Lesson 5 - How to get over being afraid
Now some more introverted people, like myself, may say "I don’t have the courage to give it away. I’m afraid."
And you can only overcome that by realizing, you better give it away, because there is no way of holding on to it.
Here in the West we don’t have a close relationship with death. We keep it at arms length. We behave as if we believe we will live forever. Sam Harris says arguing with your spouse only makes sense if you believe you will live forever.
Just like we think, if I only lived 200 years then I could see and do everything I ever wanted. When just the opposite is true.
The meaning of the fact that everything is constantly dissolving. That we are all falling apart, all of our loved ones and relationships are slowly falling apart. We have only the present.
As the Persian poet Omar Kayanum said:
“The worldly hopes men set their hearts upon turns ashes or it prospers, and like snow upon the desserts dusty face lighting a little hour or two before dawn.”
Or for the Shakespeare fans:
“The cloud capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the great globe itself, I all which it inherits shall dissolve and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leaves not a wreck behind. “
All falling apart, everything is. That’s the great assistance to you, that fact that everything is in decay is your helper. It is allowing you that you don’t have to let go. Because there is nothing to hold on to, it is achieved for you by the process of nature.
And (not morbidly), once you see that you don’t have a prayer, and it’s all washed up. And most of us will vanish and leave not a trace behind. And you really get with that, suddenly you see that you have the power, to achieve whatever you desire. This enormous axis of energy.
But it’s not power that came to you because you grabbed it, because you trying to control or force it. It came in entirely the opposite way.
And power which comes to you in that opposite way is power, with which you can be trusted.
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