Where there is life there is
mystery. In the beginning this mystery takes the form of fear. And what is it
we are afraid of? We are afraid of simple things like the dark - what
cannot be seen and what lurks in the dark. What lurks in the dark we learn may
hurt us, kill us or kill those we love. We do not know what lurks in the dark
except that it is unknown we are surrounded by things to be afraid of. With the
dawning of self-consciousness we begin to fight this fear. How? By turning the
unknown the mystery into the known. This is a clever trick because all there
can ever be is mystery yet nevertheless our task is to turn mystery into the
known. The known is invented through language and reason. All language is
composed of belief and in belief we are able to pretend that something is
known, once this is realised our goal is to know everything and to understand
everything through the wonderful invention of belief. Over time we forget the
truth, the mystery and we find ourselves completely lost in the known of our
own beliefs. Now we find ourselves surrounded by new fears – these are the
fears of neurosis, which turns out to be the fear of what is known. No longer
are we afraid of the dark now we are afraid that there is something wrong with
us and once this is believed we are lost again. Faced with this new fear we can
either run away from this fear through drink, drugs, sex, pleasure or the
pursuit of more beliefs-knowledge, or finally turn and face the mystery.
When we are truly able to do this we find that the known is slowly dissolved
until all that is left is mystery and mystery rather than being something to be
afraid of becomes the solution to all our fears. Fear can only exist in the
mistaken notion that something is known.