Living free from fear

Fear manifests in several ways, from the natural life-saving fear of the consequences of stepping in front of an oncoming bus to the fear of death. 

 

Mostly we tend to think of fear in the context of worldly events, fear of losing something or someone, fear of the consequences of our actions or inactions, and so on.

 

But there is another, far deeper and more intimate fear that few dare to investigate. To explain this I will relate how this awareness came to me, as that is what I know beyond doubt to be true.

 

I originally wrote what follows as a response to a question on Facebook. Bear in mind when you read the following words that they are not coming from theorising, philosophy, a belief system, or what I read in a book or heard on YouTube. No, what I have to relate came to me directly as a gift of awareness, a gift from that great mystery who lives as our very essence, the One Heart of us all.

 

So here goes …

 

 

The greatest fear I’ve known was the fear of not existing. Physical death carried no fear for me. Women I guess were a bit scary …  But to face complete extinction, the death of my personality, that was terrifying. So much so that when that fear came to visit my mind cracked into what I believe now to have been a deep psychosis.

 

Fortunately I was eventually blessed to be able to witness, from prior awareness, the fear and the thoughts that brought it about. As if awakening from a dream the realisation came that I continue to exist prior to the thought “I do not exist” arising and after it dissipated. That was the primary shift and the first taste of true freedom.

 

Then the realisation came that who I had thought I was (a personality based on the mistaken identification with a human body-mind that has a name and memory) really does not exist at all, in the same way that an entity in a dream has no substantial existence.

 

The realisation came that the non-existence of that fantasy of being a human person was only terrifying because I had identified with my person (i.e. imagined myself to be the same as that person).

 

Up to that point it had still seemed that there was a “me” and a body-mind that was “not me”. The realisation that who I am is not separate from this body, not separate from this body-mind. destroyed the delusion of “two”. And from this unveiling of the reality of “not two” a beautiful peace emerged, like the Sun shining forth when no longer obscured by clouds.

 

I was shown that this is the truth for everyone. Seen from the perspective of the light of awareness every one of us regardless of gender, social status, financial wealth, intellectual ability, work role, relationship role, body shape, and so on is always and already free from fear.

 

This freedom is not an experience (an experience requires two: the experience and the experiencer) but simply is the still, silent, pure awareness of our mutual One Heart, the living Divine Intelligence whose impersonal yet most deeply intimate nature is that which we all yearned to know and feel – fulfilment, happiness, unconditional love and a profound peace that defies all understanding.

 

Then the realisation came that simply through our choice of what we nurture with our attention we can live free from all fear. It was shown that this present moment is the only moment of choice there ever is; and that freedom from fear is only a choice, our choice …

 

Namaste,

 

Leo