Fear seems to be the bottleneck of all spiritual wisdom. In Carlos Castaneda's series, Don Juan spoke of four 'enemies' through the path to wisdom.
Quote:
Don Juan tells Castaneda that there are four inner obstacles he must overcome: fear, clarity, power, and old age. These four elements are both obstacles as well as necessary preconditions.
1. Fear
If we give in to fear we will never conquer it. We must not run away. We must defy our fear. To become knowledgeable [=enlightened] we must first be afraid and then we must overcome the fear. [There is only one thing we must fear: and that is fear itself.] Once we have vanquished fear, we are free from it for the rest of our lives because, instead of fear, we have acquired clarity -- a clarity of mind which erases fear.
2. Clarity
And thus we will encounter our second enemy: Clarity! That clarity of mind, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds. It forces us never to doubt ourselves. Clarity will give a false sense of knowledge and stop us from continuing the path of knowledge [=enlightenment]. [Clarity will enable us to see. We will see anything and therefore we will lose modesty. We will think we have reached the end, the highest level. We have not yet realized that there is more. Despite the fact that we can see with clarity there are things beyond our scope, outside our vision. There are still things to learn.] We must do what we did with fear: we must defy our clarity and use it only to see. [We must stay humble and remain with a desire to learn, become knowledgeable, become enlightened.] Once we have overcome our second enemy, we will arrive at a position where nothing can harm us anymore. We will have power.
3. Power
But we will also come across our third enemy: Power! With the power available to us we will feel invincible. We command; we make rules, we are masters. But this also can lead to our downfall. Power can turn us into cruel, capricious men. We have to learn when and how to use the power. [Anything we do affects other people or the environment and we are responsible for them as well.] We have to come to realize that the power we have seemingly conquered is in reality never ours. Clarity and power without control is dangerous. [We have to control the power or it controls us.]
4. Old Age
Now the last of our enemies will attack: Old age! We have to overcome the desire to rest. This struggle will never end. [We will never be perfect. But it is our responsibility to use our powers/talents, instead of being idle.]
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I don't feel we are in any one stage at any given time, at least entirely. I do feel we fluctuate, but there is a definite sense of linear movement through them. It seems the whole goal is to remain humble and confident. Who would have thought?
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God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.