Conversation About Being “Trapped” in “Negative Mental States” Arising From “Fear” & “Desire.”
Person-A: I’m constantly being effected by negative news and articles. I can’t seem to be exposed without being left in an anxious and fearful state of mind.
The way you describe it reminds me of like some sort of insect…, like an insect of “anxiety” jumps on us like an insect after reading, and then we’re furiously trying to brush them off.
The only problem with this is, these emotions are not really an insect, they’re a part of us, so we can’t brush them off. The harder we try to brush them off, the stronger they attach.
We have to learn to live with these insects on us while they’re there. We have to “coexist” with them because they’re really a part of us. Like our babies crying in the night. We must tend to them with the love, attention, care, affection, etc..
Keeping it away, is us trying to keep ourselves away from ourselves.
This is why it only gets worse the more we try to “get rid” of it, or somehow avoid the uncomfortable negative feelings.
because it’s ourselves we’re trying to escape from! This is a logical impossibility!
Person-A: How do we live with this “insect?”
We just do what is required to accommodate its presence…and do the best we can with this until it leaves.
Like the weather.
When it rains, you get out your umbrella.
Person-A: But how?
Remember “how” means “time”?
“How” implies a “process” or a “method.” A “method” means it requires “time”, “psychological time” which means “psychological space” which means “psychological division” or separation which is indicative of “desire” and “fear”.
So when we say “how” we’re re-creating “desire” and “fear”, which is what’s causing the problem in the first place…, our desire to escape from the feelings we’re presently experiencing.
There is no “how”…, the “how” is what creates the problem.
There is a way to greatly lessen the effects of psychological time and space, but it’s not through any sort of “active” action or activity in the form of a “process” or “method.”
It is instead a result of a “passive” action or activity, which is the activity of “seeing.” Just to see the whole movement of the “desire” and “fear” occurring in the present within you. Self observation, self awareness. Study your own thoughts to come to see and understand the nature of thought.
We just live with it like we live with anything we don’t have any control over. Just “look”, “observe”, and “see.”
Person-A: What do you mean by “seeing?”
“Seeing” and “looking” is to “observe” without any motive, other than to see whatever it is there is to be seen. Like a scientist studying and observing nature to understand nature.
For the “love of understanding itself.”
Like studying an ant hill out of sheer curiosity only.
Just observe yourself, observe your thoughts.
Instead of desiring to run away from your unpleasant feelings, accept that they are already present and instead just observe them.
In this observation, a miraculous thing happens.
Everything just falls away like the end of a holographic image
I really can’t describe it.
It really is something for each of us to experience for ourselves.
But it is up to us only to do it.
Each of us must do it for ourselves. It can be no other way.
This is nature.
Do it and see for yourself
Just keep observing… “everything.”
outside and inside of you.
It just occurred to me to mention all this to you like this…
Just “remain with the fact”, remain with “what is.”
Remain with whatever actually and factually “is” occurring right now.
That is, observe your attempting to move away from it. Observe your fear, your anxiety.
Observe your “not wanting” of it in the present.
By “observe”, I mean “through self-observation” locate/find and identify all the pieces of the binary structure of the thought presently producing the desire and the fear.
First, see if you can grab a hold of the thought that’s repeating in your head. Let’s say it’s something like “I don’t want [fill in the blank — something — whatever]”.
Say it’s “I don’t want anxiety.” That is, the feeling of anxiety is currently present, and you would like it to be absent. So the “root” idea, concept, notion, or thought here is that of “anxiety.”
Therefore, as per the law of opposites, this concept of “anxiety” can only exist against the opposite of “no anxiety.” So just having this thought creates this mental division.
Next, identify the binary structure of the form, that is the “positive” and “negative” forms of this thought,
So the binary form or structure of this idea/thought would be:
“no anxiety” — in its “negative” form as the “absence of anxiety.”
&
“anxiety” — in its “positive” form as the “presence of anxiety.”
Next, identify which form of the thought your presently “seeing” in use.
Identify your relationship to that form of the thought.
By this I mean how you’re relating to it right now.
Is it a “good-feeling” type of thought?
Do you “want” it?
Is it a “bad-feeing” type of thought?
Do you “NOT want” it?
Do you either “desire” or “fear(not desire)” the object, or subject of the thought?
The form of the thought that I’m presently finding myself in is definitely the “bad-feeling” one, that is very much “undesired.” Presently we’re seeing “anxiety” in use, and then the wanting of “no anxiety.” So in this case, we’re seeing that the “positive” form of the thought is “negative” for us. We’re actually desiring the “negative” form of this thought — “no anxiety.”
So I’m in the “positive” form of the thought of “being anxious”
I feel anxiety about having anxiety, and I do no want anxiety.
That is, again, I want to be in the state of “no anxiety.”
So I’m in the “positive” form of the thought and I want to be in the “negative” form of the thought.
So this whole mental construct feeds on itself.
So we’re in a state of “fear” and we’re “afraid” of staying with the “fear.”
So we’re “stuck” in a state of “desire” as fear is to “not want” and to desire is to “want.”
And any more “desire” in the form of “wanting” of any kind, including the “wanting to get out of the state of desire, is just further “wanting”, further “desire” which means your actually strengthening the force of the “desire”…
you yourself have attested to the experiencing of this.
Here is the mechanism at work that is causing this “effect.”
The “cause.”
The allowing of oneself to “accept” is what allows one to remain with “what is”…to remain with “the fact” and thus dissolving the division, the fear, the desire, and the conflict.
This effect then allows for “seeing” to occur.
It seems to me that this acceptance is a part of love, if not love itself.
