Barbara: A little explanation regarding caterpillars, butterflies, and metamorphosis….
Yusef uses the analogy of a caterpillar (the fearful us) going into a cocoon to be transformed into a butterfly (the free-from-fear us). This analogy is very powerful scientifically.
When a caterpillar forms a cocoon it disintegrates most of its body into a soup of sorts. But there are parts called “imaginal discs” that were already in the caterpillar and they become the basis for the growing butterfly. Some species of caterpillar even have tiny rudimentary wings already within their bodies. I love that image.
So the caterpillar LETS GO of its former “self,” literally dissolving it in order to become the new “self”.
For us that means being WILLING to be TRANSFORMED—not actually dissolved :). We all have within us the potential to be free from the fears of this world as Jesus and others were. It just takes being willing to let go of our fearful self in order to LET GOD TRANSFORM US into the True Self that we already carry within us.
YUSEF:
Now, the cocoon is the task. Once you have willingly entered the cocoon the “work” is not yours. It is the inevitable transformation in which the false self of fear is completely disintegrated, allowing the True Self (that was already within you) to emerge.
The POTENTIAL that existed, waiting, now BECOMES in the new form. Beauty that was hidden within now emerges by LETTING GO of the old way.
As each one emerges from the cocoon transformed, the new experience of beauty, freedom, and joy will transmit to the Earth to enliven others still ‘crawling’ to be willing to chance the cocoon.
And the movement of more and more butterflies on the Earth will generate a wind that will sweep over the land to free it.
The trick is the letting go of the fearful self! I manage to do that now and then and it is wonderful, but then I forget and fall back int the fearfulness once again! Sigh!
That human ego/fearful self is a pesky devil. Part of our humanness.