Hungers Fading

pp.56-59

The desire for pleasure has as its handmaiden the fear of pain, the hunger for being seen is shadowed by the fear of invisibility, and the hunger for escape brings with it the fear of engagement and intimacy. At the root of all these fears is a terror of emptiness, the concern that this self - personal or social - will die in a cold nothingness. This terror is usuaslly kept beneath the surface of consciousness, recognized only by its surface manifestations: an avoidance of being alone, the fear of being criticized,a pulling back from close relationships.

GK p.57

Do you find yourself avoiding being alone? Fearing criticism? Pulling back from close relationships?

Can you recognize one of these as a personal pattern? Can you choose which hunger is predominant in your experience and investigate it more closely?

This segment of the text will support such an investigation as it addresses the fading of each of the three hungers in turn.


GK p. 57 continued

...the hunger and the fear are two facets of the same thing...when the meditative mind sees the root fear and meets it with acceptance, [the fear] begins to diminish - and all the hungers dissolve with it. With such fading, relationships cease to be powered by longing and desperation.