A young wife fell sick and was about to die. “I love you so much,” she told her husband, “I do not want to leave you. Do not go from me to any other woman. If you do, I will return as a ghost and cause you endless trouble.”

Soon the wife passed away. The husband respected her last wish for the first three months, but then he met another woman and fell in love with her. They became engaged to be married.

Immediately after the engagement a ghost appeared every night to the man, blaming him for not keeping his promise. The ghost was clever, too. She told him exactly what had transpired between himself and his new sweetheart. Whenever he gave his fiancee a present, the ghost would describe it in detail. She would even repeat conversations, and it so annoyed the man that he could not sleep. Someone advised him to take his problem to a Zen master who lived close to the village. At length, in despair, the poor man went to him for help.

“Your former wife became a ghost and knows everything you do,” commented the master. “Whatever you do or say, whatever you give your beloved, she knows. She must be a very wise ghost. Really you should admire such a ghost. The next time she appears, bargain with her. Tell her that she knows so much you can hide nothing from her, and that if she will answer you one question, you promise to break your engagement and remain single.”

“What is the question I must ask her?” inquired the man.

The master replied: “Take a large handful of soy beans and ask her exactly how many beans you hold in your hand. If she cannot tell you, you will know that she is only a figment of your imagination and will trouble you no longer.”

The next night, when the ghost appeared the man flattered her and told her that she knew everything.

Indeed,” replied the ghost, “and I know you went to see that Zen master today.”

“And since you know so much,” demanded the man, “tell me how many beans I hold in this hand!”

There was no longer any ghost to answer the question.

The Zen Master is showing this man, and all of us, what is actually happening to our lifetime when we live in fear.

This Zen story teaches us that, while it appeared to be that the little man was haunted, in fact he was only being deluded by his own mind. It is a metaphor for realizing that our own negative thoughts and anxieties have no basis in reality. This is a very common phenomenon. We all have our “ghosts,” and they are typically a result of one main fear. This one main fear turns into hundreds of delusions and makes our lifestyle a matter of deranged acts of both personal and social consequence.

The core struggle of our lives is not what we fear, but the underlying fear of fear itself. We put faces, conditions and situations upon the state of our fear, and then dance around it all our life without ever realizing it. This construct of fear becomes our foundation for living, seek to avoid fear by never making any kind of mistakes or risking too much. We believe that having a healthy respect for fear makes us smart and keeps us “safe.”

Have you ever wondered why you feel fear so quickly in the foreground of your thinking? It is due to the obsession with gratification that exists in the background of your unconscious mind. It is constantly scanning for anything pleasurable to support the ego’s false sense of security and happiness. But feeding your emotionality with copious amounts of gratification only further fuels your fear and removes you from the state of consciousness that reveals the reality of the Truth. Every time you engage in a gratification to relieve your tensions or cope with stress, you make yourself more vulnerable to fear.

To live in the world, but not let the world live in you is a very powerful and delicate balance that few humans achieve. When the human wants more, it is always a sign that the ego is trying to break the balance between Heaven and Earth within. This is something that each of us must understand for ourselves.

“More” is a clue! Simplicity is the antidote to living for “more.” By uniting your inclinations with intuition, you will find the balance that maintains insight. If you use fear to fight fear, you have achieved nothing. If you hate “wrong” because you believe you are “right,” then you have missed. It is only from the posture of Love that you find the insight to overcome your DNA and genetic dispositions.

The bottom line is found in your hate. How you hate is how you fear. How you fear will be how you hate – it’s that simple.

You set into motion the Mystical through the mystique of your every movement in this world. If you move in fear, you will act from hate. If you act from hate, you will have more to fear. This is the Law, ancient and inexhaustible.

The Universe is an evolution and as it evolves through the great power of Love that has always been here. We, too, can mature into the vastness of the Universe that is Love. This Love has nothing to do with emotionality, nor is it defined by any human logic and reasoning.

Love is the science of reality. When you take Love out of the box of emotionality, you open yourself up to the direct experience of Oneness with the All. Only then can you mature into the vastness of the Universe that is Love.