Whenever fear arises, we have a choice about how to face it. We can project it onto someone or something else, we can lie to ourselves about what we are feeling, or we can surrender. Only the last of these three options is healing.
In today’s reading, most of the apostles project their fear onto one another. Since that is the situation in the moment, that is the situation that Jesus addresses through his teaching at Passover.
Peter denies his fear, so Jesus points it out to him. Jesus wants to help Peter discover how Peter lies to himself. As Michael Langford writes in The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, “Right from the beginning, the ego’s preservation strategies have to be dealt with.”
Jesus also experiences extreme fear in today’s story. However, Jesus faces fear with surrender.
Surrender is letting go of one’s point-of-view, one’s will, and one’s identity. In the final surrender, one also lets go of the sense of self-existence. Listen to what Dr. David Hawkins says about the final surrender in this video: (The tip continues after the video.)
When we practice surrendering our ideas and our positions in daily life, we are preparing ourselves for the final surrender. We need this practice. If we cannot surrender our political opinions, for example, we will not be able to surrender our sense of self-existence at the final doorway.
One way to prepare for enlightenment is to embrace opportunities to surrender. Have the thought in mind, “Let go of self. Let go of self. Let go of self,” and watch for opportunities to let go a little more each day. Typically, whenever there is conflict in your life, there is an opportunity to let go of self.
In addition, we need to learn to be with fear instead of projecting it or denying it. We also need to learn how to recognize fear, because fear hides under other emotions, like anger.
As we learn to accept fear with openness, and as we learn to surrender more and more deeply, we prepare ourselves to embrace enlightenment.
