Every year Cholera made a visit to the Holy City of Mecca with her companions Death and Fear. One year however, Fear came to the city before Death and Cholera. The old gatekeeper, who did not know Fear, let her enter.

When Cholera and Death arrived at the gate, the gatekeeper shouted,
"Cholera, how many victims will you take this time?"
"Not more than 500 I'm sure this time," Cholera said.
"Death, how many will you take?" the gatekeeper cried.
"As always, I will take only what Cholera gives me."
The gatekeeper let them enter.

Weeks later, Death and Cholera returned and called to the gatekeeper,
"Open the gates."
"Cholera, how many victims did you take?" the gatekeeper asked.
"Only 499," Cholera answered.
"And Death, how many did you take?" asked the gatekeeper
"I took more than a thousand."
"You promised you'd only take what Cholera gave you!" the gatekeeper cried.
"Yes," Death answered sadly, "Most of those who died were taken by Fear who entered your gate alone before us. Now you know that Fear does more harm and causes more deaths than Cholera!"

Years ago, when I was living in San Francisco, I took the BART rail system to and from work each day. Terror struck me every time I descended the steps at a station. I was afraid of earthquakes and always filled with visions of being trapped underground when "the big one" struck. Worse, I imagined being electrocuted because the earthquake would hit at the exact moment that the train would be traveling under the bay.

A friend told me, "Sounds like an earthquake is exactly what you need." I thought she was crazy until one day at the office the floor began to rumble. The lights in the rafters swayed. Fear rose up as I waited to see what would happen next. It was a small earthquake. I was alive. And somehow the experience lessened my fear of earthquakes. The Sanskrit word, per, to go through, is the root word of fear. It became the English word fare as in the payment for passage. It was meant to express the emotion experienced from a cause. This first usage was to describe the disaster undergone. Over time the word's meaning shifted to the dread of the event, indicating a psychological response to an anticipated event rather than an emotional response to an experienced event. This shift from the heart to the head, from the internal to the external, has gripped our modern world.

In these troubled times, fear is epidemic. The story "The Three Companions" illustrates that the true enemy is psychological fear in our lives. Fear is constantly creating a fantasy in our minds rather than presenting itself as a reality that we can confront and pass through to transform our lives. "To hate and to fear is to be psychologically ill. It is, in fact, the consuming illness of our time," according to H.A. Overstreet, professor of psychology and philosophy at City College of New York.

The media via our television sets can distort reality and manufacture delusion, creating a mind-made monster lurking in the recesses of our dread rather than allowing us to confront a problem when it is a reality in the present moment. Death and Fear are working hand in hand to reach into people's minds as the ultimate weapon.

In order to continue as a human race, I feel we must confront our fears. We must pass through our fear of death and impermanence to reach transformation. How do we do that? Through the present moment. By showing up and confronting our fears and difficulties as they arise, instead of avoiding pain and change or dreading a mental illusion, we are able to become flexible, unlimited and whole.

In this understanding, I offer the story of The Three Companions. It is a potent story to use as a touchstone for personal storytelling of how fear confronted became a teacher. In today's world, it is an important story that can help us move toward a larger understanding of fear as the teacher or vehicle of transformation rather than something to sell for sensation or avoid at all costs. To avoid fear is to avoid the unknown and change which is the mystery of our lives.

From Michael Pardee

In his excellent book, "The Gift of Fear" Gavin De Becker explains we are always afraid of the future, not of the present. If we are alone at night and we hear a sound, we are afraid it is somebody outside. If then somebody tries the doorknob, we are no longer afraid somebody is there; we are afraid they are going to come in. If they enter we no longer fear that but we fear their intentions... always our fear is one step ahead of the action.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is different than fear. I have largely recovered from the PTSD that defined my life for three decades, and felt both fear and the characteristic symptoms in those times. Fear depends on what might happen, while PTSD hinges on what has happened before and seems to be happening again. Repeated exposure fades fear (the bad thing didn't happen) but reinforces PTSD (the bad thing is happening again, but this time I was lucky).

On the subject of PTSD, I can offer one insight. In my experience and the experience of another sufferer on-line, relaxation in mind and body at least some of the time is crucial to healing. That isn't easy to manage when your being is screaming to "watch out!" but it is vital.

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David Elpers
Fear of Transformation, by Sydney Solis

comments: As a practicing Buddhist, I can empathise with the basic premise of Mr. Solis's story. It is certainly true that fear is a major form of the attachment the we carry,and which enevitabily begets suffering.

As a person who endures Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I find some aspects of his story to ring inaccurate. I have twice in my life been entrapped in buildings during earthquakes. Both times I was alone when this occured. The first time, I was four years old when the home I lived in came down on me.

The second time I was also alone,living in a very remote cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains, two miles from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which occured in 1989.It was several hours before anyone could reach me, due to the damage and chaos incured in Santa Cruz County that afternoon.

It was at this point that I became aware of the stress and fear I was living with, starting at age four. I started group counseling for survivors of the 1989 earthquake immediatly, as I was self aware of the signs of PTSD, emerging in myself.

After being in and out of various theraputic modalities for the last fourteen years[for treatment of PTSD], I have to comment on Sydney's storey.

First I must say how naieve and offensive I find his "friend" to be in her sugestion," that an earthquake is exactly what he needs".I don't believe it is needed for me to elaborate why I believe her idea was just plain stupid.I have less fear of death than any person I know, which stems from my spiritual orientation, and resigned state of awareness of the enevitable reality of rebirth. This awareness manifests itself free of assumptions as to the nature of what rebirth constitutes, as I choose to remain unattached to all relegious or theological predictions in regards to what may occur after our death.

No, it is not death from an earthquake or any other reason that causes me fear, it is fear of the suffering of being trapped alone in a building again that I fear.

Irrational? Perhaps.

What I realise as the true core of my fear to be is to be alive.

I would much prefer to die before being buried in a building again.

Of course at the center of that fear is the sense of resignation and hopelessness which arises from my certainty of rebirth.

Yes, I have nothing to base any assumption on as regards to that which constitutes the potential reality involved in rebirth. This leaves me with only the responsibility to practice an ongoing emotional, instinctual,and intellectual balancing act, sometimes referred to as "mindfullness",in order to remain unattached to any fear or concept with regards to this or the next life.

Most of the time I am a poor practitioner of mindfullness, for many reasons common to us all, but also because in my life,I am unable to let go of fear generated by my past experiences with earthquakes.

It is the medical theory of current psychitry that we can be neurologically

harmed by various types of trauma. This involves the concept that the chemical functioning of or brains and bodies can be temporairily or permanetly be altered by trauma.

I do not propose to validate or disregard this type of diagnosis, or the current methods of treating this type of "dis-ease".

If anyone reading this has well thought out ideas concerning any of the above,I would hope you might share them. Fundalmentalist relegious or rigidly scientific, factualist concepts are most likely of no progressive contribution.

Thank you, David Elpers Email, rmgoeckermann@prodigy.net

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