might" pass on an illness to someone else who could die, because that one sniffle could be the thing that tips them over.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
16 Feb 21
Love, should, of course, be mentioned in all sentences, because behind all is love.
Even behind fear is love, so instead of fearing, we should try to reach past fear, and reach back into love, and then give this newly found love back out again as care and compassion, even more to those around us, now in fear, and they will be then helped to return again to love then too.
@choijungeun (2710)
• Hangzhou, China
16 Feb 21
I think so,Confucius had said:"The brave man has no fear.",he also said:"A benevolent man must be a brave man."If we totally devote ourselves to the true love,there is nothing to fear,all we need to do is just follow our heart and trust the love
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
16 Feb 21
Yes, thanks, that's nicely said.
“If we follow love, the rest of our life will fall into place.”
with apologies to Lao Tzu, who put it like this:
“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.” – Lao Tzu
