I know I have fear, many fears, – fear of rejection, fear of being ridiculed, fear of being not good enough, fear of the unknown, and fear of being alone, etc, etc. The list could go on and on. However, I did not know that I had been running away from my biggest fear all of my life, until December 2013. I was having time alone for a few weeks in our apartment in Gurgaon, India when I had the realization that my biggest fear was my own fear of success.
As I mentioned in my previous writing, I am now in my 2nd Saturn Return. I have my natal Saturn in the 11th house in the sign Scorpio. Ouch! It is big and heavy! I have difficulty understanding what I was thinking when I was choosing my life plan in the world of Spirit?! I either was very brave or very crazy! Of course, I prefer to believe that I was very brave!
In Astrology, where Saturn is located in our birth chart is where our deepest and greatest fear lies in our life. Saturn is the Lord of Karma, the tester, and the teacher. Its job in our life is to destroy the old and outworn forms, in order to build a better structure on a higher level. Its mission is to destroy all that is outgrown in one’s personality. Its goal is to build one’s strength and characteristics with maturity through taking and accepting full responsibility. Through the chastening process of testing, sorrow, delay, disappointment, limitation, restriction and privation, one learns that the purpose of life is not pleasure, but to gain experience, responsibility, patience, humility, wisdom and compassion. Saturn helps us to bear our karma and pass the tests of life. It enables us to reach the maturity we must all attain in the process of soul evolution. This process can only be accomplished by facing one’s fears through giving up control and surrendering to the Universe with total trust and faith in the process of life.
The sign in which Saturn is placed in the birth chart, is what one’s character and personality must change by facing one’s deepest and greatest fear or fears. The house in which Saturn resides in one’s birth chart is where one must start one’s structure of security, responsibility and self-sufficiency by letting go of control. In other words, the sign Saturn resides in, and the house placement of Saturn indicate where our greatest responsibilities lie and point to the areas in life that contain the lessons we have chosen to experience and learn from.
In my case, Saturn in Scorpio indicates that I have chosen in this life to purge some very deep subconscious darkness to enable me to purify and transform my deepest and greatest fears. Only by facing these deep dark fears will I be able to release these intense negative emotions. Saturn in the 11th house indicates that it is hard for me to obtain goals and objectives, but they can be attained through patience, endurance and personal responsibility. I must be willing to work hard, utilizing discipline, practicality, and perseverance, also I must have ultimate faith and trust. However, I have to earn everything with this position of Saturn. It is often said, Saturn is a hard taskmaster, but Saturn’s rewards are abundant, if you learn the lessons you have chosen.
As I reflect back on my life, I have had to earn everything through hard work and not giving up. I either had to try twice in order to reach a goal, or I had to work long years with hard work, discipline, patience and perseverance, in order to achieve something. Honestly, it was really hard work. At times, I often wondered, why I had to work so hard to achieve something, when is seemed to come so easily for others? At that point in time, I could not understand it at all. I did not have any other choice, but to put my head down and put in the hard work to be successful. After years of working hard and not giving up, I finally reached the top of my career at the age of 38, and became somebody whom many others wanted to become.
But, at the very moment of “My” success, I came to the startling awareness that I was in fact in a state of disillusion, as I watched people’s response and respect to my so called “Success”. I realized that what people and society saw and knew about me was not the true me. It was just the title, status and projection that they wanted to see.
Saturn taught me to work hard to achieve something in the first 40 years of my life. However, at the moment I achieved success, I was disillusioned with the success. Yet, another big lesson was brought for me to face – one of the deepest and greatest fears in my life – a fear of being successful and staying in success, which I was not aware of at all until now.
In 1993, when I became the professor and the head of our division, I was in charge of 30 people and a big project, but the self-imposed pressure to succeed made it difficult at the time for me to even breathe. Ironically, even though the project received the highest score among more than 100 big projects in the field of military medical sciences nationwide at that time, I was in so much fear of being a failure and not being smart enough to manage and direct the team. That fear lead me to risk everything, and I engaged myself in a clandestine love affair with a man 9 years my junior within my division, as I struggled to escape the responsibility of the project.
In the end, I decided to leave the academy and the people who assisted me to achieve the status and success I worked so hard to attain. I didn’t just change jobs, I decided to go overseas and begin a whole new adventure. I found countless excuses to convince myself that I made the right choice, because I was disillusioned with the fame and success.
For years, I worked very hard to climb the ladder of success from the bottom of something. I could not stay in a job for more than 5 years, I always ran away once it became stable and I started enjoying the success of my efforts. I did not realize that deep down within me, I was afraid of the responsibility in being successful and what was required in maintaining my success. Furthermore, underneath the deep fear of being successful, is the fear of being a failure, being rejected or ridiculed if people found out that I was not good enough, not perfect and unworthy (I have Chiron in Capricorn in the second house in my natal chart, and it is in conjunction with Pluto in Leo in the 9th house). Therefore, I ran away before I could fail. I changed one job after another and moved from place to place. As a result, I left the lessons unlearned and the fear continued to control my life.
As I found my spiritual path in 2003, my life began to change positively. I began to understand my life purpose and the true meaning of my existence here on the Earth plane. However, I had a misunderstanding that once I worked for Spirit, everything would come much easier. I was not only naive, but also absolutely and totally wrong! Working closely for Spirit, Maitreya’s energy has brought to the surface my deep and dark stuff to be dealt with. As I let go of my fears and face my lessons one by one, I am getting closer and closer to truly seeing my SELF and its all negativity. Because of the SELF, a lot of my fears and deep darkness are hidden in the disguise of reasoning, blaming, and excuses, without me knowing they have been there and are still in control over my reality.
When Maitreya told me that I have fear of being successful, I was upset. My SELF tried very hard to convince me that he was wrong, and worked diligently to count my successes; but my HIGHER SELF knew without any doubt that Maitreya was right. Thus, while I was alone in the apartment, I asked Spirit to bring me this awareness.
One morning while I was still in bed, I was in a half-sleep and half-awake state, thinking about my life and life lessons. In that very moment, as I looked back on my life, I realized that I had been avoiding my life lessons all my life. I am supposed to learn to take responsibility for myself and for others (due to my karma to friends), but I did not, and I have been running away from it. I finally realized that I do have a deep fear of success and staying in the success. That is why I was always running away and frequently changing jobs, and by moving from place to place. I did so because I was afraid of failure. I ran away before I could fail. As I became aware of it, I was able to see my pattern, my fear and my lesson the Planet Saturn has been trying to teach me. The deep root is low self-esteem, not being good enough, afraid of being judged, fear of being criticized and being a failure.
Now the lesson is being put in front of me again. Am I going to run away again? The choice is mine. I can run away from it my whole life, but it can only delay the process of learning the lesson. The lessons I have chosen before I was born cannot be eliminated or removed from my soul contract. Sooner or later in my soul evolution, I will have to face them again and again until I have learned them. However, the more I delay the learning, the harder it becomes.
On the other hand, what will happen if I choose to face it? Maitreya once said in one of his newsletters, “What in your life are you most afraid of? Very often this fear can be transformed into your greatest gift.” It is true that wherever our greatest fear lies is where the most precious gift and the most strength to use that gift lies. This is my lesson; I am fully responsible for learning it, no one else. I choose to no longer to run away, I must use this opportunity the Universe is bringing to me, to take full responsibility, to face my fear, to be disciplined to be successful, and to be proud of being successful. As I face it, I will transform it into my greatest gift. By facing my greatest fear, then and only then, can I truly follow my passion in the service to humanity and to Spirit. As I truly follow my passion, I can be truly happy and have the peace within me that passes all understanding.
I cannot give enough thanks to Spirit, to Maitreya, to Margaret and team Maitreya for all their guidance and help. I give them special thanks for their patience and compassion that has allowed me to go through the process of taking the responsibility that has enabled me to raise my awareness and consciousness. I am indeed very blessed and fortunate.