Nothing Prevents You

Student: What prevents me from experiencing my innermost self?

Teacher: Nothing.

Student: Then why don’t I experience it?

Teacher: Fear.

Student: So, then fear prevents me?

Teacher: Nothing prevents you.

Student: But didn’t you just say that fear is the reason I can’t experience this state of consciousness?

Teacher: Yes, but it does not prevent you.

Student: Then what does?

Teacher: Nothing.

Student: Then what role does fear play?

Teacher: If you are in prison, what do you fear most when you dream of being liberated?

Student: Returning to prison... So, you’re saying that I fear experiencing my inmost self because I will return to my ignorance.

Teacher: No. I am saying that your fear of ignorance holds you in ignorance.

Student: I’m confused. I thought you were saying that I feared the experience of my highest self, but now it sounds like you’re saying that I fear my human self. Which is it?

Teacher: You fear the return to your human self after experiencing the God-fragment within you.

Student: Why?

Teacher: If you are thirsting in the desert, what is it that you desire above all else?

Student: Water?

Teacher: So if I gave you a glass of water, you’d be satisfied?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: For how long?

Student: Okay. I see your point. What I would desire above all else is to be near water so I could drink whenever I wanted, or better yet, I would want to leave the desert entirely.

Teacher: And if you loved the desert, wouldn’t you fear to leave it?

Student: You’re saying that I fear the experience of my inmost self because I would want to leave this world behind, but how can I fear this when I have no experience of it whatsoever?

Teacher: This is not the fear that floods your body when someone is about to kill you. It is the fear of a shadow so mysterious, ancient, and primordial that you know immediately that it transcends this life and this world, and its knowing will change you irrevocably.

Student: So it’s really this change that I fear?

Teacher: It’s the irrevocability of the change that you fear.


From here.