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misperception of the rope. What happened to the snake and the fear when thewoman perceived the rope? It vanished.Because we are so identified with our misperceptions, we need to hearfrom an independent source, scripture or a teacher, that the snake is actually arope. However, hearing the truth is insufficient without an investigation.When the woman heard that the rope was a snake she looked to make sure,and her fear disappeared in the light of knowledge.Most fears are not legitimate physical fears. We fear love or the lackof it, life or death, success or failure - you name it. Myriad groundless fearsarising from the cloud of unknowing disturb the mind not established in rightknowledge. Rather than deal with a profusion of specific fears, the spiritualwarrior lops off the root fear (taking oneself to be the ego) with the sword ofdiscrimination. Such a person, having discovered identity with the Self, isincapable of fear.Actually, fearlessness is a negative way of describing Self-Realization.The Self is the Love that generates the cosmic harmony we call life, aharmony that exists because, like the snake, the universe is one with the Self.Can the illusory snake exist without the rope's support? Enlightenment is theexperience, I am that Reality, not this limited ego"Just as a lamp illumines objects in a room,the Self illumines the mind, which is composedof inert subtle matter and unableto illumine itself".(27)Someone who says, "I'm a rock," is either joking or crazy. But nearlyeveryone identifies with the gross and subtle bodies to some degree, anidentification causing pleasure and pain. We think of the mind as living, butit's only a mechanical collection of subtle material waves (memories,sensations, emotions, feelings, tendencies) in Consciousness. Having nolight of its own, unaware of its own existence, it merely bouncesConsciousness onto objects like a mirror.If the mind contains the happy/sad wave it is common to think "I amhappy/sad." But in fact, "I" is never happy or sad. In this case the Self isapparently confused, identifying with the mind wave, thereby sufferinghappiness/sadness until the wave returns to the Unconscious. To free the Selfthis confusion must be removed.41