Attend
Healing, Learning, and Empowering.
In the darkness, we can find a light. We just need to know what we are looking for. We need to know how it's going to feel when we get ahold of it. Once we have found the light, we need to know how to turn it on. No, we're not talking about a flashlight or a light switch. However, this makes a nice metaphor.
Most of us are attending to the things we fear. This causes great chaos in our life, for us and others. We feel obligated to tend to our fear because it's the most prudent thing to do...right? 'After all, we have our livelihoods to protect. If we don't protect it, someone's liable to come along and take it or destroy it.' What is 'it?' 'It' is our self. We are protecting our self from the fear we think might happen.
When we attend to our fears, they come sprinting towards us head on.
In parts of the world, there is a centipede that has a painful bite. Local lore has it that the reason for the excruciatingly painful bite is to avoid being stepped on by elephants. Its venomous bite is painful and can last days and sometimes weeks. The most intense part comes shortly after the bite. The pain slowly builds for a minute before it begins to subside. This gradual increase in pain becomes overwhelming for most and they often become panicked thinking that the pain is just going to continue to increase.
Imagine what it would be like if you didn't know where this pain was coming from or why. Most of us would be in a blind panic thinking something was horrifically wrong.
Cats in this part of the world are often more feral than kept as pets. The feral cats around here have learned to fear the highway and dogs. One evening a feral cat went to lay down in its bed only to lay on one of these centipedes. The centipede bit and the cat jumped nearly ten feet into the air. The cat looked around trying to figure out what just happened. But no sooner did the pain begin to build.
Panicked, the cat blindly sprinted towards its two worst fears.
The cat sprinted through the jungle out onto the highway. Luckily, there were no cars passing at that split second of a moment. But across the road was person walking his two large dogs. The cat blindly slammed into the chest of both the dogs. Instinctually, the dogs reacted as if being attacked and killed the cat instantly.
Death is never easy when we attend to our fear. We leave this world blindly fighting and screaming. This cat didn't know what or where its attacker was but somehow sprinted directly to its two major fears.
We all harbor fears. Sometimes these fears come from what we've been told, what we've seen in the movies, or what we've experienced from our past. Regardless of their origins, they are the fears we harbor.
In all fear, there is a light that we need to find and we need to know how to turn it on. If we cannot find the light in the darkness, the darkness persists. We are living our life blindly trying not to run into our fears in the dark.
We have developed some skills to avoid our fears in the darkness and this helps some. However, we are always susceptible to our fears. When we attend to them, we draw them near unintentionally. Like the cat, we can sense these fears are near and we make decisions from our fear.
Decisions and actions from fear, induce more fear in our self and others.
Finding the light and attending to it. This turns on the light and we see what's in the darkness. We no longer fear it because we know what and where it is.
Attending to the light found in everyone and everything, sends this sprinting towards us. We are One. When we attend to our fears, we induce a fear in us and others. When we attend to our Oneness, we induce Oneness in us and others.