Monday 17 November 2008

Who Are You?

Caroline over at The Zen in You has been writing some very insightful posts (she is a fellow Sagittarian so I expect nothing less...) and the one on 'Confronting Fears' reminded me of a story that was read to us in Philosophy a couple of months ago.

In a remote mountain village the head of the village died and leadership was passed on to his son.

Now the people had lived many years under the control of a huge monster who loomed like a shadow over the village.

Whenever anyone tried to find freedom this large shadow appeared with a loud voice echoing through the mountain. The villagers always retreated at the sight of the dark image.

The young man who was now the leader realised the time had come to confront this monster. He went out with a group of villagers and as soon as they appeared at the edge of the village the huge shadow appeared. They stepped back in fright.

The young man observed how the shadow became bigger and the voice louder as they retreated. He paused and then bravely took a step towards the shadow. It seemed to become slightly smaller. He stepped again and his view was confirmed, the shadow became less and the voice less powerful.

He continued moving towards it until at his feet was the source of the shadow. He plucked up this small ephemeral object in his had and asked

"Who are you?"

Fear was the weak feeble reply.

He closed his hand and it disappeared entirely.


The moral of the story was to 'Observe Fear and let it pass through you'.

Manly, Sydney, June 2008 - BEFORE



Manly, Sydney, June 2008 - AFTER

6 comments:

Geraldo Maia said...

Hello Miruspeg,
It is a great pleasure to visit your nice and interesting blog for the first time.
Best wishes from Brazil:
Geraldo

Caroline said...

That is a wonderful story! What a great analogy...as we try to run farther away from our fears they grow. But coming forward to expose and explore them...they disappear! What a great post!

Meow said...

Thanks for the lovely post!
And I absolutely love your song collection; warms the cockles of my heart :)

Blessed Be,
Meow

Anonymous said...

This story was indeed a great example for us all! I found your peaceful place via The Zen In You and I'm thrilled I did.

Lilly said...

Oh that made me cry - it was perfect for me to read. I am printing this out and will link to it in my blog on the next post. I am sure lots of people would benefit from this.

Will update you on other sometime soon. Seems they only rang me because of the blog not because of my letter. Anyway, will let you know if I need some help of the higher order. It will nto be via anyone in the bank though now. Thanks. And of course my favourite Stevie - will leave your music playing awhile. You do have perfect music, just my taste. Have a great week!!

miruspeg said...

Lilly - It is a very uplifting story about how to confront our fears. There are many 'monsters' in our world and we give them so much power, we forget that we have power too.
You are now walking on a path that will resolve your problem and you have an army of supporters that are walking with you.
Thanks for linking this post to yours, I am sure many people will be enlightened by this story.
Take care mate
Peggy xxxx