Life can feel like a kind of trap, as we struggle to reconcile the duality between life and death. From this fundamental predicament stem all our other problems, fears and tensions.

This tension shows up as fear—of death, of aging, and of the unknown.

What’s the common root of all these fears?

The passage of time.

Why we fear the unknown

In an effort to deal with these basic fears, humanity has devised various philosophies and spiritual or religious concepts. But even if these concepts are true—evolving perhaps from someone’s attempts to pass on a true experience—they’re not going to relieve our tension.

The only way to truly overcome our fears and resolve the tensions caused by duality, is to dive deep into the great unknown we all fear so much—our own psyche.

How hard could that be?

In truth, it sounds simpler than it is.

For to explore the hidden corners of our own minds, we have to do more than resolve dualities. We must discover all the facets of our innermost selves, without glibly explaining away any tensions and disturbances we encounter along the way.

Our incentive is this: to the degree we are in the dark about what is going on inside, to that degree we will fear the passing of time.

We will fear the great unknown.

When we’re young, it’s easy to brush these things aside. But sooner or later, if we won’t face ourselves, we’ll come face-to-face with our fear of death.

To the extent we know ourselves, though, we will feel fulfilled in life. And to that same degree, death will not be feared.

Instead, it will occur as an organic development. And the unknown will no longer seem like a threat.

Doing this work of self-discovery is no picnic.

Plus, escapes are everywhere. If we look for them, we’ll even find them within the framework of this particular path of growth and healing.

The only way, then, to succeed in unifying ourselves is by ruthlessly searching to see, evaluate and understand ourselves.

There are many obstacles to contend with on the way to freedom from fear of death. One of the main hurdles is our fear of letting go of the barriers between us and the opposite sex.

As long as these hurdles remain in place, our fear of death will exist just as strongly. At the core are three interwoven fears:

1) Fear of our self and what’s hiding in our own unconscious.
2) Fear of loving a person.
3) Fear of death.

Perhaps the connection between the first two is dawning on us. But this third may seem like a novel idea.

Let’s explore this, so we can know the truth being revealed by these words.

The hidden link between love and fear

To experience self-fulfillment, we’re going to need to fully embody ourselves in relationship. Ultimately, to do that, we’ll need to overcome whatever barriers there are between us and the opposite sex.

To be sure, this isn’t the only aspect necessary for self-fulfillment.

Perhaps we need to become aware of certain talents we possess, or some good quality like courage or resourcefulness. Maybe we need to discover how broadminded we are, or creative.

But none of these can truly blossom unless a man becomes a man, and a woman becomes a woman. Whatever self-realization we may accomplish will remain incomplete, while barriers to union with another are still in place.

What such barriers are pointing to are the barriers within. And these are blocking off an area of the self we are avoiding exploring and understanding.

Think of it as a sign we aren’t fully ready to grow up. Instead, we insist that some part of us remain stuck in infancy.

When all our resistance to seeing these previously unknown parts of ourselves is gone, then we will no longer fear ourselves. And once our fear of self has vanished, we can’t possibly fear anyone else—whether they are the same sex as us or a member of the opposite sex.

Freeing ourselves from unrealistic attitudes will also release our fierce grip of control. This is what prevents us from letting go into a state of being.

That same tight grip stands in the way of entering the cosmic stream of timelessness, which is what we experience when we are in the highest states of bliss with a partner.

This is also what we experience in the great bliss we call death.

Death wears many faces.

For those who are afraid—tightly holding onto our little self—we might experience seclusion and separateness as a form of death.

By contrast, some are fully alive and living free of fear—no longer bent on preserving the little self. In that case, we can experience death with the same kind of glory as union on this Earth.

The three forces that block us

We must tackle this struggle for self-realization from three sides.

First, we need to remove the barriers that exist between the conscious and unconscious areas of our psyche.

Second, we must remove the barriers that arise between ourselves and our partners, whoever they are at this phase of our journey.

Third, we need to look at the barriers that exist between us and the cosmic stream.

When we are being carried by this stream, it will seem that all is right with the world.

It’s when we fear ourselves, other people and the stream of life that’s carrying us all forward, that we don’t trust the passing of time.

Instead, we hold on for dear life to our little egoic self. When we do this, we create walls of fog between us and our higher consciousness.

The clouds that hinder living fully in the current moment are made up of basically three things: pride, self-will and fear. In one way or another, all our faults and confusions, conflicts and misconceptions, are derived from these three hindrances.

This same triad blocks the three routes to self-realization we just mentioned.

What’s the big barrier between consciousness and the unconscious?

Pride.

It bars the door because, to be honest, we will not feel great about what we find. It won’t be flattering.

Even if what we find isn’t all that bad, we still fear it might be. After all, we were hoping that everyone would admire us—all the time.

This is the reason we so often pick up the values of people whose approval we want. But in doing this, we create a wall of pride—a bank of clouds that hinders insight.

Self-will makes us hesitant about what we’ll uncover. Because we don’t want to be forced to do something our little ego doesn’t like.

Further, we’re not happy about giving up anything we’re not yet willing to surrender. Our self-will wants our little ego to stay in control—so we can keep clinging to the known.

Lastly, fear makes us believe that reality is not to be trusted. That it’s better to stick with what we already know. In truth, buried deep in our unconscious is a stream of cosmic reality—of cosmic events.

If we enter into this stream, it can’t help but bring us fulfillment, meaningfulness and happiness. But often, we don’t trust this stream. We therefore hang on tightly to what we know, believing we might fare better than if we take a chance and let go into the unknown.

This is how we build a wall of fear.

And this fear blocks us from realizing who we truly are.

How these antagonize relationships

This pervasive triad of pride, self-will and fear also arises between us and our partners, creating barriers there.

Whether we are a man or a woman, pride pokes its head up. Because we fear the apparent helplessness—and the shame that comes with it—of giving over to a force that’s greater than our little ego.

Anyone who has been in a relationship knows that loving is humbling. As such, it is the enemy of pride.

From the place of pride, we want to be in charge. This means we direct all the action and control all the outcomes.

We don’t want to give ourselves over to any force—even if that force is highly desirable.

This explains why so many go through life desiring to love, while at the same time, trying to block it. We are hoping to find a compromise for these contradictory currents running through our soul.

No doubt, the force propelling us toward love is a big one. It comes from our deepest, innermost nature. But the antagonists of pride, self-will and fear conspire to push us away from love.

Self-will is in opposition to love because it wants solo control. It doesn’t want to give itself up.

So it won’t let go.

It seems to us—wrongly so, of course—that we are only safe when we have only ourselves to obey. To let go and love, then, seems to make no sense.

But is this true?

Being realistic and objective, and being able to relinquish control and fearlessly enter love, are highly compatible forces.

In fact, they’re interdependent.

But we block the experience of love out of fear we’ll lose our dignity—that our pride will be hurt—and we’ll have to give up our selfhood.

In other words, we fear we’ll have to let go of our clamoring little ego self.

In reality, we can only gain true dignity and selfhood when we’re willing to give up our pride and our self-will.

The triad on death and dying

Dying is really the ultimate relinquishing of self-direction. In a strange sort of way, then, surrendering into death can seem somehow humiliating. So when we look at our attitude toward death, we’re likely to once again be influenced by the triad of pride, self-will and fear.

We are hoping to avoid the humbling truth that in death, the little self doesn’t have total say. That’s why we hold tightly to our pride and our self-will.

This effectively creates stronger waves of fear.

Here we are, faced with a seeming duality: either give up the self or gain full possession of the self.

It looks like a paradox.

Are we only trying to find ourselves so we can give ourselves up in union with another—and then to death?

The truth is, we can’t successfully give up something we haven’t found.

We can’t freely let go of something we’ve never really possessed.

Also, if death and dying are supposed to be so great—such a blissful experience—why do we think of them as being so dark?

Why don’t we have a death instinct that’s as strong as the one pulling us to lose ourselves in love?

How come we have to work so hard to overcome our fear of death?

Why must we battle so hard against this great unknown?

These are fair questions. There is, in fact, a very good reason for things to be this way.

For wouldn’t it be easy to wish for death when life becomes hard, painful and unfulfilling?

Truly, in the unfinished state we’re in—ignorant and often in a blind state of terror—it would be tempting to escape into death.

But death, unfortunately, wouldn’t prove any different from life.

Both are intrinsically the same.

As a result, in order to avoid having us prematurely leave our lives, our life instinct must be very strong.

And that only works as long as death remains a big mystery—an unknown.

Mere words can never take away our fear of the unknown. So our life instinct manages to continue to keep us here.

Rather than giving in to destructive motives, we find the stamina to try—again and again.

Eventually, we will come to master life—by coming to understand the self.

In this way, we will make peace with the whole universe. At that point, we’ll understand that death is not something to fear. For our fear of death only exists in direct proportion to our fear of living and loving.

Perhaps we can see that it’s possible to transcend the duality of life and death.

Then the illusion that they are opposites starts to fade.

The path to inner peace

These words may only make sense once we no longer see life as a threat. Then we won’t need to flee life.

Our life instinct can settle down.

For then our life instinct no longer opposes a death instinct. As these merge, we will stop either rushing ahead or holding back.

If we look closely, we’ll see how we perpetually fluctuate between two extremes. We either attempt to hold back time, practically crouching in a fear-cramped position. Or we rush headlong into the future.

Because we just can’t stand the present moment.

Rare is the day when we are in complete harmony with the cosmic stream of our lives and ourselves.

That is what it means to be at peace within ourselves—to be in harmony with God.

We’re not holding back, and we’re not pushing forward.

Instead, we are dissolving into the stream of life.

We are in full possession of ourselves but have no fear about giving up self-possession.

We can experience this great combination when we are blessed to have found our mate.

And we will eventually—ultimately—have the privilege of knowing such peace as we transition into another form of consciousness.

What’s the key for heading in this direction?

It lies in the self-discovery that awaits us on many levels deep in our being.

Too often, what we do instead is project our inner ills onto others and the outside world. We are hoping to avoid what seems like a terrifying self-confrontation.

While this appears to give us a temporary satisfaction, it leaves us feeling empty, in the end.

If, instead, we keep working toward self-knowing—one little step at a time—we will one day dissolve the clouds and barriers that obstruct our view.

How truth is like the sun

More and more, we can tap into the timeless stream of our higher consciousness. When we do, it will give us the daily wisdom we need to find our way.

Chances are, we’ll tap into it, then lose it again.

Perseverance will be required.

But our contact with the life stream will inform us about the greater significance of all creation.

We can liken the truth to the sun, which all the planets revolve around. There in the center, the truth burns brightly—even when it’s covered up by clouds.

The clouds, as we said, are our pride, self-will and fear. There is also our ignorance, pushing ahead of time or fighting against it.

But in that precious moment when we perceive our truth—regardless how insignificant it seems, compared to the grand scheme of things—the clouds float away.

Then we’ll be touched by the warmth that radiates from the truth of our higher consciousness. We’ll have renewed strength and a sense of well-being.

We will be filled with joyfulness and peace.

We can’t wish away our fears, nor our pride and self-will, hoping this inner sun will shine—regardless of what we do.

Life doesn’t work that way.

Truth is constantly ready to warm and enliven us. But first, we have some overcoming to do.

We don’t have to be perfect. Actually, we are already perfect in a sense, whenever we’re willing to come to terms with our current imperfections.

It’s when we stop struggling against the self, thereby shedding the heavy burden of pride and pretense, that we become willing to change.

It’s then, when we also shed our self-will, that our pack of fears will start to evaporate—like ice cubes sitting in the sun.

“Be in peace, be in yourself, and therefore in God!”

–The Pathwork Guide

Read Original Pathwork Lecture #123: Liberation and Peace by Overcoming Fear of the Unknown