The Fear Card - by Rita Dumais

Part 3 - An Exquisite Lesson

Avatar Adi Da said, "It is said in the traditions, 'Whenever there is an other, fear arises.'" And He spoke of how, when some negative emotion like fear arises, we don't want to feel it. In fact, we do our best to try to get rid of the feeling or try to ignore it.

I saw how I had been doing exactly what he was describing, and instead of it working to eliminate my fear, it had only made it worse.

Then He considered fear from the point of view of what He refers to as Divine Ignorance, the fact that we do not really know what anything at all ultimately "IS" — therefore, we do not know what the feeling of fear really is, and if we simply allow the feeling to be there, not separating from it, but fully feeling it and considering the fact that we do not know what the feeling "IS," then the feeling itself might dissolve.

As He spoke to everyone in the room, and directly to my heart, I felt the fear in me dissolve completely, until I was sitting there, gazing at my Guru face to face, into His eyes, with a heart full of love and gratitude.

I was simply beholding Him with no sense that there was any separation between us at all — to the point where I temporarily transcended my usual identification with both mind and body and felt I was glimpsing His State, which was utterly exquisite.

It was His Grace that allowed me to heart-recognize Him in that moment. And I realized then that He had used the occasion of the reading of the "fear" card to show me that He is not an "other."

In that moment, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, there is, in fact, no other, and no need to forever contract upon the separate self that we feel ourselves to be. And what was left was Only Love, Unqualified Happiness, and heartfelt gratitude to my Guru.

Afterwards

The rest of the evening passed in a blur, as I continued with His reading, and I read for other devotees who were there.

At the end of the evening, Avatar Adi Da allowed me to give Him a hug, and I felt so much love for Him, my heart full of His Divine Love-Bliss, the Bliss that He Transmits to us when we are open to Him.

For the next day or so, I remained in an uncommon state of free feeling — dipped in the feeling of "being" — and my mind was there, but not in a subjective sense at all.

When my ordinary state returned, I felt it crashing in, while I tried to hold on to what Avatar Adi Da had Given me. But I had more practice to do before I would be able to consistently transcend identification with mind and body.

I have never forgotten the lesson He so graciously gave me. When He says, "I am not the ego's other," I can feel exactly what He means.

In truth, none of us are the ego's other either, except we presume it to be so. Thus, we suffer and we experience fear and we need to go beyond all that, which is something we can do in His Company.

I bow down in gratitude, with my heart full of love for the Great One, the Only One Who Is, my Beloved Divine Spiritual Master, Avatar Adi Da Samraj.