Letter Ten “To the Test”

I had an interesting experience this past Sunday in the line of fear and the ability to overcome it. I was attending a funeral of a dear friend’s nephew and on the way was taken by the fear of approaching the open casket. I really don’t like to view a person after Spirit has left the body. As silly as it sounds I shudder every time I have to participate in a viewing. The energy in the room is usually filled with such tremendous sadness and my auric field absorbs it and rattles my emotional senses. I had intended to go into the funeral parlor and find my way to a seat in the rear. Upon entering I realized that the only access to the room was from the front and in order to get in you first had to get in line to approach the casket and pay condolences to the bereaved. As I stood there trying to be cool and collected I found my gaze turning toward the coffin. It was an eerie feeling, a kind of tug of war, because my inner being wanted to overcome this fear and my mind was playing into it. As I gazed at the lifeless form I started to relax. I did not resist the fear, I just started to notice it and it’s effect over me and as I allowed it to be it became less of a problem. It did, in fact, become a kind of meditation. As my consciousness started to elevate I began to notice a ball of energy moving over the body. It seemed to be playing, bouncing back and forth. I then noticed, as people approached the body , the ball started to draw off of there auric energy. I could see streams of white light being pulled up to the ball like dancing fingers.

What an amazing experience. I began my day with worry and fear and ended in a state of calm and exultation. With that said, I thought I would post this poignant statement from Letter Ten “To the Test.”

“Everything seems to operate on fear, all the governments, most of the elections and elected officials. I just can’t see how any magic bullet or magic chromosome is going to change all that. The system is just too corrupt. I feel the fear myself, in my gut. It isn’t there all the time, but certainly at regular intervals. Where is the hope in all this?”

First let’s look at your own personal fear. It is the same fear that billions of human beings are feeling, and many much worse than you. But it is sufficient to use as an example. Tell me more about it.

“Strangely, I’m getting the impulse to describe it visually. It’s almost like a smoke or mist that I’m breathing. It seems to actually have a filmy, fluid substance to it. Most of the time I can take a deep breath or distract myself in some way to make it disappear, but it can easily return when I get quiet or alone in the night. I don’t mean to say I’m morbid. I’m not. But your question provoked me to take a very objective look. My fear can be as much a presence as the inner, soul presence you talk about.”

Your fear is intimately tied to your deeper awareness, believe it or not. It seems to block you from the light and the hope. It tries to substitute for the true self. But in reality it links you to Source. We are intimately linked—at one—with what opposes us. In the terms of an old saying, ‘That which stands in the way, is the way.’ Fear attempts to negate truth. It stands in front of what it does not want you to see. It is standing directly in front of truth.

In the dark gray mist of fear, it only takes a small spark of light to make an enormous difference. As you and others feel the recurring, subliminal fear, really feel it. Do not shrink away or hide from it or let it fester in some forgotten corner of your unconscious mind. Grab it. Bring it front and center and put it to the test of the light, with your eyes and your heart upon it. If you do this, I guarantee you will find that the fear is not nearly as strong as you thought it was. It is actually very weak. This is because it is full of untruth. Truth is strong. Lies are weak.

All the fear in the entire world is false. It shouts out so loud and so repeatedly that you think it’s strong. For ages it has shouted, and the masses have been cowed by the noise. They have relinquished their power to the false and petty dictatorships of rampant ego. But loud does not equal strong. Fear does not equal power. Weakness will not prevail. Meekness will.

‘The meek shall inherit the Earth,’ Jesus said in his famous Sermon on the Mount. The meek are those without dominant egos, without rampant defenses, without anything needing to be defended. The quality of weakness is actually only one small step of realization away from this pristine meekness. That step is awakening. It is for this reason, that I counsel you to really feel it. Know it for what it is. The fear brings you ever closer to the truth and to reality, until it cannot stand the light. It dissolves like the flimsy, filmy mist you described.

“But from another angle, isn’t fear a very useful survival mechanism in the real world?”

Yes. It can indeed save lives that are threatened in an immediate situation. But it is still weak. It is the embodiment of weakness. It is still an illusion, standing between you and your Source awareness. All fear must be felt and examined, to determine whether it is useful or destructive to your connections with inner power.

“How do we deal with fear while we still have egos, while we still do not see the truth that you see?”

By simply noticing, as I have said before. Notice your fear; feel it; examine it; know it intimately. Do not be afraid of it. Do not be afraid of your fear! Your President Franklin Roosevelt said: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ This is what I’m saying in the language of Now. What we fear creates its own fear in a never-ending cycle. The way out of a never-ending circle is to rise up, to turn the circle into a spiral. Fear of fear is precisely what we can rise above. It is a chimera, a gauzy illusion. Lift the veil, by lifting yourself. This will only happen through generous and honest self-appreciation.

Copyright © 2010 by Robert Lee Potter