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Permalink Reply by Ben Roberts on July 10, 2012 at 10:04am

I just posted this comment of fear and love to the Occupy Heart Self Empathy thread and the What We Learned from NatGat thread, and see that it also belongs here...

One of the most dramatic moments in the Cafe @ NatGat occurred when Heather described a vision she had of "blind lady justice," only to learn after the fact that a woman dressed exactly as she described--blindfold, white robe, scales--was sitting silently at the same table with the people she had been conversing with!  On her scales were the words "fear" and "love."

My sense of this polarity is not so much that we replace fear with love as that we choose to give power to the love within us and not to the fear.  The fear is still there--"fearless" doesn't mean we never experience fear.  That's denial!  I've seen how people behave when they are "afraid to be afraid."  It creates a kind of dictatorial pressure that stifles creativity and openness.

By feeding the love, we can learn to let go of the fear and not to allow it to guide our actions.  As in the wonderful Cherokee story of the two wolves.

I loved the "sleep" analogy you offered on the Cafe Call yesterday too, Dyck.  The idea that we "choose" love the way we choose sleep, by creating the conditions for it to emerge, as opposed to flipping the switch on some sort of emotional control panel.

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Permalink Reply by Dyck Dewid on July 10, 2012 at 11:18am

Your conscientiousness is astounding, Ben.

The example you say about Lady Liberty has power for me in other ways too.  I feel the tremendous power of silence, on which all sound is built... the apparent universal truth that everything comes from silence and goes to silence.  Such a special woman is she who embodied this in her role as Lady Liberty... in fact I think she IS Lady Liberty!  Does anyone know her name?

"The greatest gifts are given and received in silence."   to quote, Meher Baba

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Permalink Reply by Helen Roberts on December 22, 2012 at 2:53am

Hello Dyck, I am enjoying reflecting on our brief talk after the call last week. Thank you for that. As for the above, you wrote:

My vision is to experience the question together.

I am intrigued...Are you interested in thinking about what would be a next step/ a first step to experiencing the question together? I know that that was july and this is December...oh well..small detail...

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Permalink Reply by Ben Roberts on December 22, 2012 at 10:25am

How very timely that you found this, mom.  Makes me wonder what other treasures and unfinished conversations are lurking here in the Cafe's depths!  In the new light that we marked the slow steady return of yesterday, and in the new place that NEWtown now occupies, I imagine much of what we have written to one another will look quite different.  

As I contemplate this, I find myself feeling sad that C.A. Bradfield is not here and his many posts are gone with him, although his ghost remains, in all the replies we made to him.

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Permalink Reply by Dyck Dewid on December 22, 2012 at 2:26pm

Hi Helen, those molecules are still jumpin around in me, now that you poke at it again... around the action of mutually exploring, experiencing a question together... perhaps another word for true inquiry.  Following is from my own experience with inquiry.

If I were to explore a question alone I would formulate the best, most concise, relevant query I could.  I would give it space so I could contemplate it... what the question means in its broadest view, its narrowest view (not trying to answer it), just trying to see what's embedded in it or attached or attracted to it.  The result might be to alter the question somewhat or entirely. 

In one of my examples I began with the question "How do I define surrender?" Then, "What is it to surrender?" "Is it possible to surrender completely?"  That became "What does it mean to surrender?"  Subtle but meaningful changes that expanded toward my intuitive destination.  After a year of so, with this question still alive in me and daily attracting bits and pieces of information, love came along and attached itself to surrender... I think via something Rumi said.  That's when my understanding of both love and surrender began changing a lot.  Soon after that fear came along and attached itself also.  After more than two years now my understanding of surrender is far from what it was, yet I sense now there is another level of understanding that wants to come.  It is one of being that living understanding... without choice (thinking).

Although this initial process is done internally, it can include conversation, observation, research, experiences over time with others who aren't even aware of what you're doing. This is aimed to refine the question within... and it will also gather some initial, perhaps most obvious, information as it flourishes and matures.

This process can last quite a long time for a single query (surrender still alive after 3 years), depending on the needs and quest of the asker.

This process, it seems, can also be done in groups if there's affection, and willingness to be in risky, maybe scary territory of 'the unknown' (e.g., opinions aren't of value, tentativeness is) and if there's sufficient resolve for honesty (to strip naked) public.  This latter attribute of honesty is to me what makes more desirable and rich a group inquiry over a lone seeker.  The collective consciousness based in honesty & authenticity helps to true the intuitions of each seeker.

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