Overcoming Fear (Part 2 – The Ants)

Ants1.gifAs I mentioned before, I believe that fear
limits our spiritual progress. In the early part of July, I had gone to
Mt. Shasta (in Northern California) for a conference that was being
held there. I’ll post more info about Mt. Shasta later, but let me just
say that it is a very special place. Many people believe that this is
one of the most sacred mountains of the world. There are people that
visit this place from all over and there are many people who have had
encounters there with people from other dimensions and places from
within the earth. There is a city, called Telos, which exists about a
mile below the mountain and this city is inhabited by people who
originally came from the continent of Lemuria (thousands of years ago),
which existed in the Pacific ocean before it sank. According to the
stories, there were about 25,000 at the time who were able to escape
and many of them were able to relocate to below Mt Shasta and establish
the city, known as Telos. (Ok, I guess I’m getting off topic a bit, but
it’s really fascinating stuff).

Anyway, I was with a group of people (perhaps 50-60) and we were
doing a group meditation off one of the trails (Bunny Flats, I think)
and during that meditation, we were told to go within and connect with
our heart, etc. One of the other things that is important to learn is
to listen to the promptings, intuition, feelings, etc that come to us
from within. Too many times, we think that our answers have to come
from external sources (and many times they do), but we should also
confirm those with what we feel inside.

So, after the group meditation, everyone was told that the next
experience was a more personal one. Everyone was to separate and go to
wherever they were told to go. So, it was quite interesting to see 50+
people just spread out going off the paths to wherever they were told
to go. Many people had some neat experiences and I was one of those who
did, although I was not anticipating the kind of experience I was to
have. I really wanted to have a special experience there and I kept
asking, “Where should I go now?” and I would get answers to go this
rock, or to that tree or over that hill. I finally came to a place
where I felt I should stop and meditate and pray.

As I was sitting there praying, I noticed that there were some large
black ants crawling on me, and it was kind of bugging me because they
were interrupting my train of thought. It was at that moment that the
thought came to me, “Let the ants crawl on you”… I was shocked to get
an impression like that. Never, in my wildest dreams would I just let
ants crawl on me, if I could help it. But, I thought I should go with
that and follow that prompting. So, I just sat there and the ants
started to crawl on my legs, arms and hands. I thought that I would get
bit for sure, but they weren’t biting me. It was still hard to just let
them crawl on me. I had some ants crawl into my shirt sleeve and each
new area of unexplored territory they found seemed to get my heart
racing a little more. Then, I would relax and as the minutes passed, I
became more used to it. I’m not saying that I enjoyed it, just that the
fear would subside for a while and the fear would be replaced with
peace. For about 20-30 minutes, I allowed these ants to crawl all over
my body, simply trusting in God that I would not get bit. My fear
turned to peace and tears started to flow from my eyes as I gained a
greater appreciation and love for these little creatures. There were
probably 25 of them crawling all over my skin for that time period, and
yet, I did not get bit once. It is hard to describe, but the experience
was a transforming one for me and perhaps in some small way, reduced my
dependency on fear, replacing it with love.

Overcoming Fear

alligators.gif

I recently read about an initiation
ceremony that was used anciently in Egypt to help people
reduce/eliminate fear. These Egyptians understood that Fear was a
barrier that prevented people from ascending into a higher
consciousness. So they spent many years training their students until
finally they came to one particular challenge to assess where there
students were at. This is what they did:

There was a small hole, just large enough to fit one person. Within
that hole was water and it was pitch black. The student was instructed
to swim down into the hole that was filled with water and find another
way out. That was all they were told. As the student swam straight
down, there were ledges that jutted into the column of water, so the
student had to carefully navigate himself/herself downwards. At about
20 feet, the wall on one side opened up and the student was able to
swim underneath it to a section that was lighted. So, as the student
enters this area, he/she starts to swim upward and that is when it
becomes apparent that there are many alligators within the pool of
water. However, because the student is about to run out of air at this
point, he/she has to go up in between the alligators in order to get
air. What the student doesn’t know is that all of the alligators were
already fed, so it is unlikely that the alligators would attack the
student. Regardless, it would be quite the “Fear Factor” adventure.
Then to top it off, the student is told that he/she failed because
there was a different exit point than the one they used. So, after more
training, the student enters the dark abyss again (knowing that there
are alligators) and find the opening at the bottom of the wall on the
other side, which is also pitch black and go up through that.

Although I doubt I’ll ever go through that kind of “overcoming fear”
adventure, I think the topic of overcoming fear is interesting and
important in our spiritual development. There are so many fears that we
have that can stifle our growth. They say the #1 fear of all people is
speaking in public, followed by death. But there are so many other
fears, such as fear of germs/diseases, fear of failure, fear of
rejection, fear of opening yourself up to someone and communicating
your true feelings, etc.

But rather than list all of the various kinds of fear, I would like
to point out an example that I like to think about. Remember when
Christ walked on the water? He wasn’t the only one who did. Peter also
walked on the water (at least for a little while) and then he sunk in
the water. And then Jesus asked Peter the question, “Why do you
fear?”…. So, it is apparent that it was the fear within Peter that
caused an abrupt halt to Peter’s miraculous feat. Although we would
expect Jesus, to be able to perform a miracles such as that, the fact
that Peter was able to do it is amazing because it helps me to
understand that I, too, have the capacity to perform miracles and fear
is the number one enemy that gets in the way of our spiritual
advancement. The Egyptians understood this and that is why I believe
they were so focused on helping people face their fears and then
overcome them. Christ was not fearful, even in the face of death… and
if we can even come a little closer to overcoming more of our own
fears, we will become more like Christ and only accelerate our
spiritual growth. In the next blog post, I’m going to share an
experience I had that deal with facing my own fears.