TRUTH: What Scares Us The Most (an essay)

Two things cause most fear:
1) helplessness
2) truth

some may add the unknown and possible/actual harm, but the main 2 are above. The one I want to focus on is truth. Because when you realize you are in trouble, when you are helpless etc it is because you are realizing the truth.

When we are being deceived, we don't feel fear. When we deceive ourselves, it's also smooth sailing. No, it's when we hear the truth that we get defensive, feel aversion, want to run away and defend ourselves. Why is that? Because lies make us happy!

It's true! You wish to counterargue that, but it's human nature plain and simple. "But", you say, "when I found out I was being lied to, I wasn't happy!"
EXACTLY
Because when you find out something is a lie, you discover the TRUTH, and that is what scares you, makes you angry, upset, sad, depressed, and all those other emotions that aren't peaceful happiness. We aren't meant to DENY these emotions, we are to hear them out! Otherwise, why would we have the capacity to have them? We just can't let them take control of us.
I'm not saying peaceful happiness is a bad thing. Once we have learned all the truth we need, once we are balanced and in the present, when we are looking within, then we can get peace from truth and love. It's just that happiness from truth is harder to maintain then happiness from lies.
But, fear is a warning device. Alarm bells going off. But, what do we do when we feel fear, especially intense fear? We shut out everything around us, we go into fight or flight, we look for a way to escape, to avoid this feeling.
It's called aversion.
We wish to avoid anything associated with what makes us afraid.
This is an important thing if done right. It can sharpen our senses and prime our bodies to survive many things. Miracles can happen!
But, too often, it shuts us down. Especially when it comes to something that we associate with a past fear but the present thing isn't really that scary. We move into the past and the future, we loose the present. But, it is the present that is most important if we are going to properly deal with the situation at hand.

Every single one of us are drowning in deception. It is all around and inside us. We judge others and ignore own faults in a happy dance of hypocrisy ... to make us feel better and to avoid the fear of the truth. I'm fine, THEY are the wrong ones and to blame! Look carefully at your life, how many things do you do now that you judged others as stupid or wrong for doing? But, if someone alerts you to this inconsistency, you'll deny it or attack the person, because it is the truth and it causes conflict and fear and thus we avoid it. BACK TO THE HAPPY PLACE!
Information can be found to support my arguments in the Bible. Here's a big truth, the Bible is NOT the word of God! God finds a way to speak to us through the Bible, but the Bible is not without it's misquotes. Therefore, one of the ways we allow ourselves to be deceived is through churches and religions. Not that they are 100% lies, that is not how it works here. It is a tapestry, lies and truths get interwoven with each other.
The Bible itself supports my notions, and in fact inspired me to write this essay. Look to Jeremiah. This is a very important chapter, with a very telling episode in it. Here, the LORD itself is vexed by how we deceive ourselves. LORD cannot understand it, this is God we're talking about, and if God is confused and upset by something, it is a way of highlighting a very big issue.
In Jeremiah, the LORD is upset and cannot figure out why his people worship false gods. They build upon their great deception with false priests, false prophets, and false scribes. If that wasn't a big enough problem, the thing that upsets God the most isn't that they defend the deceptions but that they are HAPPY in their deception and that is why they defend them.
I believe this is why God wanted us to fear him in the Old Testament. If we fear God, we will be more open to our intuition trying to warn us with fear to know when we are being deceived. When we stopped fearing God, we made up religious rules and worshiped false gods and let the military/political leaders and priest (religious leaders) (a.k.a. Pharisee and Sadducee) to make power plays and to keep their power control us and feed us deceptions. As long as we are deceived, they can keep their power by having us ignore the truth of GOD and fight amongst ourselves and with other groups ... lost in division they gain their power.
Gaining their power we lose our souls.
This idea that deception is bad is bolstered in the New Testament. The phrases people use to convert people to their "one true church" like trying to get customers to buy from your products more than your competition is actually meant to protect us from them. "Here is Christ, there is Christ, do not believe them ... many will be deceived" and so on. These phrases are shields that are turned into swords, swords to cut us and for us to use to cut whoever they say are our enemies. Notice how often we are told to be AGAINST people or groups? But, Christ took this into account when he told us to love our enemies! Anybody who doesn't believe like you do, doesn't do as you would do, isn't as "moral" as you, is an enemy. But, the truth is, we are to love everybody, even those that make us uncomfortable or upset us! It is a tough truth to swallow. But, one also be careful not to fall into deception by loving and forgiving people. This happens far too often as well. We are free to try to reconcile with one who is upsetting us, but if they refuse to cooperate, we are told we can wash our hands of them. The problem is that we often push away those that offer the greatest truths from fear, so that we can stay happy in our deceptions.
One of the most intriguing passages in scripture says "the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit." So, what is the Holy Spirit? Well, John tells us! John says that the Holy Spirit is truth. So, the phrase now reads "the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the truth" and how do you blaspheme the truth? By believing instead in lies!
This is further bolstered when we are told not to follow the flat and wide path, but that the path that God for us is "steep and rocky". This is meant to slow you down, to be aware of your present whereabouts. But, the rocks also serve as hand and foot holds so you don't go sliding back down. And, being steep, it means you are going up ... growing up .... gaining positive change even if you feel negative about how you have to go about it. Because we wish to avoid hardship. The thing is, the results are worth it! It's like anything else, the effort gains the results. Like exercise! It can cause pain and discomfort and we'd rather be lazy, but if we just keep at it we will be healthier than if we took some stupid pills! My friend Jozie brought this up and it makes a perfect example for this essay. Not giving into deception is like exercise. You have to constantly keep it up, but also not overdo it because being too skinny can be unhealthy as well! So, again, it's about balance.
There are some that can awaken the truth within us, but it is human nature to be just as taken by those that deceive us. This is why it's important to continue to seek the way, seek the truth. If we think we know it all now and no longer need to look anymore, then we are still being deceived! That is, if we think we are getting the answers from somebody else, be it from our family, friends, loved ones, church, religion, government.
One of the biggest obstacles to this is in what we think is meant to make us happy. We look to others expectations of us. This is a part of it, as I said it is about balance. But, if we keep doing things to please others, or to avoid their displeasure, then we are not doing things to make ourselves happy, but others definition of it. We often define our happiness so strongly with others that we cannot see that it isn't really our happiness. People will choose their careers and lifestyles making themselves actually miserable inside and get upset at those closest to them. They close themselves off. This not only hurts them, but those around them as well, and it certainly harms God a lot! They live in a world that is about extremes: denial of truth and emotions and over-excited bursts of emotions leaving their prisons when they can no longer deny the truth. This is where the idea of aversion comes in, because we stay in the cycle of deception to try to ease their pain and ours. We stay with the false happiness of deception and avoid the helpful fear and discomfort caused by a glimpse of the truth.
Again we come to the idea of balance, because one can care too little about others. But, that is caring too little for ourselves. We often get caught in between trying to please ourselves and pleasing others.
Recall that the kingdom is within. In your heart. Read the book "The Biology of Transcendence" by Joseph Chilton Pearce to find out that we are actually biologically BUILT to transcend! But remain aware that we are not born with a truth gene. That we have the knowledge of good and evil but we often equate happiness with "evil" or deception and often feel fear for the unknown and discomforting "good" or truth. It is not about avoiding deception, but simply recognizing it and calmly moving back towards the middle ... towards truth.
So, be heartened! Live in the moment and befriend your emotions! Know that the biggest deception is to think that our thoughts racing through our head when the mud at the bottom of our clear water gets agitated by strong emotions are facts. Don't compare yourself as you are now with how you might be, because comparisons are useless! "be as the lilies in the field", simply BE! It's all good! The truth is never absolute, so just keep yourself aware that you are being deceived, and it will be OK.