Email from my grandmother

She said:

"our whole life can't be wrapped up in your passion. thats like being
on an eternal ego trip. and who wants to be around a person who is
egotistical. that kind of person to me is like a homeless person.
INVISIBLE. we walk by them as if we can't see them.you can't forget
who you are to yourself and you can't forget who you are to your
friends and family. a loner is never happy. we all need love and touch
and we need to give the same"

This letter from my grandmother really penetrates into the very origin of fear.
It also makes me realize that I have to do a bit more explaining so that this is clearer to everyone.

The point that I was attempting to make was illustrated using the idea of a mother losing her "self" in motherhood and therefore transcending fear. Just like my grandmother stated her experience was when she had her first child.

The origin of fear actually lies in the identification of you as a separate self from the outside world. To make it more clear, it is the lack of trust in a larger force, higher power, or whatever you want to call it. It really doesn't matter what name you give it. But the fact is, it is the lack of trust in the flow of life; it is when we try to separate ourselves by thinking that we are apart from what we sense is the outside world we perceive. This separation engenders the fear in which we find ourselves immersed.

For me, this process has been leading me to a place where I could swim out of this whole sewer system of fear (a process that is not yet complete, mind you). This requires losing yourself in the particular thing that brings you joy. When you are no longer concerned about yourself, fear starts receding in your life. This is where I am going. So, to me, it is the very opposite of egotistical. I spent my entire life wrapped up in myself. Always concerned about my self-image. Thinking that I had to prove myself somehow worthy to the outside world. I am not really sure what she means by the homeless person, but I am not necessarily shunning the idea of friends and family and touch. But I am forgetting who I am to myself, because that is what is slowly fading away.

If you desire release from fear in your life, you have to start accepting that you are part of a larger life force. It is very simple to recognize when you are not "going with the flow."  When you are worried about something, this is a clear sign that you are not trusting this larger force. When you are stressed about something, you are resisting the natural force that is guiding you. Life isn't meant to be resisted. Stop yourself and realize this every time you are experiencing these negative feelings and know that the cause of it can always be found in the fact that you are not allowing life to be as it is. Relaxing into things, enjoying, accepting…these are the feelings that will tell you that you are heading in the right direction. You have to make the conscious effort to notice this in your life because it is so habitual for most people to think these are normal feelings. They are NOT normal feelings. Just because they happen and everybody experiences them does not make them something that we cannot go beyond. QUESTION THIS BELIEF! We have to become aware of it so we can start the process of breaking the pattern of fear that is literally poisoning the world on a larger and larger scale. It starts with us. This is what Gandhi truly meant when he said that, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."

I know some of you may be skeptical of the idea of the "larger life force." But the only reason is that we don't take the time to notice it. We fill our lives with so many distractions (tv, stress, shopping, drugs, etc.) that it evades our perception. One of my challenges in this journey is to somehow bust through this wall of skepticism. So many spiritual writers and thinkers always take the easy way out by saying that you must experience it for yourself. But how in the world will many people even make the effort to attempt it without some compelling evidence? I feel like I was lucky because of my natural curiosity and experiences that led me to this. But what kind of information can I convey to make people begin to try? Anyway, I welcome your suggestions and criticisms!