a Classic story from Indian Scriptures which teach seekers about the nature of the mind and the way it superimposes reality onto that which is only an illusion.
It was late at night in a small village in India.One of the villagers had been visiting a sick neighbor several miles away
and was walking down the very dark and unlit road to return home.
Now,this area was known to be frequented by dangerous and deadly snakes and the man was already very frightened
as he made his way along the path."what if I encounter a snake?"He worried,trembling at just the thought of one of
these terrible creatures.
Suddenly,in the dim light,the man noticed something large and thick coiled up in the middle of the road."It's a
snake!"he cried out loud,as he began to scream and run in circles."Help! Help! Someone come quickly!
A snake is about to kill me!"
Another villager happened to be not too far down the road from the first man and when he heard the commotion,he
came quickly toward the sound of the shouting.
"What's the matter,friend?" he asked.
"Look! Look!" shrieked the first man,pointing a shaking finger at the coiled up serpent."It's a snake!"
The second villager was carrying a lamp and he cautiously approach the shadow in the road,held up the light,and
looked.And there before him,he saw a coil of thick rope that someone had mistakenly drooped on the path.
"friend,calm yourslef,"the villager said."There is no snake here--only a rope.Fear has made your mind play a trick on you."
How many times have you mistaken a rope,or even a string,for a snake in your own life,becoming fearful about
something that turns out to be nothing at all?
You run around,stirring everything and everyone up with your fear,trampling on your state of peace and
contentment,when all you had to do was to look more carefully at what appeared to be a snake and discover that it
was only an illusion.This is how fear drains your vital energy,your aliveness,using it to immobilize you rather than to
uplift and inspire you.
This is a metaphysical principle that says Fear is :
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real.
The snake appeared to be real,but it wasn't.It was false evidence of something to be afraid of.This is the way it is with so much of what we fear.If we found the courage to look more closely,to hold up the light of our own wisdom to what appeared to be blocking our way,we would see that what frightens us often doesn't even exist.
Life will always be full of ropes that appear to be snakes.perhaps they are even put it in our path to test our courage and strengthen our clarity.And the natural reaction to being confronted with what appears to threaten us is always going to be fear.So the solution is not to try and get rid of your fear but to deal with it differently.
Fear does not go away .Your attitude towards it changes.Every time you are confronted with fear,you have a choice as to who is going to be in charge---
your visionary,that courageous part of you,or your fear.
If you wait for your Fear to go away before you do something new or challenging,you will wait forever 
