Consider the word ‘terror’. Its meaning (originating from the Latin) is “great fear, alarm, dread, panic”. So in the most literal sense, ‘terrorism’ is the act of evoking and spreading terror; i.e. making people greatly fearful and encouraging dread, alarm and panic to grow. So consider this deeply, because intentionally spreading fear among a group or a population is indeed terrorism.
In my opinion, the worst form of terrorism is the terrorism of children because they are more vulnerable to fear than anyone else. Women (especially mothers) are also rather susceptible to fear, certainly to a greater degree than men are, generally speaking. But especially with children, fear can be very traumatic. It can totally overwhelm them; becoming all consuming and embedding itself in their psyche, which is obviously not a good thing.
Now, over the past 20 years we have all become far more aware of the threat terrorism coming from other countries, yet at the end of their working day (or school day) hundreds of millions of people worldwide sit down on their comfortable sofas and watch TV programs which are often, to some degree or other, disturbing or frightening. They watch psychologically disturbing programs with evil undertones, gory or terrifying horror movies, dystopian nightmares of the near future, and so on. Even children’s pop music videos have become much more dark and fear-inspiring in their themes over recent years.
All of these things evoke fear, because they have been specifically designed to. If you’ve ever watched a scary movie at night and then had to go outside in the dark for some reason, you’ll know that watching these things does affect us, and actually makes us afraid to do certain things. Fear does control us and the images we allow to enter our brain via the media (in all its forms) do affect us. And the more fearful, dark, disturbing or aggressive the images we allow in, the more likely we are to become disturbed, fearful and even aggressive under the right circumstances.
So let’s consider what is happening in the media overall. Obviously, the current affairs/world news media has been flooding our minds with negative information – bad news – for many decades, and we are very used to this. I am not saying it is intentionally crafted to make us afraid, but many things we hear in the news can make us anxious about our safety in the world. The more dangerous society seems to appear, the more afraid people are of going out of their front door, especially after dark. When people hear of ‘terror attacks’ in places like nightclubs, pop concerts, bars, cafes, or just in the street or subway, it has the effect of making people more anxious and worried about leaving their house.
In fact, if people can choose between staying at home and feeling safe, or going out and feeling slightly anxious, often they will play it safe. They will stay home, order some takeaway food, and spend the evening watching their favourite programmes, instead of going out and socialising, communicating, laughing and interacting with other human beings. This is a big problem for our innately sociable species, especially when so much of what is available on our screens now is disturbing, dark, violent, and fear-inspiring.
(This article about the increasing quantity of dark and violent programming on Netflix is worth reading: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/21/does-netflix-have-killer-problem/)
The more information we consume which generates fear or desensitises us to violence or cruelty, the more we are feeding the animalistic, primal and fear-based part of our nature, which is totally preoccupied with self-preservation and being alert to danger. When this part of us is constantly fed and thus begins to have a greater influence over our thoughts and our behaviour, we become less influenced by the higher part of our nature; our faith, our trust, our peace, compassion and joy.
This “fight-or-flight” part of our brain is the lowest and least evolved part of our nature. It is almost sub-human, and thus when it grips us totally it can make us capable of inhumane actions. And it is always fuelled and activated by fear, rather than by faith and Love. It is essentially a very old operating system that is responsible for manifesting all the darkness and suffering that has occurred on this planet in our long and turbulent history.
So the more information we consume that feeds this part of our nature, the more likely we are to do things which are heartless, harmful, aggressive, unkind or even cruel. Of course, our sophisticated mind likes to think we are too evolved for this, and our heart may tell us that we are incapable of hurting another human being. But as long as you’re still able to be motivated by fear, then the “fight-or-flight” part of your brain is still active and has the power to influence your behaviour, especially if it is fed with more and more fearful, aggressive and disturbing information.
Fearful information is not just generated externally; a lot of it comes from our own thinking. We think about all the bad things that we don’t want to happen, we think about the dark, dystopian visions of the future that the media is currently flooding our minds with. We think about suffering and pain. You have to understand that fearful thinking is essentially dark thinking; it i and fills our heart with darkness and dread. It is essential now that we evolve beyond this, and cease to feed that animalistic part of our nature with fearful thinking – its primary food – so that we can fully inhabit our new home, which is the peaceful realm of love, faith and trust, untainted by fear or darkness, pure and beautiful in its spiritual radiance. This is where are naturally meant to be; it is what we are designed for.
In this realm, we are at peace and totally unthreatened by anything, because it is a higher realm, a divine realm where we have disconnected ourselves from the source of fear and darkness – the negative thinking mind. But to be free, we need to stop feeding the dragon, that creature of darkness which keeps us held in the lower realms of fear, anger, division, hostility and so on. If we starve it, and refuse to engage our attention in fearful thoughts – no matter how much it persuades us that the thoughts are true (which is it’s main tactic for keeping us locked in fear) – then its grip upon us becomes weaker and weaker. We move upwards, away from its dark lair, into the higher realm of faith, peace and joy. We literally ascend from the darkness, into a greater and greater awareness of spiritual light and beauty, perceived in our heart.
The dragon is the mythical creature of fear and terror which the population of this planet are struggling with. But it exists in our minds and our hearts, rather than on the earth. If you have read the book “The Iron Man” by Ted Hughes, you will have a good idea about what the dragon wants to do to humanity. It devours human consciousness, just like a cancer cell devours energy, and replaces it with darkness. It is like a black hole which sucks in energy, as opposed to a star (like the Sun) which radiates light and energy.
Your negative-thinking mind is like a black hole, whereas your heart is the Sun, and all you have to do is continue distancing yourself from the black hole, and move towards the Sun. That will evaporate every single mental problem – every fear, every concern, all darkness that exists with you – and you will perceive the truth of what is real, in a space of faith and trust of that which is far greater than you. You will perceive the divine realm of awareness in which you belong, free of fear, doubt, division, negativity and conflict. And it’s so much closer than you think…
Alexander Bell
The brightest light conquers the deepest darkness 