Realize that you, as the soul, cannot be affected by anything in this outer world. Your mind can be affected. That’s up here on the surface. But down here, at the deepest part of who you are, your soul, the world cannot touch you. And you are eternal.
So imagine you will survive even the death of this body. Then what can any up or down of this world do to you? It can’t do anything. It’s kind of like an imagined fear we have of losing things.
I used to work before I became a Sannyasi (monk). Sannyasi means a monk, a Hindu monk. Before that, I used to work in the outdoor adventure industry. So I used to take people rock climbing on high ropes courses and low ropes courses. And we used to teach leadership and trust and all of these things through these activities. And there’s an industry terminology, like in every industry. Two terms that we use are perceived risk and real risk, or perceived danger and real danger.
So when you have someone tied to a rock-climbing rope and they’re climbing up the crag, their perceived danger is very high because they feel exposed. They’re on the edge of this rock, they’re hanging on by the tips of their fingers, and it looks like a long way down. But the real danger is less than walking down the sidewalk because I’ve got the other end of the rope.
So there’s no real danger, but the perceived danger is very high. Something like that, we have so many perceived dangers in this world. “Oh, if this person stops loving me...” Let’s see, that’s a fear.
We feel that’s a danger. “Oh no, how will I survive? I’ll be so hurt.” “If I lose this thing, how will I survive?” We have so many perceived dangers, yet none of it can touch us in here (deep inner self).
We’re impervious to that. But the key is to connect to that deep part of yourself. Then you can live—it’s a process—but the more you do that, the more you can live fearlessly in the world, with joy and abandon.
Not to mean that you don’t plan things in your life and decide, “I’m going to try to attain this goal, and to do that, I’m going to do these steps in order.” You do plan things in that way, but you’re willing to take the risk to do those things without worrying, “Am I going to fail?”
If you fail, you’ll survive.
