One thing I have come to realize  is that behind all that rushing is fear.  Not an obvious fear, but fear, nonetheless.  We  become driven by the myth that there is some destination point, some arrival point that we must hurry up and get to. We  rush through our lives because we are afraid that we may ‘miss out’, ‘arrive too late’, or not get to that magical destination point.  Having rushed all my life, I can tell you there is no such thing as a destination point.  We never ‘arrive’; there will always be a further destination point that our mind will trick us into believing exists just up ahead.  At some point we begin to realize that it’s all about the process, the present process, and that the  journey is never-ending.

In reality, our very rushing causes us to miss out on the essences that we most want in life.  Life is a feeling experience, and we can only feel in the now moment.  The feeling experiences that we want out of life can only be experienced in the present.  Yet somehow, our mind has tricked us into believing it’s all ‘up ahead’.  We get so focused on that future destination point that we miss completely the life that is happening in front of our eyes.  If we stop for a moment, we may see that at least some of what we most want is already here, hiding in some small corner of the present moment, waiting for us to water it with our attention so that it can grow bigger.

It’s not easy to take your foot off fourth gear if you’re a rush-aholic. You have to re-configure your priorities.  What really are you here to achieve?  What’s the fear that’s driving you? It takes a lot of  soul-searching, clarity and discipline to give up all that hurrying toward future-based fantasies and that mythical, magical arrival point.  Whatever causes you to stop rushing, be grateful for it. Sometimes, your worn out, exhausted body may be the one to put on the brakes.  You’re forced to stop. You can no longer rush. You’ll find yourself  in a strange environment; you’ll even experience culture shock.  Such is what it is like for a rush-aholic to finally arrive in the present.

The present moment–aahh, could this be the arrival point you were always seeking?  As you move toward becoming a recovering rush-aholic, you’ll find the future will begin to drop away. Don’t be alarmed… no, you are not dying.  There is something up ahead, but you no longer try to live there.  You can take your time.  You understand that you can feel only in the present, so what’s the rush?

Part of the answer can be found in our biology. We are indeed, the human animal. The physical body that carries us through this earth journey shares about 97% of its DNA with the chimpanzee. As a species, we are little more than a glorified ape. Chimpanzees, as we know from Jane Goodall’s extensive research, commit assassinations, mass murders and serial killings. Yet since civilization began, we humans have been attempting to transcend our biology and act in a more conscious and enlightened way, worthy of the divine soul that inhabits these animal bodies. But when we are under pressure, when we are in the grip of fear, the bridge we’ve been patiently building between the divine and the animal quickly snaps. Under the pressure of fear, we become the human animal, exhibiting greater violence than any other species in the animal kingdom. 

Fear has most of us by the throat. It is just a matter of degree and intensity as to when we succumb to our DNA.  For some, just a little bit of pressure on the jugular causes them to throw reason, awareness, divine compassion, or what they most love in life to the winds. 

We are engaged in a grand experiment. Can what we call the human spirit transcend its physical biology and act in accord with the divinity that we truly are?   Can we take our power back from fear and learn to respond to fear consciously? The earth plane is the PhD course in overcoming fear. Our success in this classroom and our ability to help evolve this great experiment rests on our willingness to become conscious, self-aware and connected to our divinity when we are in the presence of fear.  

It is the most difficult work we will ever do while on this earth plane. The first step is to understand the nature of the classroom and to begin to understand the ground rules. We can accept that fear is not going anywhere, and that we have a biological tendency to act out like an ape when we feel fear. We can remember that we are part of a great experiment. Then we can roll up our sleeves and begin the process of becoming more self-aware; we can start to walk the very narrow path that will allow us to stay focused on our spiritual mission to overcome fear.

Take a look around at this classroom. Nowhere in the physical universe will you encounter such a rich and diverse array of physical forms, both natural and made by the human hand. Everywhere you look there is physical form: the paper you are reading, your computer, the chair you are sitting on, the clothes you are wearing, the food you eat, the house you live in, the trees outside your door, the river that rushes by in the woods, the birds in the sky, the bugs under your feet. All is form on planet Earth.

One thing we know about form is that it does not last. Whether it is a piece of chocolate, our physical bodies, the Sangre de Cristo mountains, or the Earth planet itself, all physical form eventually dissolves, dies, disappears.  That is the nature of the physical universe, and this causes fear. The impermanence of earthly life and the uncertainty of life cause survival fears in all humans.  

Part of our challenge, then, is this: can we learn to accept the impermanence of life? Can we learn to allow the uncertainty which is present in every moment? As we journey through this dimension in a human body that has a fairly short “shelf life”, can we overcome our individual  fears?

A look at our past shows us how difficult this assignment has been and the very slow progress we have made as a species in this area. Under the pressure of fear we’ve made poor choices. We continue to spend our energies trying to control and dominate our lives and each other, caught in the illusion that this is the way out of having to deal with the earth lessons of impermanence and uncertainty. We give up the direction our hearts would take us for the illusion of security in a dimension that by its very nature is insecure. Around and around like squirrels in a cage we go, century after century, hedging the very thing we came here to learn.  Our evolution depends upon our willingness to do the inner work required to respond to fear consciously. Overcoming fear is the journey.