The Fear You Haven't Tasted
El miedo que no has probado
A student explores why a particular fear resists their usual practice of turning toward difficult feelings, leading to a wide-ranging conversation about spiritual bypassing, the nature of true safety, and the difference between pursuing an idea of liberation and actually living fully.
The Fear You Haven't Tasted
A student explores why a particular fear resists their usual practice of turning toward difficult feelings, leading to a wide-ranging conversation about spiritual bypassing, the nature of true safety, and the difference between pursuing an idea of liberation and actually living fully.
I have a lot of experience feeling and going into feelings. But I think for some reason this one thing has escaped my practice, because it's usually paired with an expansive feeling that feels chaotic, something that feels impossible to control. Like a creation energy. I think it is a deep energy or pattern.
I totally get that you have a lot of experience going into fear and pain, but it's a rabbit hole. There are deeper and deeper levels. Frustration, for example, is also a way in which we manage pain. There are all forms of pain, and we can be comfortable meeting pain in certain forms but not so much in others. For example, rejection versus shame: I could be totally fine with rejection, but shame is just unbearable. The same is true with fears. I could be completely full of bravado with certain kinds of fears, and others are just unbearable.
And those are the really important ones, I guess.
Deeper levels of what we can face
In a sense, yes. That's where the bigger potential for liberation is. Maybe five or ten years ago, there was another thing that was hard, and you faced it. Now there's a deeper level that you start to uncover. Life naturally brings up the things that are challenging now, which is probably something that ten years ago was completely unbearable but today you can start to touch and face.
What I would call liberation, to describe it one way, is when pretty much all normal fears and pains that appear, we are able to have some form of intimacy and direct contact with them. One of my teachers once offered me something: the difference between a Buddha and a normal person is that life is a buffet of experiences and flavors, and a Buddha is able to taste it all. A normal person just has some sections where they say, "No, I'm not tasting that."
We start out, as you know, like children who literally refuse to taste certain foods. Then over time it's like, "Oh, I actually do like tomatoes now." As we develop and grow, the same thing happens with sensations, feelings, emotions, fears, and pains. We start to be able to taste them. And those are often an acquired taste. At first you want nothing to do with it. Then you're able to taste it while in complete contraction, but that's better than before. Over time, it can actually be enjoyed in certain ways.
So through that process of recognizing a sensation is just a sensation, and the more we taste and allow ourselves, that's how we find safety? Or do we feel the safety after?
Where true safety comes from
True safety is a realization. To describe it more accurately, though words make it difficult: that which feels unsafe is seen to not be real. When that which feels unsafe is seen to not be real, and is seen to not be what you are, the whole problem around safety disappears. Obviously there will always be practical aspects of safety around life, but I'm talking about a deeper sense of safety that is unrelated to circumstances.
Like we were safe all the time.
Yes. The approach I'm describing has two sides. One approach is self-inquiry, to see that you're not what you think you are. That can undo a lot of this. The other approach is to turn toward what feels unsafe and be intimate with it. These are complementary, and ultimately they become the same thing. As you turn toward something that feels very unsafe, the illusion of what you are burns away. You can't fully touch that fear without dissolving the illusion of what you are.
When you say "fully touch the fear," do you mean experience the fear?
Yes. To be in direct intimacy with it.
Right, because that fear is the energy of the separate self.
The origin of fear in identification
It's created by the belief in being something you're not. Its origin is believing you are something limited. A part of what we are, a part of consciousness, wants to be something. It is everything and nothing; it is infinite. But it wants to be something, and it has the ability to forget its natural state. This is a freedom. This is a beautiful thing: the ability to become something limited.
When it does that, when we do that, something is lost, but it's intentional and it's forgotten. You can't fully experience the thrill of feeling that you're something that's going to come and go while you know that's not true.
So when we identify, we identify with something transient. Everything that appears will disappear. Everything comes and goes: matter, objects, the body, all thoughts, all concepts. Everything that is formed will change. We say we identify with a body, but we actually identify with a mental image of the body. We identify with mental representations of sensations.
To simplify: we identify with something that comes and goes. That has an aspect which is a true freedom, the beauty of "Oh, I am this." There's a huge rush in that. But there's also a contraction, because now I am this, and I know this comes and goes. There is a deep sense of unsafety, because that which I think I am will end.
I hear you. Thank you. I definitely recognize the pattern that wants to be something.
Ripening, not forcing
And you often can't fight that. We can hear these teachings, and then we have the experience of wanting to be something, and we think, "I just need to fight that off so I can be nothing and be free and be this awakened thing I'm imagining." But often the healthiest path is to fully live that. An apple tree wants to give fruit. If the fruit is just starting to come out, you can't pull it all off; it will be unripe. But when the fruit is ripe, it will fall, and the apple tree will have given fruit.
So it's like the ego has to be developed first before it can be let go of.
Well, it doesn't get let go of; it gets transcended. The identification with ego ends. But if the ego itself ends, you are a vegetable. Transcending the identification with ego, dropping the identification with ego, is easier to do with a healthy, mature ego. It's more risky to deal with an immature, undeveloped ego, because the ego might not do well. That's exactly why I balance waking up with growing up. Growing up is the development of a healthy ego, a healthy body-mind.
And so that would involve developing confidence, listening to your inner guidance, your creative, special part of you.
There are infinite tools. Some things work, some don't. But that's why it's important to do what you really want, because if not, it's not a healthy ego. If the body-mind is in aversion to what its true desire is, it's going to be in an unhealthy state.
Right, because the fear is controlling it and stopping it from actually shining in its way.
Exactly. Functioning in a state of aversion to the very thing it wants. It's like wanting to drink water and being afraid of water, so you don't drink it. That's not a healthy thing.
Spiritual bypassing and its opposite
I think that's what tripped me up so much in the beginning. I just went totally into this search: meditating constantly, living in India, ashrams, gurus, books, retreats, all of it. It helped me with unhealthy patterns in my human life, but I didn't really get any glimpses. And then I thought, okay, well, I guess the two paths have to be aligned.
There's been a lot of awareness recently in humanity around something described as spiritual bypass. That's most likely what you're describing, because the way you tell it, in hindsight you could probably see you were avoiding something deeper, more important, probably even a bigger challenge, probably something you want more.
There's also something I describe as the psychological bypass, which is to avoid everything that is self-inquiry and the truth of awakening through a process of constant personal development. That's also an avoidance.
So what's in the balanced middle? When nothing is avoided, and the thing that aligns us is what I describe as: what does life, or the universe, want as me or through me right now? What's the deepest thing that I want? That's what brings alignment.
There are all different levels. Right now I could really want to drink water, and I might be in some conflict around that because I'm trying to focus, I need to be eating, I'm working. There's always subtle not-listening. But there's also a deeper, bigger level of what I want in life. I might be in a relationship I don't really want to be in, or I want to be in a relationship with somebody I'm afraid to approach, or I want to pursue a hobby or exploration that I'm afraid of, or I'm pursuing a thing that's not what I really want to be doing.
This takes time for us to learn how to listen, and what we listen to, for it to be the deepest. It's an infinite process. We never get to 100%. It's a dance. But when you see somebody whose whole life expresses this, that's wisdom. That's somebody who's listening in all the different areas, listening deeply, not avoiding.
I feel like I've done the spiritual bypassing. Didn't realize I was doing it at the time. And then I discovered the feminine healing that needed to take place in my body, and did a lot of that. I'm getting more comfortable with listening, noticing the signs, practicing trusting, and finding the balance.
Trust can't be manufactured
When you say "practicing trusting," I would recommend refining that. See what it is that you're trusting. Once you've initiated a movement or are in a process of trusting, that can be helpful, but then it's about meeting that which we distrust. It's going to be an experience, a sensation, forms of fear and pain. Yes, you need to trust to some degree that doing this has any usefulness. But it's less of a blind trust and more of a curiosity. It's 51% trust: "What if it's okay if I go toward this?" It doesn't need to be 100%. Just 51%, enough to say, "What if I go in and taste this fear, taste this pain?" And yes, I'm in complete utter distrust. That's fine.
What I'm pointing to is that we can't create trust through a mental process by invoking it. It can help in a way, but then we can discover what the danger actually is and what is not, and the trust will emerge naturally, not through a process of trying to talk ourselves into it.
It's like thinking there's a ghost under the bed. "Well, just trust that there isn't. Trust that there isn't. Trust that there isn't." But I hear it! I'm sure of it. "No, trust that there isn't." That process could take millions of years and never end. Instead, trust enough that there isn't one to look under the bed. The mind will say, "If you look under the bed, it's going to bite your head off." But you have to trust enough to take the risk and find out.
Then you look under the bed, and it's terrifying. All of your fears go to the maximum, all your pains blow up. And then you look all the way under the bed, which metaphorically is being fully with those deeper fears and pains. And then you realize: it's not that there wasn't any fear or pain. There was. But it's not a monster. It's not a ghost. I'm totally fine. But I'm totally fine after going through the fear and the pain. I find out I am safe. Not because I told myself, "There is fear and pain there, but you're safe." That approach always leaves doubt at the back of your mind.
So it's not really about the trust; it's about feeling the mistrust, using that as the portal into trust.
Let the trust come naturally. Look into that which seems so scary and dangerous. Look into it, meaning touch it.
What you really want
Something else you said that I wanted to ask about. You said that there's something else I want more than liberation. I resonate with that, and I don't want that to be the case. I recognize that this is the ultimate thing, the ultimate happiness. But if I'm honest, there's something else that at least my ego wants more than that. How do I rectify that?
What if it's not your ego? What if it's you that wants that? And what if all of what you call liberation and the happiness of it is all ideas? You can't know what it is. There is something, but you can only imagine what it is, and that's going to be an idea. So if you pursue that idea, or call that other desire what your ego wants, you might be dismissing what you really want.
And that could be my spiritual path somehow.
That is, because ultimately spirituality is just a tool. It's a tool for how to live freely and deeply. When you're living freely and deeply, spirituality is meaningless. Everything is spiritual or nothing is spiritual. Spirituality is a toolbox. But if you're using it to avoid living fully and deeply because it's scary, it's not a good one.
I guess all the glamorization of the renunciates and the yoga path, that was kind of my thing. Just live in a cave and...
The spiritual thing is what's appealing to your ego. What your ego wants is the whole liberation thing: the idea and fantasy about what that is. But only the idea and fantasy, not what it really is. You can't want it.
Say that again.
What liberation really is, you can't want it, because it's the last thing the mind wants. The glamour of the renunciates and the spiritual path, the idea of that, we can want. All of the fantasies around it and the showmanship of it. But that's the ego. The spiritual ego.
I think it's more about lasting happiness.
We can't imagine what that is. Trust me. It's not conceivable. That's the risk and the danger of describing it in such glowing terms: a mind will hear it and say, "I want that," and it's going to be an idea of what that is, and it's going to be running toward something that's an illusion.
Yes, it's a peace that I can't even put words to, and a level of well-being that's unimaginable. But it's not what you can imagine until you know it, and it's not conditioned on life in any way. So if there's anything in life we're avoiding, that avoidance is always going to be moving away from true freedom, true liberation, true happiness, peace, joy.
Avoidance is identification
So I know you can't find it in the external, but you do need to pursue and engage life as part of disidentifying and waking up.
Because otherwise you're avoiding life, you're avoiding what you want. And if you're doing that, by definition you're identified, because it's all about avoidance.
Avoidance and expectation.
It's like the Zen saying: before, carry water, chop wood. After, carry water, chop wood. It's not: first meditate, chop wood, carry water, then go sit on the mountaintop and be happy forever after.
So what changes? It can't be described. That's what the saying means. Because the only way you could say it is: nothing really changes. But something is implied to change. What changes? Nothing changes. To the mind it's a paradox, but it's definitely not. Not living is not chopping wood, carrying water. And it's not through avoiding what we really want that we get any closer to our freedom.
Sometimes we're so afraid of what we really want that we don't even know we want it. We tell ourselves stories of wanting something else. If any of this resonates with you, and I see you nodding so I'm assuming it does, you're probably already touching pain. And if you are, that's it. That's a good thing.
I've noticed progress. My mind is so different. I've transformed in many ways. I guess I just need to be patient and continue learning and meeting life where it wants to meet me.
And the freedom you're looking for is already here. None of what's happening needs to change. That's why there's no need to avoid what you want.
Vulnerability and the deeper feeling
Thank you. I'm feeling really vulnerable now. And I'm actually usually really shy in conversations like this. Something about that exchange brought up a lot. It feels like vulnerability. It feels like being exposed.
What you're touching right now is your heart. I feel it. And it's moving through difficult feelings and sensations. Vulnerability is like a mix between fear and pain. It's an open heart. It's a knowing of the uncertainty of it all. That's what is really good to sit with.
I think there's just a part of me that doesn't want to be seen, doesn't want to show itself, is afraid, wants to hide. And then it feels the pain of that, but also feels the pain that hiding doesn't work either, that it's not the answer.
Emotions about emotions
I think you're talking about a pain that's a contraction, a habit, and then there's something deeper underneath it.
Yeah, like an emotion about an emotion.
There are emotions we've learned to create as a way to cope with what we can't cope with. We wrap it into the known emotions. We don't like them; they could be really uncomfortable. But they're a different level of uncomfortable. It's a discomfort that's safe because it's known, familiar, and self-generated. Whereas there's a deeper level, the fear and pain we actually need to get to. We want nothing to do with it. There's this big aversion to it. Those deeper feelings are more unknown, untasted. We haven't really made friends with them.
When you describe not wanting to be seen, and then you get close to that place and become vulnerable, you're moving from the known emotional layer to the deeper one. You can probably feel it. It also shifts the energy. It's almost like you move out of a more mental-emotional place and into a heart place.
It feels very real. It feels more real.
Yes. It is. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you. Thanks for listening.