Only Fear Dies (1994) Barry Long
Letting go of frustration, worry, and anger
Barry Long was an Austrailian “Spirit Master.” My first go-round reading this book, I thought it was pretty out there. But, I keep coming back to it, and I think a lot of it is very salient to how we live (and don’t live) our lives. We are ultimately responsible for our own happiness and our own lives; no one else can accomplish this for us, however much it may seem a conservative trope. Are we able to see through fear, our defenses, at what is really going on, or do we seek untruth, and look away from truth. When your fear dies, fear of the void, existential dread, what have you, you can let go of your attachments to the World, stop shouting “should” statements until your face is black and blue, see the World more clearly, and thus, be better able to positively contribute.
“You are dissipating your energy out into the existence through the personality, instead of using it to stay in your reality. The mask is kept on by energy going out. As you deny the projection of the personality, you conserve energy. When enough energy is retained, the mask collapses.” Thus, the more energy we spend crafting a persona, and maintaining it, the less we spend our effort on living; if we give up the farce, the farce ceases to be. Focus on being and not appearing.
“We must be true to our situations; if you react in dislike to a job, you should resign, because you are unable to do a good job; If you prefer doing the hated job, then complaining and emotionalizing about it, this consumes energy which could be better used for taking productive action.” Often times, we just want to complain and commiserate, and not actually try to change.
“Anger arises because you are not getting your own way. Instead of being angry you should be looking at what practical action you can take to get around the obstruction. If there’s no practical action you can take, your desire is impractical at this time. To be honest you must face that fact and give up your wanting." Thus, if you have a problem, do something to change it, or accept its existence.
“Humans like the emotional rollercoaster, the up and the down, the extreme liking, and the associated disliking, which, even if not liking, is still a feeling. People are not okay with the middle way, just being; they want excitement.” Life lived in extremes. Work, work, work, followed by a cruise, work, work, work, skydiving, etc.
“Only action, or speaking what you live, is true.” Writing books about how the solution to inequality in the World is disbanding private property rights does not actually require you to do anything; you are speaking in lies.
“The truth is you are responsible for your life. If you’re not responsible, it’s not your life; and that’s absurd. Similarly, if you blame something else for what happens to you, you’re giving up responsibility by giving it to others. To be responsible is to be responsible for everything that happens to you, unfolding as your life. Indeed, there are continual difficulties you have to face. They may seem to have been caused by other agencies. But you have to do your best to sort them out. That’s life.” Thus, we must play the cards we are dealt; that is all we can do. People take credit when they get a promotion at work; thus, people cannot duck responsibility when something goes wrong.
“Life is to be enjoyed, to be made conscious by enjoying it. For joy is consciousness. When you enjoy anything you do, you are conscious. If you enjoy dancing, you’re conscious while dancing. If you enjoy gardening, you’re conscious while gardening... Enjoy every moment of your life and you’re living joyously. It’s as simple as that. Joy or consciousness is your natural state. It’s always there. It’s like the sun that is always shining above the shadow of the earth. Stop living in your own shadow and the sun, the joy, immediately shines. Nothing positive can be done to find joy. It’s the practice of negation, shedding the shadow, that does it. Living joyously is the joy of clarity – no problems. My whole life is then a joy or clarity of being – a being of joy and clarity. This is there now inside you, just waiting to be lived. You don’t have to strive for it, search for it, or make it. It’s you. It’s yours, your very being” Thus, we must live life joyously. Being joyous is being conscious, which is the state of “being at work” as Aristotle says, doing the things we enjoy doing. One cannot find joy by simply seeking it directly.
“And life is always good now. Let someone press a pillow over your face, now, or when you are unhappy, and you will get the point. Be told that you have cancer and a month to live, and watch every problem, every pathetic bit of unhappiness in your life now, vanish miraculously. Instantly you will discover that life is good. And that it is good now, this moment and every moment.” Thus, we should live like we are dying; life is good.
“You enjoy your unhappiness too much to let go of it. The fact that it’s painful – that at the time you protest how unhappy you are – is irrelevant. The truth is you prefer this pain you know to the simple pain you refuse to face, the pain of being alone and without stimulus. And why won’t you face it? Because of fear. Facing it is like dying. But it’s only the fear dying. Only fear dies. And if you confront the pain, if you face it for long enough, you break through into the blue sky of freedom and joy." People enjoy the comfort of unhappiness because it is a known quantity, and because they can use it to avoid being alone, for commiseration.
“... the less you make a problem of your life, of any event in your life, the less time or emotion is created between the event and its natural solution... Events then flow timelessly and the life is sweet, easy and effortless – even though to others it may seem to be a problem... you make the problem, you magnify it, and then you think that in time or by your actions you dissolve or solve it. When all you are doing with all your worrying and frustration, is delaying the solution which would have come earlier, anyway... You -- your unhappiness that prevents you from seeing the simple truth of life – are the only problem... Rid yourself of the problem, your unhappiness, and all problems disappear, all unhappiness disappears.” When we are unhappy, everything seems as if it is a problem. We dwell on the problems, and we delay their resolution in brooding, worrying, frustration, which do not accomplish anything.
“Democracy did away with individuality. So now no single individual was responsible with his or her life and certainly was not responsible for the injustice and cruelty implicit and endemic in democratic society.” Thus, democracy is a forum with which we can avoid responsibility, both for ourselves, and for the ills of society (if we so choose).
“The simple truth is that the world only exists to give you what you want: the truth, or untruth, whichever you are looking for. If you are looking for untruth – or towards the untruth as a way of life – you will find it. The more you look, and the more vigorous and determined you are, the more you will find more quickly. And so you will become much more unhappy.” I am unsure about the fact that untruth breeds unhappiness, but surely, someone will find whatever it is they seek, be it truth or untruth. People can paint whatever story they want to see. Calls into question cognitive dissonance, and how happy truly are the believers of dogma.
“...whether you are being true to yourself, true to life, in what you are doing. By your conscious action you ask direct for life’s assistance. To avoid such directness and honestly in their lives, the unconscious masses have invented the indirect ritual of praying for help. These prayers use words, thoughts and emotions as substitutes for the direct action of self-sacrifice. But only that direct action will end compromise and rid yourself and life of unhappiness. The action of putting yourself, your life, on the line, is ‘faith’... it is the faith that moves mountains – like the mountain of difficulties that seems to loom over you when you break with compromise. The mountain is only your fear.” People do not believe in themselves, so they believe in God, they ask God for help. God helps those who help themselves because, in fact, there is likely no God, as we envision him/her/it at least. Being true to yourself and taking action will rid you of unhappiness, eventually.
“If you are true in what you are doing, the circumstances will be helpful. But if you are not being as true as you could be – which means you are owing – you may get ill, suffer even a mild illness that normally you would not have considered significant; you may lose some money, have a fierce or exhausting emotional argument, or go through a period of severe frustration, depression or uncertainty to do with our work, partner, housing or family.” Thus, if you are true to yourself, you take life problem’s in stride, whereas if you are untrue to yourself, life becomes a burden, especially when it becomes difficult. If you spend life doing a lot of things you do not want to do, you will resent it.
“For the masses there is no freedom from the ignorance of the world and themselves, no liberation. Only the individual can escape... Each individual is at a certain evolutionary point of consciousness... awareness of the truth of yourself or of life. Anyone able to read this book right through will have developed to a certain stage of consciousness. To a less developed person it would seem meaningless.” Thus, author thinks that ignorance of the masses is inevitable, as many psychologists have suggested (Berne).
“The main barrier to truth is fear, plus the desire to remain physically comfortable and emotionally secure, even though these particular conditions are constantly making you unhappy Remember, what continues to trouble you is what you are not facing up to, what you are running from. There is no failure. In any situation you can do no more than your best. It is the awareness that counts – the growing consciousness of the need to be true for truth’s sake and no other. Failure does not matter. You must not dwell on the past. There will be no shortage of opportunities to try again. Life will see to that; as life will also ensure that you succeed more and more, until eventually you perceive the wonder of the law working with precision in your life and you begin the miracle of controlling circumstances yourself.” Thus, people need to abandon fear of the unknown, fear of being uncomfortable, of being alone, of “failure,” and face the fear. One cannot fail; “failure” is a learning experience. One can only be aware, and try their best. If one continues to try, eventually they will succeed, and one will begin to control their life.
“Your love of unhappiness is your love of the world – your attachment to what you like and dislike in it. When you are unhappy it’s always about something in the world, even if it is only your worldly dislike of yourself. While you still love the world, you are attached to it through your likes and dislikes. You cannot feel the much finer love of life within you; not enough to give up the attachment. So you go on needing the excitement of its pleasure and pain. You cannot love life and the world. It is one or the other. Love of the world will obscure the love of life. When you no longer need the world’s pain you won’t need its phoney pleasure either. You will have the natural joy of life that never ends. You will no longer be dependent on the world’s up-and-down excitement. And yet the world will not vanish. You will still be in it. You will still do what you do and enjoy what you do. But you will not be attached to it. You will perform better in it because you won’t be unhappy. You will be able to love more. And it will no longer have the power to hurt you.” We get caught up in what we like, what we dislike, and we cannot live. When we are conscious, nothing in the World can hurt us (save, maybe, physically). The rollercoaster of seeking excitement ends, and life begins. “Only when the attachment to your likes and dislikes is dissolved for all time, can you be – be what you are. This is the end of existence as a burden.”
“Despite learned and professional rationalizations, the almost total psychic possession of the human race continues unabated. And it is reflected in the universal unhappiness of every man and woman -- expressing itself as worry, fear, argument, heartbreak, doubt, violence, guilt, loneliness, lack of love, poverty, exploitation, business, and war in any name or form... If you have unhappiness in yourself or your life at any time, you are psychically possessed.” Thus, author thinks that all of the worlds feelings associated with unhappiness are psychic problems, possessions, a lack of peace on the part of individuals.
“And when the mind is unoccupied it must remain unhappy because it cannot be absence of unhappiness (love and life) for only you can be that. So the mind thinks about love or life and feels unhappy, or it gets emotional about love and life. This makes it think and feel that something is missing on earth or in the world and that in order to try and find what’s missing whatever exists has to be changed. So, in its unhappiness, and searching for what it can never find because it can never be, the Supermind moves people and nations around, ceaselessly changing all that exists in the world, without ever getting any closer to love and life.” People must keep their minds occupied, conscious, and pursue life and their love of life, joy, or else they are unhappy. The endless reordering of the World ensues when the people in it cannot manage their own existence. “The women are dying for love; but don’t know it or they would be able to do something about it. And the men, seduced and reduced by the love of technology, are dying for life as they disappear headfirst into meaningless inventions and devices. Man, woman and child are either elated, bored or depressed; depending on which button the mind happens to be pushing, or not pushing." We crave what we cannot have, a search for what does not exist.
“Truth is disguised in all as the lie that suits today’s self-interest". Words with great meaning have lost it in modern times. Life, peace, beauty, truth, love. These things already are; they are truth. What is true can change from time to time, as what is considered true in science, or business, or whatever modern construct. “What is true is not the truth”.
“Their meaning is their purpose. The only occupation in living is to find this truth or purpose within... all men and women crave to find the meaning, the purpose of life – which is simply to be, to express the man or woman they truly are now, freed of the mind and its unhappy occupations.” Thus, we must find our meaning, our purpose in living.