The Variable
Fear is the great barrier to human growth. It is said that when we are born into this physical universe we bring with us only two fears, of loud noise and of falling, both engendered by the birth process. As we grow older we learn more and more fears so that by the time we reach maturity we—or most of us—are loaded with them. We have grown physically, but our real growth, the realization of our true potential, has been sadly impeded.
Unknowns create fears. We may fear the darkness because we don’t know what’s there. A physical pain may create fear because we don’t know what it may imply. When these Unknowns become Knowns the fears diminish and disappear and we are able to cope with whatever confronts us.
All of us have enough Unknowns in our lives—and enough fears. We have no need to look for more. Yet there are times when we don’t have any choice. Here is an example. This is how it was for me—it is the source for the material that follows.
It is generally believed that as we go through life we don’t really change. We just become more of the same. Barring the usual exceptions that, as we say, prove the rule, when we look around us as the years go by, this seems quite valid. On the whole, people don’t change, and most of us strongly resist change.
Nevertheless, all our worries and wars are based upon change. We fear that something will happen, or we fear that it won’t; so we fight
to prevent change or to speed up the process. But whatever we do, change is 100 percent guaranteed. The only question is its rate. Slow change we interpret as evolution, fast as revolution. Changes are the epitome of Unknowns—the greatest of fear generators.
In my own case, there seemed to be no choice. I fell, unknowing and panic-stricken, into the process that engendered the new recognition of reality—what I call the Different Overview—that I now carry with me. The change in my life was not simply more of the same. It was something that hadn’t worried me beforehand because I had no idea that such things existed. Was this change in my life accidental or evolutionary? To me, it was revolutionary.