Fear

Khalil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

For a river, the ocean is not something separate,
but a continuation of itself.
It is something that is already there,
and has been since before the river existed.

The river entry into the ocean
is not a suicide, but a surrender.
That river, once united with the ocean,
becomes the ocean.

Fear is born of separation
and ends with the surrender of separation.