Finding Sight, A Practical Guide for Self-Development of the Deep Senses,
Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 F.W. Lineberry & D.L.Keur. All Rights Reserved.FEAR AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
(page bookmarks)Natural fear and self-consciousness are healthy and normal. Learned fear and self-consciousness, though useful for perpetuating the goals of a society, are not always in your best interests. They are the result of social conditioning.
Fear of evil, boogie men, of those different than ourselves, of those things and places different than our usual environment, are learned behaviors and conditionings, that can and do color our perceptions and our interpretations of reality, usually with negative result.
Do not confuse fear with caution here. Caution is a natural, self-preserving function. Fear, on the other hand, should only engage with actual danger - the fight or flight mechanism.
If you are predisposed toward any socio-religious doctrine - that means, if you and/or the generations before you, have been subjected to and immersed within any socio-political and/or socio-religious system (which is everyone) - then you are prone to the conditioning of that system and its doctrines.
Before you go any farther with these techniques, we suggest a thorough reading of Part II, with subsequent meditation and exploration of any limitations you hold because of your conditioning, for you must cleanse and purge yourself - or, at least, recognise - those engrained beliefs and their consequence.
Self-consciousness is you watching yourself. Self-consciousness, or the "me, myself, and I" syndrome, is destructive to "now" being and to being able to perceive deeply without censoring. And, without the ability to "get out of the way" by becoming un-self-conscious, you will fail to achieve clear, unfettered perceiving. For further learning about self-consciousness in its constructive and destructive forms, please see Part II.
Return to Harmonizing & Balancing Chi