ABSTRACT
The introduction raises the two main questions of this book: What is fear, what is trust? Fear has many forms, which all seem driven by an incomprehensible force in the background: primordial fear. How old are fear and trust? What are our earliest impressions of being, of “ourselves,” and of a “Thou”? Did total serenity precede such impressions? Primordial fear coincides with our awakening ego, that is, when the unborn, the baby, and the small child (or, phylogenetically, early humankind) become self-aware. Fear begins when our ego-based needs (e.g., hunger) and our feeling for dependency awakens. It first appears as bodily reaction (e.g., as trembling). However, deeper than fear lie sensations that are rooted in non-duality: being, peace, trust, and being loved. As an end-of-life carer, I ask myself: Do we return to such original impressions when we die? Primordial trust and fear may partly become conscious through dreams, meditation, and the experiences of the dying. This book is structured along the major lines of evolution, that is, of the development of consciousness. First, we awaken in the ego and leave non-duality. Next, we strengthen our ego, and finally we undergo—mostly suffering—processes of maturation and reconnection with non-duality.
