Don’t Reject The Symptom Of Fear
As we investigate fear to deeper levels, it mainly comes to the point where we discover it is triggered by thoughts that tell us they know we will cease to exist. In other words, the Self will cease to exist. At this point, our ability to liberate ourselves from fear depends upon our work and the experience we have resulting from investigating the nature of our Self-sufficiently. If we have accumulated enough evidence through our direct experience to be firmly open to NOT knowing what our thoughts are telling us is true. As we are open to admitting we do not know, and therefore cannot say for sure, our Self WILL cease to exist; we cannot sustain the thought that we know we will cease to exist. This will release the fear. As we establish ourselves in NOT knowing the Self, existential fear dissipates. In other words, as teacher Francis Lucille states: "The reason I am afraid is not that I do not know, it's because I believe I know". The mind cannot know the ultimate reality. But this is not necessary to live free of fear. All the mind needs to accept is that it doesn't know and therefore cannot conclude that the Self will cease to exist, which is the existential root of fear. If we are worried about the future, then at some level, we are already telling ourselves unconsciously that we know that our Self is a separate thing that is moving through time. But when we expose this thought and examine it, we can see that it is impossible to know if this conclusion is correct. On an experiential level, there is only the present. No separate self is isolated from existence that is moving through time. This is simply a story our minds have made up, which we are identifying (believing) to be true. Though our Body may appear to move through time, there is no evidence our Self does. So the moment I believe in having a future, and I am afraid of this future is because, at that moment, I believe the Self to be limited and separate, which based on the examination of experience, we cannot know with certainty. This is like basing our lives on the belief the world is flat when in our experience, we do not have any evidence it is. The mind habitually seeks to know things. This is the mind's certainty. The mind will tell us it knows about the nature of reality and the Self. However, it cannot know ultimately. We have to get comfortable abiding the not knowing and not identifying with the beliefs of our minds. Even when we have, to our satisfaction, been able to confront the knowing beliefs of our mind with the openness of not knowing, and therefore, these beliefs to be limited have dissipated, there may be some more subtle beliefs about the Self based on our experience of the Body. There may be some residual sense of separation left in the Body, which is not unpleasant but still causes us to identify as a separate body. We may still feel we have some evidence on the physical sensation level that we are a separate person. When we say "I", what does this evoke in the Body? Does it evoke physical sensation? The question is – do these bodily sensations tell me I am this or I am that? Am I locating my Self in time and space based on sensations in the Body? Do I have borders that seem to define my Self as being limited? These sensations are subtle. They are not painful, but they seem to support evidence of our separation. The goal is to understand these sensations are not what we are. Though we may have thought it to be true, these sensations give us no proof of what we are in reality separate. As we uncover this understanding, we liberate ourselves from these more subtle beliefs that our Body is telling us something about the nature of our Self.
As we investigate the unconscious beliefs we are identifying with in this way, we can uncover them and become more stable in the present open place of not know of what we are. These fears we experience are not in the way of our happiness. They are symptoms there to help us understand our happiness. Are they coming from genuine protection of the Body, or are they coming from ignorance of the nature of the Self? We should not try to get rid of them and avoid them. They are the fertile fuel to help us understand the nature of the Self we are and help us abide in openness instead of the closeness of our mind. These symptoms do not need to be masked, avoided, or removed. On the contrary, they are to be investigated and learned from. As we do so, we see that the only sustainable, stable position is to be in a place of openness (not knowing) and not to identify as any attempt by the mind to know the Self. The mind is not useful for that. Though it is beneficial for figuring out how to boil water and many other tasks, of course! Equally, we need to uncover the more subtle knowing that the sensation of the Body is some indication of a limited self and see that they are not.
Of course, the easiest way to understand the nature of our Self is to find those moments when we are not afraid. Then we can directly investigate the nature of the Self and understand there is no evidence that the awareness that is our Self is not limited or separate. As we do this and glimpse the nature of the Self to be whole as it is unlimited and at peace, this will reinforce a new path towards this peace more and more.
