When Fear Falls Away: The Story of a Sudden Awakening

by Jan Frazier, Barbi Schulick (Foreword by)

Overview

In August 2003, virtually overnight, Jan Frazier experienced "a dramatic falling away of fear"not just the immediate fear of her annual medical test but, as she learned as time went on, her fear of everything. She was "flooded with a causeless joy that has never left me." In this book the commonplace belief that enlightenment is only for saints comes apart at the seams. Anyone can be enlightened, and all we need to do is ask.

This rare and beautiful account puts Jan Frazier solidly in the tradition of enlightened teachers from J. Krishnamurti to Byron Katie.
• Guns and money aren't going to buy peace of mind. Giving up fear is.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578634002
Publisher:	Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date:	05/01/2007
Pages:	201
Sales rank:	876,598
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jan Frazier is a creativewriting teacher and mother of two adolescents. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Yankee, Cimarron Review, and the Minnesota Review, and her poetry collection was published in 2003 by Pudding House. She resides in rural western Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Foreword     VI
Acknowledgments     VIII
Preface     X
Introduction     XII
Invitation to the Reader     XVII
The Beginning: The Death of Fear     1
The Beginning of Understanding: Seeing through the Third Eye     40
Deepening of Understanding: Franklin Merrell-Wolff     56
Assimilation: Becoming Fully Human     96
In the World, But Not at the Mercy of It: Accessing the Deep Stream of Consciousness     138
Afterword     186
Epilogue     194
Notes     197
References     198
About the Author     200

Editorial Reviews

"... A breathing translation into language of an advance in evolution that is available to the focused heart and the fortunate intention."

Stephen Levine

The summer she turned 50, Frazier suddenly lost the nearly crippling fear that had plagued her for decades. In its place came love, tears, laughter, ecstasy, delight, bliss, understanding and, eventually, an unshakable "undercurrent of fundamental contentment." This book, she says, is not self-help but a "testimony to a life transformed" and a promise that her experience is open to all. Frazier, a poet, knows how to turn a phrase, but her dated commentary, covering 18 months beginning in August 2003, often evokes the self-absorption and inchoate emotion of an adolescent's diary: "Every single thing I do is a total blast. It's like being stoned, only it's entirely clearheaded." Interspersed with celebratory journal entries are lyrical descriptions of her worshipful encounters with Gurumayi, the controversial "perfected master" whose Siddha Yoga mantra is translated "I bow to my inner Self, who is God." Some readers may find Frazier's unremitting attention to her emotional state tedious, if occasionally worrisome ("I expend a lot of energy to keep from whirling in circles with my arms out to the sides"), while others will perceive deep wisdom in her awakened realization "that being released from fear was independent of being released from bad things happening." (May)

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