"When you realize yourself as completely empty
and devoid of all form...
this is wisdom,
When you realize yourself as the fullness of love
overflowing itself without object...
this is bliss,
and when you are aware of yourself incarnate
in the appearance of form...
this is leela."

EACH DAY PEOPLE ARRIVE at the point where they could cross the road to freedom, only to turn back in fear because they see a dangerous snake lying in their way. They keep turning back when they see the snake until, one day, someone comes from the other side of the road at the same moment and tells them, “It’s not a snake, only a rope.” The snake did not have to be killed or transformed to make it safe to cross. It was always just a rope. Through the insight and guidance of someone who has already crossed to the other side, the seekers are able to see it as it really is.

The tests on the way back home from enslavement include facing your internal snakes, the prison gatekeepers of fear and doubt. Fear marks the borderline of ego. What you identify as “me” is inside the border, while what is outside is unknown and scary. Remember, since ego is a survival machine, all of its programs run to help you avoid fear and danger, and to stay safe and secure. Fear of the unknown keeps people shallow, involved only with trivialities, in an attempt to avoid the larger terror looming beneath the surface of things. The soul calls on you to stop engaging in your survival routines, and to stand and face the terror that has been running your life.

You avoid fear by thinking, and your thinking plays out the themes of doubt and security. Each time you have a thought that is based on a doubt or an attempt at security, you’re avoiding the direct experience of fear. Uncertainty, caution, comparison, comment, internal discussion, disassociation, judgment, and chasing after the thought “What should I do?” are all neurotic ways to avoid the direct experience of the terror of the unknown.

Varieties of Fear
Although most fear is neurotic, in its pure form, fear can be wholesome. Wholesome fear is not mental, and is free of doubt. True fear is clean and leaves no aftertaste. You experience no hesitation in the moment. You take clear action without doubt, such as jumping back from an oncoming bus. There is no neurotic conversation in your mind about what to do, and no need to continue focusing on the fear after the moment has passed.

True wisdom reveals everything naturally. If there is reason for caution, it shows itself organically, not through your doubting mind. You smell it, taste it, and feel it – beyond any doubt.

Tension in the belly is a signal of neurotic fear caused by avoidance. The sense of tightening in your belly is caused by your unwillingness to feel the tension as an emotion. Fear comes first as a whisper, a soft rustling. If you don’t listen to it, if you make believe it isn’t there, it turns into a rattle. If you still ignore it, it becomes a shaking. If you persist in ignoring it even longer, it turns into a storm. And if you still continue to ignore it, it grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until you pay attention.

Simply drop deeper than the mental mind, which is always talking to itself above the neck, and fall into the fear in the emotional body, as if you were falling into a well. It may seem like a gigantic ocean of fear, but sink even deeper. Feel the core of this solid, frozen terror, this iceberg of horror – something that you never wanted to feel.

The walls of your prison are made of fear – fear of what may lie of the other side. When you’re finally finished with prison, it no longer makes a difference whether you’re afraid or not. The walls of fear can no longer stop you.

Doubt
When you’re identified as your mind, you continue to have doubts. You wonder what is trustworthy. Out of the noise in your head, you experience confusion and lack of clarity. You’re unable to see what is right in front of you because you’re living in the past and the future, mentally disassociated from the present.

Because the egoic mind has taken the place of God, out of its arrogance it thinks of itself as the creator. If you’re willing to abandon this arrogance of egoic inflation, then the mind surrenders and allows the heart to have control. Not the body, not the emotions, not the thoughts but the true heart – absolute silence, ever present, conscious love. Will immortal, conscious love be in control, or will your mind? That is the choice.

Doubt is fixation, and fixation is conditioned ego. As long as you believe that doubt has anything to teach you, you defend and deepen the fixation. Doubt is a general disease of the mind, the mental fear of falling into the unknown. When indulged to the extreme, doubt devolves into paranoia and mental instability.

Perhaps you have an experience of truth, of the groundlessness of pure being, and then fear arises. Out of fear comes doubt. With the doubt comes the story. From the story comes defense. And out of defense comes projection. Through this projection, you feel betrayed by some “other.” Because you feel betrayed, you assume a false independence. You begin to put your trust in the doubt, wondering what to do, as the whole mad cycle of mind continues spinning. Your whole life has been a search for the divine. But, now that you’ve found what you’ve been looking for, you want to run away because you’re afraid of being annihilated by love.

You may obsess on the question, “What should I do?” to avoid the fear of annihilation. You are hanging on to your mind so you won’t fall into fear, but in doing so, you’re not present in the moment. If you’re willing to invite the fear in, then it loses its power over you. Cut the connection to the thought of what the fear could mean and to the thought “What should I do?” If you’re willing to experience the fear itself, you can discover that it leads you into the limitless beyond. It is really your own shakti, your own life force, leading you into emptiness. It lets you fall inside yourself, revealing the vastness therein.

Natural intuition speaks in silence. If you’re talking to yourself, you can’t hear intuition. Talking to yourself drains your life force. If doubt arises, do not follow it, and do not take it personally. It has nothing to teach you. It is just another passing thought. Anxiety and doubt are simply fear plus a story. If you stay in the story, you have no access to the fear.

Put the story aside. Stop engaging in doubt, and face everything. Invite the fear, let it get even stronger, and follow your heart.

Who you truly are can deal with everything. Who you think you are does not exist, so there is nothing to lose. When the person you think you are seems to dissolve, in keeping still you can realize who you really are. What remains when you dissolve? What remains if you bear what you think is unbearable?

Your doubts are like a shot of heroin. You’re addicted to them, and you think you need another shot. But these shots have nothing new to give you, nothing fresh. Stop. Give up your addictions. Your drugs are fear, doubt, and security. Don’t touch them; they are poisons.

Facing Death Directly
In meeting fear directly you see that it has no cause. When you meet the fear of death head-on, nothing dies except your ideas of yourself. The only thing that passes away is your identification as flesh. It isn’t so much that it dies but that you see at last that it is insubstantial, without weight, having never really existed. It was all a case of mistaken identity.

Of course, facing death is terrifying. Nevertheless, you want to be free in spite of the fear. This doesn’t mean waiting for the fear to leave – you stay true in the midst of fear. Walk through the fear of death, and discover that which does not die. Be fearless. Fear will arise, but your maturity lies in your willingness to meet the fear directly. None of your strategies for avoiding the fear work, whether you attempt to calm the mind, repress the fear or change your circumstances. If all you want is for the fear of death to go away, you miss a great opportunity to realize that which does not die.

Typically, everything in your life is run by the fear of death. You may have spiritual reasons for everything you’re doing, but underneath all of that lies this uninvestigated fear. You’re very lucky to have this fear. Make good use of it! Invite it to get stronger. Say to yourself, “It’s a good day to die. I am committed to finding the truth. Truth is more important than fear.”

When fear arises, feel it totally. At some point it will leave and something else will take its place. Feel this something else fully, and it, too, will pass. Everything comes and everything goes, except that which you are. Events and experiences come and go, but you are always here. Consciousness is always here.

Fear is the secret gateway in. Discover that which doesn’t die. Rest in that. This is the beginning of life. Once fear no longer has a meaning, you can meet it without a story. Then you will probably notice that what you once called fear was actually a flash of vitality.

In the same light, be willing to be insecure. In your insecurity, you discover true security. All of your mental activity and imagination never give you security. They give you a life of slavery based on an idea of security.

Surrender to the divine. Let everything come up. To be healthy means to be in the present moment. To be in the present moment means to experience everything and fall deeper. What dissolves is suffering. What remains is the purity of love that is your true Self.

© Eli Jaxon-Bear, 2005
Editor's note: This brilliant excerpt is from Eli's remarkable new book, SUDDEN AWAKENING, which can be purchased here if you wish: www.leela.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eli Jaxon-Bear was born Elliot Jay Zeldow in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. His eighteen-year spiritual path started in 1971, when he was a federal fugitive during the Vietnam War. In 1978, Kalu Rinpoche appointed him the president of his dharma center in Marin County. In 1982, he was presented with a Zen Teaching Fan at ChoShoJi Zen Temple in Japan. After studying many traditions and practices, his path and his search ended when he traveled to India in 1990, where he met his final teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja.

Confirming Eli’s realization, his teacher sent him back into the world to share his unique psychological insights into the nature of egoic suffering, in support of Self-realization. He currently meets people and teaches through the Leela Foundation, an organization he established, dedicated to world peace and freedom through universal Self-realization.

Eli is the author of The Enneagram of Liberation: From Fixation to Freedom. His new book, Sudden Awakening Into Direct Realization. To learn more about Eli's work, or to purchase any of his books of audio/visual offerings, please visit: www.leela.org.