I cannot find enlightenment. What is revealed to me is a matter of grace, not of effort or seeking. The holy spirit may – or may not – come to my house. No use of wanting or waiting, be on the lookout or go searching. It may happen, or it does not. Either way is fine.

But it is a good idea to bring the house in order.

Fear is what is keeping us in the false self. It is protecting us from feelings or emotions that are considered to be too intense and too disturbing. To allow them would mean to upset my view of myself in this world, to uproot my beliefs at a time I am not ready for it. The analogy is never wanting to walk down into the basement, because it is there where the demons live. So I ignore the basement, but subconsciously I know it is the place where the ugly vermin lives. I am sensing their brooding presence and they are keeping me up at night.

Everyone has their own journey – and everyone has to find their own path. There is no right or wrong here. What may help me, may not be helpful for you at all. The only common denominator is honesty and perseverance, and I may add humour. It is one thing to realise a spiritual Truth – it is another to live it. There may be an impulse to go beyond the known, and this urgency may give me the strength to develop the self-reliance I need to face my worst fears.

Disturbing events from childhood, or injury and trauma from a more or less distant past, may lead to a compensatory mechanism that allows us to function, but for the price of having to dissociate, or split off, a part of our existence. In many cases this may lead to a state of literally being splintered – a part of us brooding along subconsciously, causing an undercurrent of uneasiness and fear that may prove to be resistant to observation and attempts of transformation in terms of coming back again and again.

Fear is a pointer. It wants us to look at something.

In my own experience I was very surprised to find an impressive fearbody under a thick layer of being at ease, peaceful and laid back. I had to realise that what I thought was my “peaceful inner refuge” was nothing but a hide-out created by the mind. It took some time to learn how to deal with it, how to work with it and frankly, this is by far not done. But one thing I realised – to summon the courage to open up the door to the basement and come to face with whatever was sitting there, allowed me to be congruent for the first time in my life.

Where fear is, love cannot be.