Freedom From Fear: The Very Conscious Shakespeare
by Susan Scharfman
"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." – William Shakespeare
Shakespeare Made Easy
Unless you are a drama student you don’t study William Shakespeare here in America. Most of us need a “No Fear” rendition of Shakespeare made easy to understand his plays. What little I know is by way of a dear British actor friend who grew up learning the bard at school in England.
Nevertheless, I’m inclined to believe Mr. Shakespeare was on to something 400 years ago, and that something was and is the impermanence of everything. Why did he repeatedly refer to life as an illusion–a dream? In As You Like It he asserts that most people are sleep-walking through life. “…all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances…” In Macbeth “life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
As You Like It
Like it or not, we are stuck with language as a means of communication and Mr. Shakespeare was pretty good at the medium and the message. But words can only point to what is not ephemeral about humans–universal consciousness.
As with the Bard and other word masters, poetic verse can only imply what lies behind the words. The artist’s brush too can suggest the experience of the Divine. When we die and shed our bag of bones, what remains is that which cannot be expressed verbally–omnipresent consciousness.
The Practical Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart explains that when our awareness of the impermanence of everything deepens beyond a conceptual understanding, everything changes. For example, when I am in the woods or by the sea, I experience what can thinly be described as a peaceful connection with the bliss of the natural world. This is because the essence of me recognizes that same fundamental quality in nature. Shakespeare says: “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
The Theoretical Stephen Hawking
Awareness is the only non-changing entity–the eternal primary formless Being. So when Stephen Hawking set off a firestorm by stating “the Universe can create itself from nothing,” is he saying absolutely nothing? No physicist would attest to that. He is merely pointing to that which has no form and therefore no language to characterize it.
For millennia humans have called their gods different names: In Western and Eastern spiritual practices–God. The gods of the ancient world were innumerable. According to Wikipedia, “The Qur’an contains Ninety-nine Most Beautiful Names of Allah. Judaism refers to 72 Divine Names. The Indian Mahabharata contains a thousand names of Vishnu.” Although some scholars say Shakespeare was an atheist, in his Will he refers to “God my Creator.”
Snap, Crackle and Pop
In a television Science Channel program, “Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman,” one of the episodes explored “What Happened Before The Beginning?”
Let’s say that before the beginning there was “nothing.” In quantum physics the so-called nothing is the vacuum state. Yet that nothing is the source of everything. The vacuum state is not an empty void. Ingeniously illustrated in “Wormhole,” it consists of gravity and tiny momentary electromagnetic waves and particles that pop in and out of being. Little pops, big bangs. At some point the universe explodes, expands and contracts again into “nothing.” Right now it is expanding and we are along for the bumpy ride. The Divine, the Creator, God, Allah, Vishnu, Creative Intelligence, Consciousness was, is and always will be.
I have not read Hawking’s latest book,”The Grand Design.” Nor do I attempt to understand quantum physics or the concept that ours is one of many extant universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature. But I return to the words of astrophysicist Carl Sagan in a previous article: "Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality." The two are not mutually exclusive. They are two aspects of the same universal consciousness.
The Only Thing We Have to Fear…
As a person well acquainted with angst in my life, I thought I knew what fear was until I was diagnosed with breast cancer by one of the most prominent specialists in Washington, D.C.
Compounding my initial reaction of dread was the arrogant indifference with which this prestigious doctor boasted of how many mastectomies he’d performed, and how fast he could do them. Panicked and frightened, I fled his office and into the arms of a friend who recommended an oncologist more concerned with the well being of his patient than his own god-like image.
A breast cancer survivor, I carried the fear of recurrence in my psyche for years; it affected me in a thousand negative ways. But when peace moves in fear makes a hasty exit.
The Energetic Transmission of Unconditional Love
Having lived with fear for years I experienced a dramatic change after meeting someone who became very important in my life. Calling himself a catalyst, spiritual master Panache Desai facilitated a powerful energetic transmission through him to me. In fact I remember the very session with him when the old stomach–roiling anxiety in my solar plexus simply evaporated.
Now fear no longer owns me. Panache tuned me in to the fundamental element that is always present–peace and love, my essence. Absent negative fear, present awareness continues to fill that space with light and love. Every moment is softer, more relaxed, less urgent. Stepping out of the fear dream, the suffering dream, the pain dream and into Being is the blessed gift of unconditional love regardless of turmoil on the stage of the economy, politics, the news media, the world.
Fear No More
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," says Hamlet. There is nothing wrong with you, nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to fear, says Panache. In being grateful for everything in life one tastes the sweetness of all of creation. In a world mired in sadness and suffering, the peaceful state of Being is the birthright of humanity. Opening the heart to love is freedom from the bondage
of fear.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste death but once. Of all the wonders that I have yet heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it comes." – William Shakespeare, from the play, Julius Caesar
"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." – William Shakespeare
Shakespeare Made Easy
Unless you are a drama student you don’t study William Shakespeare here in America. Most of us need a “No Fear” rendition of Shakespeare made easy to understand his plays. What little I know is by way of a dear British actor friend who grew up learning the bard at school in England.
Nevertheless, I’m inclined to believe Mr. Shakespeare was on to something 400 years ago, and that something was and is the impermanence of everything. Why did he repeatedly refer to life as an illusion–a dream? In As You Like It he asserts that most people are sleep-walking through life. “…all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances…” In Macbeth “life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
As You Like It
Like it or not, we are stuck with language as a means of communication and Mr. Shakespeare was pretty good at the medium and the message. But words can only point to what is not ephemeral about humans–universal consciousness.
As with the Bard and other word masters, poetic verse can only imply what lies behind the words. The artist’s brush too can suggest the experience of the Divine. When we die and shed our bag of bones, what remains is that which cannot be expressed verbally–omnipresent consciousness.
The Practical Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart explains that when our awareness of the impermanence of everything deepens beyond a conceptual understanding, everything changes. For example, when I am in the woods or by the sea, I experience what can thinly be described as a peaceful connection with the bliss of the natural world. This is because the essence of me recognizes that same fundamental quality in nature. Shakespeare says: “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
The Theoretical Stephen Hawking
Awareness is the only non-changing entity–the eternal primary formless Being. So when Stephen Hawking set off a firestorm by stating “the Universe can create itself from nothing,” is he saying absolutely nothing? No physicist would attest to that. He is merely pointing to that which has no form and therefore no language to characterize it.
For millennia humans have called their gods different names: In Western and Eastern spiritual practices–God. The gods of the ancient world were innumerable. According to Wikipedia, “The Qur’an contains Ninety-nine Most Beautiful Names of Allah. Judaism refers to 72 Divine Names. The Indian Mahabharata contains a thousand names of Vishnu.” Although some scholars say Shakespeare was an atheist, in his Will he refers to “God my Creator.”
Snap, Crackle and Pop
In a television Science Channel program, “Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman,” one of the episodes explored “What Happened Before The Beginning?”
Let’s say that before the beginning there was “nothing.” In quantum physics the so-called nothing is the vacuum state. Yet that nothing is the source of everything. The vacuum state is not an empty void. Ingeniously illustrated in “Wormhole,” it consists of gravity and tiny momentary electromagnetic waves and particles that pop in and out of being. Little pops, big bangs. At some point the universe explodes, expands and contracts again into “nothing.” Right now it is expanding and we are along for the bumpy ride. The Divine, the Creator, God, Allah, Vishnu, Creative Intelligence, Consciousness was, is and always will be.
I have not read Hawking’s latest book,”The Grand Design.” Nor do I attempt to understand quantum physics or the concept that ours is one of many extant universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature. But I return to the words of astrophysicist Carl Sagan in a previous article: "Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality." The two are not mutually exclusive. They are two aspects of the same universal consciousness.
The Only Thing We Have to Fear…
As a person well acquainted with angst in my life, I thought I knew what fear was until I was diagnosed with breast cancer by one of the most prominent specialists in Washington, D.C.
Compounding my initial reaction of dread was the arrogant indifference with which this prestigious doctor boasted of how many mastectomies he’d performed, and how fast he could do them. Panicked and frightened, I fled his office and into the arms of a friend who recommended an oncologist more concerned with the well being of his patient than his own god-like image.
A breast cancer survivor, I carried the fear of recurrence in my psyche for years; it affected me in a thousand negative ways. But when peace moves in fear makes a hasty exit.
The Energetic Transmission of Unconditional Love
Having lived with fear for years I experienced a dramatic change after meeting someone who became very important in my life. Calling himself a catalyst, spiritual master Panache Desai facilitated a powerful energetic transmission through him to me. In fact I remember the very session with him when the old stomach–roiling anxiety in my solar plexus simply evaporated.
Now fear no longer owns me. Panache tuned me in to the fundamental element that is always present–peace and love, my essence. Absent negative fear, present awareness continues to fill that space with light and love. Every moment is softer, more relaxed, less urgent. Stepping out of the fear dream, the suffering dream, the pain dream and into Being is the blessed gift of unconditional love regardless of turmoil on the stage of the economy, politics, the news media, the world.
Fear No More
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," says Hamlet. There is nothing wrong with you, nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to fear, says Panache. In being grateful for everything in life one tastes the sweetness of all of creation. In a world mired in sadness and suffering, the peaceful state of Being is the birthright of humanity. Opening the heart to love is freedom from the bondage
of fear.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste death but once. Of all the wonders that I have yet heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it comes." – William Shakespeare, from the play, Julius Caesar