THE SELF LIBERATOR'S DIGEST VOLUME NINE

		Why the Dog Could Not Drink

Shibli was asked:
  "who guided you in the Path?"
  He said: "A dog. One day I saw him, almost dead with thirst, standing by the
water's edge.
  Every time he looked at his reflection in the water he was frightened, and
withdrew, because he thought it was another dog.
  Finally, such was his necessity, he cast away fear and leapt into the water;
at which the "other dog" vanished.
  The dog found that the obstacle, which was himself, the barrier between him
and what he sought, melted away.
  In this same way my own obstacle vanished, when I knew that it was what I
took to be my own self. And my Way was first shown to me by the behaviour of
- a dog."

		Eat No Stones

A hunter, walking through some woods, came upon a notice. He read the words:

		STONE-EATING IS FORBIDDEN

His curiosity was stimulated, and he followed a track which led past the sign
until he came to a cave at the entrance to which a Sufi was sitting.
  The Sufi said to him:
  "The answer to your question is that you have never seen a notice prohibiting
the eating of stones because there is no need for one. Not to eat stones may be
called a common habit.
  "Only when the human being is able similarly to avoid other habits, even more
destructive than eating stones, will he be able to get beyond his present
pitiful state."

	from The Way of The Sufi by Idries Shah

17th Century Nun's Prayer

(the title of this prayer is traditional, the source unknown)

		LIE TWENTY-TWO
	Overwhelm Yourself With The Luxury

   Every fool thinks he has something to lose. And for that matter every fool
HAS something to lose. What is the fool protecting? Why his foolishness, of
course - his web of ideas and abstractions which allow him to squelch ecstasy
and anxiety. As a matter of intestinal relief I am forced to share my
foolishness with others. My books are simply controlled laughter, screams,
tears, dancing and joy.

Ortega Gasser says it this way:
For life is at the start chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects
this, but he is frightened of finding himself face to face with this terrible
reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything
is clear. It does not worry him that his ideas are not true, he uses them as
trenches for the defence of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away
reality.
 
                        BECOME WHO YOU ARE
                     THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES 

		LIE FOURTEEN
	What If Hitler Was Accepted Into College?

		The reason why most people don't change is because
					they don't HATE themselves enough.

There is no way of knowing how a disappointment will affect history.
    The study of Hitler reveals one simple fact: once you study Hitler there 
is no longer any need to study politics.
    The Hitler episode is the one and only "course" necessary to understand the
very complex subject called "political science." Another phrase for political
science is - the over-compensation for an inferiority complex.
    Most members of the human species are herd animals. Similar to domesticated
sheep and cows they contentedly and proudly strut to the market to be
slaughtered.
    Unlike other herd animals, however, humans believe they are individuals with
a free-will and a mind of their own.
    Humans can't tolerate insecurity, disappointment, or frustration very well.
Like many others, Hitler knew this fact very well. What was Hitler's
regime - The - WE MENTALITY.
Security Programs - Identification with a Hero - Guarantees - Someone To Blame
for Misfortune - Freedom as Obedience - Enemies - A Sense of Superiority Based
on the "We" - Sacrifice for the "We".
    What embarrassed mankind so much about Hitler's existence? He showed them
hoe capable they were. He showed them what an inferior person could do when
sufficiently angered.
    He showed the Moolah what he would do to protect his house. Hitler turned
the idea of a rational, humanistic mankind into a joke. He showed us how the
most normal and decent man could be made to run a gas chamber.

			TERRORS OF THE HERD
			EVERY HERD ANIMAL
		HAS GIVEN UP HIS BODY FOR A FENCE

What terrifies an animal who has been De-clawed and De-fanged? An animal with
claws, fangs and a can opener.
    Herds want to feel safe.
What makes the herd valuable? Utility and docility. Once the herd loses utility
and docility they are of little value.
    No one is loved "for themselves" in a herd.
The herd has been told that it is honoured for it's servility and loyalty. It is
told that it is superior because they spout the philosophy of pity and kindness.
Yet, their kindness is simply a necessity - for what else can a frightened
animal be? What terrifies the herd animal? Everything.
    What is the herd animal's argument against living? Everything
 
                        BECOME WHO YOU ARE
                     THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES 
 
		LIE FIVE
		The Model Is The Message

The Model IS The Message - the image is devoid of fact.

The model(s) - paradigms - men use to tolerate their existential presence tells
you more about them than the content of their message.
    Trust more in a man's moods than in his thoughts.

    Assertion: The better a man fells the less complex his models. The worse he
feels the more complex his models. The real question - do complex models
explain more of reality than simple ones? Or is complexity a poor model for
describing the issue of models? Or am I misusing the concept?
    What we need to look at is elegance.
    The weaker a person the more binary his models. What do I really mean by
this? As a rule weaker people think primarily in discrete one dimensional
binary terms. They are stuck in a fascistic state of mind. This must be
expected since their defences are primitive.
    Look at what has been done to the WHOLE BRAIN MODEL. Weak minded people say
there is a left brain and a right brain. This type of "mind" does not even
recognise that they are talking about a model. A strong person says, A MODEL of
the brain is .......
    A stronger and more knowledgeable person says, "a model of the brain based
on Herrmann's work consists of 4 factors and not 2. The whole brain model has 4
primary components. They are left cortex, right cortex, left limbic system, and
right limbic system." Which person is stronger? Which person is in a better
mood? Do my assertions concerning moods, weakness and model complexity apply?
If they do apply how do they apply? Or is my model simply based on poor
observations and definitions.
    Which model of the brain will sell more books and to whom? This might help
us understand my model better. I will predict that the two brain model will sell
more books and the people who buy and believe it will be more right brain and
less left brain. A person high in mathematical ability and analytical reasoning
would find the book a joke. A whole brain person might be interested in the
book, buy it, but not believe it.

    What sells is the model - not the product. The facts are that most of us
live in a one dimensional, model discrete (yes/no) universe.
    Some people can tolerate a MAYBE. How may people can tolerate a multi-factor
interacting model? Very few. It would require that they specify conditions of
when, who, where, and how. This is too much for most people. Their tolerance
for existential presence is low.
    Politicians and advertisers rely on the fact that most people only respond
from a yes/no matrix. As people become more complex they add maybe. As they
become more complex and add more and more factors. SOONER OR LATER THEY BECOME
ORGANIC AND THEY LOOK SIMPLE AGAIN.
COMPLEXITY BECOMES A SIMPLE ART FORM.

                        BECOME WHO YOU ARE
                     THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES 
 
        from The Tree of Lies By Christopher S. Hyatt

		THE BIRD AND THE EGG

Once upon a time there was a bird which did not have the power of flight. Like
a chicken, he walked on the ground, although he knew that some birds did fly.
  It so happened that. through a combination of circumstances, the egg of a
flying bird was incubated by this flight-less one.
  In due time the chick came forth, still with the potentiality for flight
which he had always had, even from the time when he was an egg.
  It spoke to its foster-parent, saying: "When will I fly?" And the land-bound
bird said: "Persist in your attempts to fly, just like the others."
  For he did not know how to take the fledgling for its lesson in flying: even
how to topple it from the nest so that it might learn.
  And it is curious, in a way, that the young bird did not see this. His
recognition of the situation was confused by the fact that he felt gratitude
to the bird that hatched him.
  "Without this service", he said to himself, "surely I would still be in the
egg?"
  And, again, sometimes he said to himself: "Anyone who can hatch me, surely he
can teach me how to fly. It must be just a matter of time, or my own unaided
efforts, or some great wisdom: yes, that is it. Suddenly one day I will be
carried to the next stage by him who has brought me thus far."

	from Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah

  The future exists
     first in
    imagination,
    then in will,
  then in Reality.

MEDITATION

I do not know if you have ever noticed that when you give total attention there is complete silence. And in that attention there is no frontier, there is no centre, as the "me" who is aware or attentive. That attention, that silence, is a state of meditation.

Meditation is the total release of energy.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, not just parts of it.

Meditation is not concentration, which is exclusion, a cutting off, a resistance and so a conflict. A meditative mind can concentrate, which then is not an exclusion, a resistance, but a concentrated mind cannot meditate.

In meditation one has to find out whether there is an end to knowledge and so freedom from the known.

The death that meditation brings about is the immortality of the new.

Meditation is the seeing of what is and going beyond it.

Meditation is not an escape from the world; it is not an isolating, self- enclosing activity, but rather the comprehension of the world and its ways. The world has little to offer apart from food, clothes and shelter, and pleasure with its great sorrows. Meditation is wandering away from this world; one has to be a total outsider. Then the world has a meaning, and the beauty of the heavens and the earth is constant. Then love is not pleasure. From this all action begins that is not the outcome of tension, contradiction, the search for self-fulfilment or the conceit of power.

Belief is so unnecessary, as are ideals. Both dissipate energy which is needed to follow the unfolding of the fact, the "what is." Beliefs like ideals are escapes from the fact and in escape there is no end to sorrow. The ending of sorrow is the understanding of the fact from moment to moment. There is no system or method which will give will give understanding; only choice-less awareness of a fact will do that. Meditation according to a system is the avoidance of the fact of what of the fact of what you are; it is far more important to understand yourself, the constant changing of the facts about yourself, than to meditate in order to find god or have visions, sensations and other forms of entertainment.

from Meditations by J. Krishnamurti

T.B.Pawlick

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.

Gandhi

			The Seashore Trip

Picture yourself sitting on a large rock out-cropping with the sea about 20 feet
below ... notice the roar as the ocean rushes in and hits the rocks below 
us ... smell the salt air as the wind gushes against our face ... notice the
contrast between our rocks and the beach.
	Notice the sea gulls in the sky above ... watch them dive for their
dinner in the sea below ... listen to their chatter as they return to the 
sky ... notice the other birds around us ... they show their appreciation for
life in their smooth gliding and happy song.
	Look behind us and we see a trail to our beach ... let's walk down
that trail to our beach below ... the smooth path seems to indicate how many
people have climbed down from our rock before us ... these ageless rock seem
to assure us of the beauty of life, and how, being in harmony with nature
seems to give us grace ... the stones and rocks seem to make a slight set of
natural stairs about halfway down ... now back to the sloping trail ... the
sand is warming up and is so inviting ... let's take off our shoes and finish
our walk to the beach barefooted ... feel the warm sand squish up between our
toes ... feel the breeze warm us as we reach the beach ... we are now able to
to look over the calm sea, glistening to our eyes.
	Let's walk towards the water ... feel the difference of the wet sand
from the dry sand we just left ... bend down and write "I love you" ... and
then put the names of our special people we wish remember .. now see the sea
rush past us, give our ankles a hug, and as it returns, take our names and
our message, "I love you".
	Since the hug from the sea felt so good as it took our names and
message, bend down again and write "I love you" ... and put the names of the
people you have slighted or hurt ... now see the waves rush past us, give our 
ankles a hug, and as it returns, take our names and our message, "I love you".
	Walk further into the ocean to where the water is about up to your
knees and feel the cool reassurance of life ... now draw in the love of life
from this sea ... up through your feet, until it fills your whole body with
excitement and love of life.
	Now let's return from the beach ... pick up that sea shell ... listen
to the message from the shell ... back on the warm sand ... turn and look at
the sea once more and say "goodbye" ... it is now time for us to return to our
shoes ... and back up the stairs of life ... to the top of the rock. We have
the love and excitement of life drawn up from the sea within us now ... say a
special thanks to those people who have been thoughtful to you as your sea
fades from view.

	from Hypnosis:a power program for changing your life by William W Hewitt

There once was a man who disliked seeing his footprints and his shadow. He decided to escape from them, and began to run. But as he ran along, more footprints appeared, while his shadow easily kept up with him. Thinking he was going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without stopping, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and died.
If he had stood still, there would have been no footprints. If he had rested in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared.

Chuang-tse story from The Toa of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

The Stone Cutter

One day, he passed a wealthy merchant's house, and through the open gateway, saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stonecutter. He became very envious, and wished that he could be like the merchant. Then he would no longer have to live the life of a mere stonecutter.

To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever dreamed of, envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. But soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants, and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"

Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around, who had to bow down before him as he passed. It was a hot summer day, and the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!"

Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and labourers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!"

Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!"

Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, hated and feared by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that he could not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge towering stone. "How powerful that stone is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be that stone!"

Then he became the stone, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into solid rock, and he felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the stone?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stonecutter.

Chinese story from The Toa of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

Education and the significance of life

from Education and the significance of life by Krishnamurti

from The naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp

At sixteen I was stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?

Jules Fieffer

The image or concept of the SELF in the deep recesses of the brain-computer, as programmed through the total environment interacting with genetic and constitutional base, determines all patterns of symbols, logic, thought, speech, action, emotional response and perception in all areas of people activity. As such, the self-image is the core from which all else evolves in the brain-computer. Thus, the deep self-image is the key concern of the psychiatrist.
Why should one focus on deep symbols? What do we achieve through symbol analysis and understanding? Truth cannot be concealed. Truth is "that which is." It is specific energy in the universe. It literally begs to be revealed, especially when hypocrisy and deceit - distorted statements of "that which is" - moves towards domination. Truth then reveals itself, speaks and surfaces through the SYMBOL. The symbol is the form through which a highly dynamic idea or concept can "tunnel" underground through the unconscious to be expressed. The symbol is the product of environmental energy condensation.
Symbols and the decoding of symbols has yet to become a major area of interest and study in Western civilisation. This is regrettable at one level, yet very understandable at a deeper level. DECODING the symbol is an activity not unlike that of the physical scientist who places matter or living substances under the lens of a light microscope or an elctromicroscope for the purpose of gaining deeper insight into, and understanding of the structure and function of that matter. In both instances (decoding the symbol and examining matter under a microscope), the process of investigation serves to refine our knowledge and influences our behaviour in the universe. Decoding the symbol also leads to a deeper understanding of the self, and so frees the self. The process of decoding and visualising the symbol does not require the aid of a device beyond the human body, such as the microscope. Such a process requires first and foremost the activity of the right cerebral hemisphere and those sensory, neuro-chemical channels that feed primarily into this area of the human brain-computer. As a theoretical extension, I am convinced that the neuropigment MELANIN plays a crucial role in this right cerebral hemisphere sensory, neurochemical system.

from the ISIS papers by Dr Frances Cress Welsing.

From the earliest of times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were too old, and it profited them to carry on the imposture

from cakes and ale by W.Somerset Maughan

The right kind of education

from Education and the significance of life by Krishnamurti

		****What fear is*****

 In process presented here for dealing with fear, fear is the hunted, not the
hunter. Fear is the quarry you must stalk and confront and unmask, to reveal to
yourself that all that separates you from yourself is an illusion.

Fear is not what you think it is.

Fear is not who you are underneath your facade. Fear is not the real you that
you must somehow fix or improve or overcome.

Fear is a very useful signal along the path to freedom. The stronger the fear,
the closer you are to what you are seeking. If you want to stay "safe" (i.e.,
stuck where you are), fear tells you to stop what you are doing. But if you
want to be free, fear lets you know you are on the right track, it is a signal
to push ahead in the same direction, to pick up the pace.

			****Avoidance of Life****

Resistance is one of the processes that mask fear.

"I don't enjoy swimming/dancing/parties/cities/group discussions/traveling ..."
"I'm not interested. It's not my kind of thing."
"I've done that already and don't need to prove anything by doing it again."
"I would love to, but I tried, and I just can't."
"I'm taking care of myself by staying away from this thing I know I'm not
ready for."
"I'm not afraid, I just don't want to."
"It's dangerous."
"It's silly."
"It's boring"

Every time we choose safety,
			we reinforce fear.
When we try to avoid the discomfort that we call fear, our world grows smaller
and smaller...
We find ways to avoid
	people
	activities
	circumstances
	experiences
that might cause us to have the reaction we fear.

As we get older, we become afraid of more and more.
		We close down.
		We close off.
		  Our lives shrink

When we attempt something new and find ourselves feeling really uncomfortable,
we believe the discomfort means that something is wrong, so we try to get out
of the situation. As time goes on, we learn to get out sooner and sooner and
sooner, until we move directly to avoidance, even before we consider doing
something that might be scary.

Can you list things you used to enjoy but no longer do because they are too
scary?

Whether we are:
	AVOIDING all that could produce the dreaded discomfort we call fear,or
	PURSING all that could produce the desirable feeling we call
		excitement

we are removed from the present moment by the belief that our lives, our selves,
will be the way they should be only in
	some other time and place,
	some other alternative
	to what is here and now.

The relentless pursuit of happiness is one definition of suffering.
The single-minded avoidance of pain is another.

I knew a woman who was convinced that her happiness consisted in marrying a
wealthy man. Nothing in life interested her except wealthy men, and her world
became small and exceedingly unhappy.

Our world shrinks when we are paralysed by fear of making mistakes, fear of
doing something wrong.

But if we simply take a step and see what happens, our world opens a little bit.
Then we can take another step. Every step enlarges our view; every thing we do
shows us something.

	As the old Zen master say:
		When we are willing to pay attention,
		everything enlightens us.

A friend used to say to me:
	"I'm afraid I'm not going to get a job."
	"I'm afraid of being alone."
	"I'm afraid I'll run out of money."
The list went on and on. I would try to help her address each fear until I
realized that we were dealing with problems that did not exists. The constant
was "I'm afraid," which could be followed by an endless series of purely
imaginary difficulties,

	Only when we focused on the PROCESS rather than the CONTENT
	Could we begin to address what was really going on.

We could talk for hours, days, lifetimes, about what was wrong, what could
happen, what won't work.

	Don't do it.

Instead, take a step. Look around see where you are, and see what your next
step will be. Take that step, see where you are, and the next step becomes
clear. Maybe it's back to where you started -
	you cannot know until you get there.
Each step is clear only from where you are at the moment; the "final" step is
not apparent at the beginning - only from the step immediately before it.
Each step is  part of a learning process, and since no matter what you do,
you will learn something - there is no way to make a mistake.
There is simply no REASON to be afraid

Sitting around thinking about what won't work is like a scientist deciding the
result of an experiment beforehand - not a way to learn anything.

If we really want to know how something is, or what is possible, we
	plunge
		ahead.

We might not find what we thought we would find,
	but we'll find something.

Life is a creative process, and creativity has to have that
	WHOLEHEARTED ABANDON
		of
	PLUNGING AHEAD -

Taking the next step in the knowledge that we will learn something.

It is not possible to make a mistake. We cling to the idea of making a mistake
to maintain the delusion that we can know what cannot possibly be known - what
hasn't happened yet.

			****Fear of fear****

"Without fear, wouldn't you just walk out into traffic?"
	The belief is that being afraid keeps you from doing something dangerous
or just dumb. But that's one of the processes fear uses to protect itself.

When we look more closely we begin to see - especially if we decide to approach
something we are afraid of - that fear is protecting itself against us.
	It looks as if fear is on your side,
	taking care of you,
	keeping you safe,
UNTIL YOU DECIDE TO DO SOMETHING IT TELLS YOU NOT TO DO.

At that point you become enemies; you are in an adversarial relationship with
that which supposedly is protecting you.
In other words, rather than simply being a signal that something is going on,
fear begins to look like an active force with an agenda of its own.
	One might conclude that fear itself is the danger.

If we can simply be with whatever it is that is being experienced -
	the pounding heart,
	the tight stomach,
	the sweaty palms,
	the shallow breath,
	the cold sweat -

there is no problem. Those sensations do not mean that  you should or should not
do anything.
	They don't mean anything at all.

But when we feel threatened, we believe those sensations mean that something
terrible is going to happen to us, something that we cannot stand, and we
extend that to mean we will die.
In fact, nothing has happened to us that we did not survive.

		the fear of fear
		shrinks our world

We will do anything to avoid the discomfort of fear even though we have NEVER
examined the experience itself, NEVER taken a step towards it and looked to see
exactly what it is, NEVER considered that it might not mean what we think it
means.

		****The Emptiness of Fear****

Much of what we call fear is thought. For example, a car swerves out of control
in front of you, and everything goes into slow motion. Adrenaline rushes
through the body at the moment of danger, and evasive actions are taken to avoid
a collision. In that moment there are no thoughts, there is just a oneness with
the situation. Instead of thinking about what to do, there is just doing the
next thing.

Many people report that in situations when they are truly threatened, there is
no fear. The whole experience arises in each moment - there's turning the
wheel of the car, there's stepping on the brake - but there is no experience of
anyone doing it, of making conscious decisions.

I consider this phenomenon some of our best evidence that fear
	does not help us,
	does not protect us,
	does not take care of us.

"Fear" comes in afterwards.

ONLY LATER there are thoughts of what MIGHT have happened.

"The car almost hit us."
"Another few yards, and we could have gone off the road."
"I could have been killed."

In fact, none of those things happened. All that happened was sensations and
thoughts about those sensations.

What most of us think as fear is primarily a mental process of imagining
situations that do not exist in the moment.

		****Conditioning****

How has it happened that we live much of our adult lives in a strait jacket of
fear?
Children don't know there is anything to be afraid of. Up until around age five
or six, children are not particularly self-conscious, they aren't awkward,
they don't think in terms of something being wrong with them.
There was a time for each of us when we were confident and capable and open and
eager to learn to do new things. In the process of being socialised, that was
destroyed. We were taught to leave ourselves and focus on others, and we were
	warned and
	cautioned and
	threatened into near paralysis.

We received little support from adults for our
	confidence and
	capabilities and
	eagerness to learn and explore -
because they never had that support themselves. We grew to feel inadequate and
insecure and anxious, and by projecting that onto our own children we pass
along the fear.

To make the transition from our early sense of complete adequacy and
fearlessness to living freely and functioning well in the world, we needed
support we did not get.

Instead, we were given the assumption that fear is what keeps us safe.

In fact, Intelligence is what keeps us safe.

At the age when most kids learn to ride a bicycle, safety isn't really an issue
for them. They aren't yet thinking there's any danger because they're not
clinging to life the way we have learned to. They don't look at activities from
the point of view of what terrible thing might happen; little kids don't
imagine that they might spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair. But a
child who wants to learn to ride a bicycle can't get the simple information he
or she needs without big doses of other stuff: how they're not doing it right,
and what could happen if they do it wrong. All of this comes at a child in a way
that is hard to grasp, except for the message:
	there is something to be afraid of
The child doesn't know exactly what that is, but can hardly avoid concluding
that his or her adequacy is part of the problem. After receiving so much of
that kind of information, a child simply won't try new things that bring up
those feelings. It is just too scary.

Instead, what if someone taught the child to ride the bicycle without all the
warnings and threats and anxiety? Not assuming that he or she should already
know that streets are dangerous or know how to handle a bike around cars, dogs,
kids, other bikers? (How would a little kid know all this?)
What would be helpful is for someone to explain it all, all the subtleties and
nuances - not as if the child is stupid or careless or headed for disaster - but
simply by way of giving information to someone who doesn't have it.

(Notice how commonly information is passed on with an attitude of disdain, with
the implication of someone's inadequacy, in a tone of voice that says, "What's
the matter with you that you don't already know that?" That's how we were
spoken to as children, and we are largely unaware of such subtle put-downs when
we speak this way to others.)

Another way of describing what happens to children is that they're going along
completely involved in their experience of the moment, with no illusion of
being separate from anything, when somebody yells at them that they've done
something wrong. They're jolted out of their natural ease and confidence and
plunged into the awful energy of an adult's anger and fear. Suddenly they're
being told that they've done something wrong; they're yanked away from their
own experience into a nightmare of confusion. The underlying message is that
paying attention to ourselves, to our own world of experience, is wrong, and
that to be safe, we must pay attention to others
	This happens again and again, until we have our own repertoire of voices
cautioning us and warning us and threatening us, reinforcing the idea that we
cannot be trusted with ourselves.
	"You should have known better."
	"What's the matter with you? Can't you do anything right?"
	"This is too hard for you."
And now we replay those messages to ourselves internally, incessantly
undermining our own adequacy.

What we need for the transition from the innocent mind and heart of the child
to an adult who can function well in the world is someone who knows the ropes,
who can tell us how things work, who can guide us lovingly from not knowing
through becoming capable and confident with whatever arises.
	For most of us, that is what was missing in our lives.

Student: Here's one: I sit down to work and fear comes up. "what if it's no
good? What if I can't do it?"
  Guide: Well, lets suppose you had just sat down to work and I walked up and
  said, "What if that's no good? What if you can't do it?"
Student: Hmmm. I think I'd wonder why you were saying that. I think it would
make me mad. Who do you think you are, questioning my ability.
  Guide: Okay. If someone "outside" of you expresses a belief in your
  inadequacy, it would make you question their motivation, it would make you
  angry that they would even think such a thing. But if someone "inside" you
  expresses the same belief in your inadequacy you go to what you call fear.
Student: That sounds like it.
  Guide: Good. Now where in that is the fear? I'm right here with a lot of
  BELIEFS, a lot of IMAGINARY EVENTS, but where is the fear? Even if you are
  not successful with this whatever it is that you're currently working on,
  do you believe that that will result in humiliation? rejection?
Student: I don't know. I just know that when that voice suggests that I'm
going to fail, it's like an icy hand grips my heart.
  Guide: And that's the "fear" that rules our lives. Someone says something that
  implies that something is going to happen to me in some future time and place,
  my body is filled with sensations, and I'm conditioned to believe that means
	something about who I am,
	that I should do something,
	that I should not do something,
	a general "there's something wrong and I'm in big trouble"
That's a lot of being jerked around by one little voice asking one little
question.
But if we don't examine it closely enough to see that it's a little conditioned
voice programmed to ask anxiety-producing questions, we will remain convinced
that it is the voice of God threatening us with imminent destructions.

Spiritually it is essential to understand that there is nothing in fear that is
helping us

Someone who lives at another Zen centre was telling me how she spent last winter
in terror because she was getting close to just dropping everything and being
in the moment. She would get right to that point, she could see that being in
the moment was freedom, and all that was there was terror. Now, what is that
TERROR? It is egocentricity losing its grip on you. You were taught that fear is
useful, that it takes care of you. So when you begin to let go of it a part of
you feels like it is dying and it doesn't want to die. It would rather you died.
It would rather your world shrank until there was nothing left of you. If you
no longer believe what fear tells you,
					you will live and it will not.
That is a point on the spiritual journey that
						ALMOST NOBODY GETS PAST.

When that TERROR arises, when it gets backed into a corner and it is a matter of
its survival or yours, almost nobody has the required combination of courage,
desperation, willingness - to stand up to it. When this force in you that has
controlled and motivated you all your life is screaming,
	"If you do that you're going to die!"
very few people are going to say,
	"Well, I just need to find out if that is so."

Fear has its own identity. The identity of fear is separateness.
Fear is the movement
			away from the centre.
It is the experience
			of being separate.
It is not a position; it's what happens when you are separate - fear is the
movement, the process, of separation. When you are out there, away from the
centre, then fear becomes the identity. Fear is the "I" that is separate.
The "I" that is separate is afraid.
The "I" that is separate 
	has been created,
	has been born,
	will die,
	is in grave danger.
Everything is a threat to the survival of that separateness. So we move in fear,
and we are fear.
Many of the processes of fear are designed to keep us from seeing how fear is
the movement to separation. Fear forces us to spend our lives dealing with it,
ostensibly to overcome it. But that is a trick.

Only fear (the illusion of separation) would want us to work to be unafraid,
precisely because it is not possible for a separate self to be unafraid!
That is the trick to make sure you always exist:
	Decide that you want something that is not possible to have
	and then spend your life pursuing that.
This is a recipe for egocentricity to live forever because, we might guess, with
rebirth the unfulfilled desire will seek form again

	Separation			No Separation
	  (fear)			  (no fear)
	----------			-------------
	  self				  Self
	  isolation			  oneness
	  abandonment			  connection
	  fear				  clarity
	  deprivation			  plenty
	  anger				  forgiveness
	illusion of control		  letting go
	  suffering			  bliss
			( add your own )

Children are naturally fearless; they are open to the world and to exploring and
learning from it. But when they are repeatedly told that something they have
done is stupid and foolish, they are humiliated, so that eventually they no
longer find new situations interesting. They stop being excited about exploring
the unknown, because the unknown has become another opportunity to be wrong.

The child has to be shamed into internalizing the adult thought and feelings.
In fact, the child is fine, even after she's been jerked away and told that
she's crazy and could have gotten killed. But soon the child accepts that she is
stupid and needs to be afraid.

Fear is the experience of being identified as a separate self.
FEAR and SEPARATENESS are synonymous.

And yet,
	avoiding fear,
	resisting fear,
	fearing fear
are greater problems than fear.

If we had learned to believe that the sensation we call "happiness" meant that
awful things might happen to us, we would have the same reactions to happiness
that we have to fear -
			it's not the experience,
			it's the belief.

Realization of non-separation is the ultimate (and only) "control."

We are desperate to control because we believe ourselves to be separate, alone,
and vulnerable.
When I am not separate, there is no one to protect.
I am invincible - I can be defenceless.

The only way to be invulnerable is to be completely vulnerable,
	and for us to
		open to total vulnerability requires that we go beyond our fears
and to know that we have NEVER BEEN separate from our true nature, from all
that is.

Fear of the "unknown" is actually
	fear of my own imagination.

Many of us see ourselves as victims to fear, as if fear is chasing us through
life and we must elude it.
I want us to switch this around. We're going to become the hunters and fear,
the hunted.

Question every fear thought.
	How do I know that?
	Is that true?
	Who says so?
	Is that my experience or is it a belief?
Look to see how fear is set up in your mind.
Learn to ask:
		Is that happening NOW?
		Is that true NOW?
		Who says so?
Learn to explore	assumptions
			speculation
			rumour
			prejudice
			negativity.
Being negative will not keep the things you don't want to happen from happening.

What if we replace those voices that warn and threaten us...
	"you have no courage. Give up."
	"you are lazy and boring."
	"be careful not to make a mistake."
	"they're going to laugh at your suggestions."
	"you are too loud! calm down!"
	"you don't try hard enough."
	"you're just not good enough."
	"you can't do it. Don't even try."
with messages that support our inherent adequacy and our growth towards a full
and free life?
	"There is nothing wrong with you."
	"Your feelings are okay whatever they are."
	"You are kind and generous."
	"Go ahead. Give it your best shot. It will be okay"
	"You are never alone. I'll always be with you."

If we are afraid of fear,
	we feed it
	and it grows.

If we leave fear to itself,
If we give it no power,
		no energy,
		(yes, this is possible!)
eventually it consumes itself.

At the bottom
	of the abyss...
			BLISS

		****Becoming a Mentor to Ourselves***

If we can become for ourselves the mentor we always wished we had, then
everything in life becomes an exciting adventure.
	We can do all those things we've always wanted to do but convinced
ourselves we couldn't do. We can live our lives in the company of someone who
really loves us in our natural eagerness to grow and in our intelligence about
how to do that.

If we look at life as an opportunity to end our suffering,
	as an opportunity to embrace and heal all that has happened to us,
our attention moves AWAY from trying to fix ourselves and figure everything
out, and TOWARD being with ourselves as we live our daily lives.

From the place of compassion, I assist the small part of me who wants to
explore and experience and be successful in all situations in which I have not
had any support, in all those areas I've never explored because I didn't have
anyone with me to help me through the frightening, difficult, painful places.

The "small part of me" is also the
	spontaneous and
	excited and
	adventure-some and
	brave part,
the one who was there before those qualities were frightened out of me.
When I approach everything as an opportunity to heal,
	there is nothing that will not be available to me.

If everything new becomes an opportunity to open the heart of compassion and
embrace in that compassion all those aspects of myself that felt timid and
insecure and threatened, then I will rush toward
		the new
		the unknown
		the challenging.
I will seek new ways
		to bring me back
			to myself.
The childlike part of me who was ashamed for not knowing, being awkward, "doing
things wrong"
	will be excited to have the encouragement and support to try new things.
So rather than saying to myself,
	"I can't do that,"
	"I'd look foolish,"
	"What would people say?"
	"It would be a waste of time,"
I can decide to give this excited, enthusiastic part of me all the life
experiences she never got to have.
	"I can't"
	 becomes
	"What next?"

Because we are most often identified with the socialised child and the 
socialised adult within us, we get stuck moving back and forth between a child's
fear and an adult's fear. But it is possible to find within ourselves a way of
experiencing life that was ours before we were taught to be afraid, before we
were convinced that life is big and scary and overwhelming, when the world was
a place of awe and wonder, when we had boundless energy because there was
nothing keeping us from simply being present in the moment.
The only thing that can help us move back to the enthusiasm of the
pre-socialised child is to come from the place of compassion within ourselves
that can embrace the fear of the frightened child and the socially conditioned
fear of the adult.
	When we come into that compassionate awareness that is not afraid of
fear, that can embrace the fear, we are able to heal the wounds of the child
and adult and begin to live the lives we've always wanted to live.

The best opportunities are the ones we cannot avoid. They are our greatest gift
and greatest ally, because otherwise we would keep putting things off, and
procrastination is another one of the ways fear protects itself. "I know I need
to look at that, but not right now. I need to be a little stronger." But our
own internal mechanisms keep bringing us into the situation. Often we face it
only because we no longer have any choice.
	And that is regrettable for two reasons. First, at that point it has all
become so serious and so grim that we don't see that it can be interesting and
fun. Second it reinforces our inadequacy.
	But if we get to the point of saying "Yes, this is good, I want to see
how this works," we are empowered by that. I'm no longer a victim waiting
around until I have no choice, just fighting for survival and praying I live
through it all. I become pro-active

Student: Where does the mentor come from? 
   If you're interacting with someone close to you and you want a certain
response and you're not getting it, how do you know the response you want?
	You know from within yourself.
	It exists inside you.
You already know how you want to be supported and loved and cared for.
You can provide that for yourself!
If you pay close attention, you'll see how you stop yourself from receiving the
mentoring that is already there. In receiving there is an experience of
	wholeness / oneness / satisfaction.
We focus on deprivation because it helps us maintain our illusion of being
separate, of needing to get more of something. (we never get it because it
constantly changes!)

When you establish the mentor relationship with yourself, it feels the way it
should have felt in childhood.
	You are absolutely safe and cared for and loved and approved of and
	watched over.
Then you are free to do whatever you want to do because nothing terrible can
happen to you. With this sense of safety, you can explore the whole world. Once
that mentoring process is in place, you can apply it to anything.

Do something you fear,
		not to conquer the fear, not to accomplish a task,
But to familiarise yourself with the processes
		with which fear protects itself.
I encourage you to start with small fears and then move on to bigger ones.

Never make a contest with conditioning.
	If a voice says,
		"I can't. I'm afraid,"
the most helpful kind of response is,
	"It's all right to be afraid. I'm here with you.
	 We'll take it slowly. It's okay."
And if a voice says,
	"But you're just a coward!"
it is helpful not to argue. It doesn't matter what someone says. Why waste your
time being defensive? Being whatever and however you are is fine.
And once you have accepted that,
				the contest ends.

How would I address fear? An example:
					Let's say I have a fear of heights. I
hate to fly. I won't stay above the second floor in a hotel, I avoid bridges
whenever possible, I don't hike in the mountains, etc.
What to do?
	First learn to Dis-identify from the part of me who is afraid.
	Until i Dis-identify from that part and move into the mentor role, I am
	much incapable of compassionate response.
It is important to note that while I am identified with the part of me who is
afraid I am most often not actually experiencing the object of my fear.
It's not as if I'm walking over to the edge of the cliff, peering over, and
then feeling the sensations of fear in my body. The MERE IDEA of a cliff sends
me into a panic. So I avoid cliffs so that I won't be afraid. Am I really
afraid of cliffs? Is that what I'm feeling NOW? No, there aren't any cliffs
around. I am afraid of my feelings. I am afraid of fear.

We rarely experience what we think of as fear.
What we actually feel is fear of fear.
	ANXIETY is the fear of fear - the dread of an experience I won't be 
		able to stand
The next step is to make peace with how I'm feeling. For many of us, that
notion is revolutionary. We were taught that feelings are something to get
through, get over with, get away from, or deny.
Most feelings are unsettling,
		untrustworthy,
		embarrassing,
		inconvenient,
		even dangerous.
So to make peace with your feelings, imagine that you are simply going to
to-exist with them. You don't have to worry about them, or control them, you
don't even have to take them personally(!!). All you have to do is let the
feelings be - and if you stay with it, before long, they will let you just be.
How does that work?
	You watch your feelings. You have a front row centre seat. You don't
have to perform - you're the spectator. Remember, you have Dis-identified from
the one who is afraid, and you are prepared to be a mentor, but for now you're
just watching. As strange as it might sound,
	WE DON'T HAVE TO TAKE OUR FEELINGS PERSONALLY.

It might be helpful to keep a journal of your investigation of a specific fear.
You could write down what your sequence of steps will be - just imagining the
building, then driving there, then going up to it, then going into the elevator
and closing the door, then going up to the top, then finally to the edge.
	And you would write down what you wanted to be looking at:
	 	the sensations, the thoughts, the emotions, the beliefs.

Now you are ready to address your fear of heights
	not to get over the fear
	not to learn to be all right in high places
	not to change of fix yourself.
You are doing this to bring the light of consciousness to the subject of fear.
You are going to demystify the whole subject of fear.
You are going to learn to be the mentor you always wished you had.
You are going to embrace the part of you who is afraid and has always felt alone
and abandoned and unsupported.

Perhaps,
	at the end of this fascinating journey you will be relaxed and
comfortable at any height.
Perhaps not.
The result
	is not the point.
		Compassionate awareness is the point.

And so you begin. You decide you're going to the top of the ten Storey building.
It might take several stages before you actually go anywhere. Just sitting and
thinking about it might be enough to bring up the fear.
If so, start there.
You could set up a time each day to work with fear. Just a few minutes might be
enough at the beginning. Do this so that the fear doesn't assault you every time
you're not paying attention.
(And notice that that is exactly how it happens! You're right there watching and
it's hard to find the fear.
	Turn your attention away and ZAP! the voices try to scare you to death.)

The procedure is the same each time. You take whatever step will bring up fear.
Perhaps now you drive to the building and sit in your care in the parking lot.
Just be with whatever happens.
	Your are watching,
	seeing ever more subtle levels,
	really hearing what the voices are saying,
	seeing the belief systems behind the voices,
	watching your emotions react to the voices,
	feeling the sensations.
It becomes so familiar, you could map the whole process.
"I do this, then I feel that, and then I say that, and then I feel such-and-such
, and then ..." Not many mysteries left at this point. It's all pretty
predictable stuff.
	So you have become completely familiar with the whole process of fear,
and yet the thought of standing over the edge of that building looking over the
edge of that building still starts the voices shrieking, "I CAN'T!" That's okay.
We are not trying to make it to the edge of the building, we are finding out
about the tyrant named Fear.
Now, remember,
	this is a spiritual process, so when we catch this little beast, we're
not going to destroy it, we are going to embrace it. we're going to include it
in our acceptance and compassion.
	We're going to love it into extinction.

It becomes an adventure to see what happens when I do the thing I fear and what
happens when I don't do it,
watching very carefully:
	sensation -> emotion -> thoughts -> beliefs
		everything about it.

There is a slight little movement and a whole chain of events is activated.
	Where does it start?
	What do I believe about this?
	What happens if I say yes?
	What happens if I say no?
	What do I think this reveals about me?
I watch myself say, "This is boring. I've seen this so many times," or, "I hate
this. I don't want to do this."
Watching the same old thing over and over and over,
	and eventually realizing that none of it means anything.
	 (And realizing that when we are present, nothing is ever
		"the same old thing".)

Student: Most of my fears centre around right/wrong. Will I do it right? How can
	I be sure it's right? These questions are fueled by endless replays of
	all the things I've done wrong. Today I was trying to come back to the
	moment rather than go with these imaginary scenes from the future and
	rehashings of the past. The voices would begin to say things like, "If
	you don't try to do the right thing, if you are not concerned about
	understanding how life works, you're no different from an animal. You
	are no different from that bug down there."
Guide:	As if one more beating about something that's past or one more
	rehearsal for a scene that is never going to happen is going to enable
	you finally to accomplish the impossible: to know how something is
	going to turn out before it happens. The ultimate illusion of control.
Once again, If I were to come up to you and begin recounting all of the most
difficult periods of your life, pointing out how you COULD have done that, or
you SHOULD have done that, or IF ONLY  you'd thought of that or taken that
approach and then coaching you on all the ways you should approach your life in
the future,
	What would your response be?
Would you think I
	liked you?
	cared about you?
	had your best interest at heart?
I hope not. I hope you would wonder what my game was. What on earth could
motivate me to want you to feel bad about yourself? Could it possibly be a way
of gaining power over you? A way of having control over you? Very likely.

SO, the next time that voice starts trying to convince you that you should
leave the peace and comfort of the present moment to wander around with it in
the world of past or future calamities, you might just give it a polite "no,
thank you" and invite it to come sit quietly here in the safety of this moment
with you.

Fear of making a mistake ...
	from centre
there is no such thing as a mistake.
	from off centre
    (illusion of separation)
	almost everything
    we do, feel, say, achieve

	SHOULD BE
    BIGGER AND BETTER
	THAN IT IS.

We can break out of the circle of suffering by being for ourselves what was
missing when we were children - someone to listen, someone to be there with us
as we struggle, someone who accepts us no matter what.

The fastest way to stay identified is to be in our heads:
	I don't understand.
	That doesn't make sense.
	What about this?
	What if this happens?
	I need to be careful of that.
Worrying that something terrible might happen prevents me from noticing what is
already happening, which is that I am actively maintaining the fear that is
stifling me! It's projection at work again: the very system I am projecting out
onto other people is the system that is operating me.
I'm the one who maintains this, and then I remain a victim to it.

The secret
	   is to Dis-identify.
This all comes down to not allowing egocentricity to be in charge. First we
watch how we get hooked back into fear. Next we watch the process of
identification AS IT HAPPENS.
Instead of sitting in the audience and watching the magic show and wondering how
it's all done, I'm sitting in the front row waiting for the magician to come
on-stage, and because I am looking closely at everything. Because I'm leading
this investigation - I'm not the victim in this, I'm the pursuer - I can get up
on the stage, go around the magician, look in from the wings. No vantage point
is forbidden to me.
I will probably have to go back to that show again and again,
					and I will probably get to see how I get
districted from my pursuit, how my attention goes elsewhere, but my aim is to
see
	every
		single
			thing
				that
					happens.

I'm not doing this for any reason other than wanting to know how it all works.
It's not going to make me a better person.
It's not going to get rid of anything for me.
		Thats not the point.
The point is that now I am in a different relationship to the fear.
		I am bringing
	the light of conscious awareness
	      to the exploration
	    of the process of fear.

The continent of fear, of egocentricity, is out there (in there?) for you to
explore. When you start out, it's as if nobody has ever been there before, and
as the first explorer, you can feel a real thrill.
Being an explorer is not the same as being a traveler; you are not doing this
to get from point A to point Z; you are doing this for the sake of exploration.
You just want to find out everything that is out thee in that unknown
(terror-tory) territory.
If you keep at it, you will know every tree, every rock, every turn in the path,
because you will have gone over every inch of it, back and forth, many times.
If someone else shows up, you will be able to give them directions, although,
of course, we would hope that others would want to see it all for themselves.
You can tell them that over there is this interesting feature, and across there
is something no one would want to miss, and once you get to this place it's
easier to move on to that place, and the trip up this mountain is long and
arduous but definitely worth it.
This is the attitude we bring to the exploration - not "I've got to get to the
other side as quickly and painlessly as possible and every time I take a wrong
step it's a mistake."
It has to be seen
		as a great adventure.

I don't know a more effective way to be with fear than to be still with it in
compassionate awareness.
	For me compassionate awareness is most simply expressed in a meditation
practice.
	A period of solitude and silence each day helps us to realize that
		silence,
		stillness,
		compassion,
are who we truly are, are out true nature,
and that compassion
		is far greater and more powerful
						than fear.

If I want to be free,
I must find the courage
and the willingness
to be still

			and face the fear that arises
			when I attempt to come back
					to my Self.

We need to stop taking ourselves personally. We need to see that we are simply
human beings, this is how human beings operate. We come into the world with the
ability to experience ourselves as separate. Our own particular experience of
being separate from all this is - the "what" of it, the content - is just
another boring little story, except to ourselves.
	"I grew up with these people and they did this to me and then that
happened and I tried to cope but it didn't work and I became a victim to that.."
    We could go round the room and each plug in our own story about how it was.
But it's so difficult to stand back enough from the content to see the process.

Once I see that this
is just the process of
being a human being,
			I have a chance
			of not taking it all
				so personally.

I didn't create this,
I was born into it,
so why should I spend my life punishing myself for being a human being? The
punishment is another process with which fear protects itself.
As long as I am caught in believing
	that this is right
	that this is wrong
and this makes me a good person
and this makes me a bad person
	I am completely
    enmeshed in egocentricity.

Once I realize that this is just a waste of time, and that duality, the world
of opposites, is simply a way of staying stuck in suffering,
					then I have a chance of stepping back,
of Dis-identifying enough to get out that system, by not taking myself
personally. Now I can just observe how a human being operates, see what's going
on.

Now I have a chance of moving into being a compassionate mentor for myself.
There is a motivation to move into that place to end suffering,
			to help all beings.

	from The Fear Book (Facing fear once and for all) by Cheri Huber