How deeply honest can we get about this fear?
And in that honesty,
Can we let go of what we pretend the fear is about?
Because this is what we do.
We tell these stories of fear which project the fear onto something in the world,
Onto something out there,
When really it's not about that.
It's like saying I'm afraid of what other people are gonna think.
Well,
That's the story we tell.
But what are you really afraid of?
And this inquiry,
It really demands a radical honesty.
Which is interesting because in our projection of blame,
We're trying to avoid this depth of honesty.
Which is why in appearances,
This is difficult.
You can see how raw it is,
How exposing it is,
To get that honest about it.
But as with everything,
Whatever it is that's asking for healing,
If we're not willing to look at it,
There's no chance of healing.
And so this invitation to radical self-honesty is a requirement.
Which is amazing because we spend our lives running away from it.
And it could be said,
As a pointer,
That ultimately what we are afraid of is the truth.
You know,
In a religious context,
It's kind of like saying we're only afraid of God.
We're only afraid of the truth of life.
Because as human beings,
We are in a relative constant state of resistance against life.
We're fighting life.
We're fighting the truth.
Kind of like wanting what we want,
Rather than letting the truth be the truth.
In this confrontation,
This resistance ultimately creates some flavor of hell.
This resistance is fear.
And you can see that the hell state,
The suffering state,
Is fueled by fear.
It is our fear that prevents us from entering a flavor of heaven.
Because where there is no fear,
There's only heaven.
Which is to say,
Love is all that remains.
This whole session right now can just be a meditative moment to face the real issue.
That's why I don't see it as overcoming fear.
Which is almost like trying to get control.
And what I see is the real path of liberation is seeing that there's no need for control.
Because the thing I'm fighting for is impossible.
Because in my fight,
I'm trying to win over what's true.
And that's not gonna happen.
What is the truth that we are so afraid of?
And I'm gonna speak about this in a way that I have spoken about it a thousand times.
So for many,
I'm just repeating myself.
Which is a gift that it's always the same thing.
And of course,
I'm using silly words to point to something beyond words.
But if we look at the real essence of our difficulty,
The real essence of our fear for every human being,
In some way we can say,
It's a fear that I'm not enough.
It's a fear that I'm incomplete.
And this is either a fear that I won't be enough,
A fear that I'm not enough,
A fear that I wasn't enough.
This whole fear thing is wrapped around a sense of worth and value for a personal sense of identity.
You can see this struggle where this perceived self we are is on an epic quest of trying to become enough.
In this epic quest is essentially signifying that I'm afraid of not being enough.
And it's wild how much this fuels our activity as human beings.
How much of our time is spent trying to conquer that,
Trying to become enough.
And what's wild about it is,
In the appearance of becoming enough,
We simply find a story to tell that says we're enough,
But the story fades and we have to do it all over again.
This is kind of what keeps us trapped in a cycle of chasing achievement,
Chasing validation.
You get it in appearances and it feels good for 15 minutes and it fades.
And you think,
Oh I found it,
It's gone now so I got to go find it again.
And it just perpetuates an unending cycle.
