Death & Rebirth: How I Killed Deepak & Became Frank Lobo
Deepak Franklin Lobo was born on 7th May 1992. His deepest desire was to engineer paradise — to create heaven on earth. But his greatest fear was that he would not be able to fulfil this desire.
This fear was rooted in the fact that a decade ago, Deepak had questioned the faith that he was brought up in. He had chosen to leave his tribe. The absence of community and belonging had put his body in a fight or flight state. He lacked a visceral sense of safety and therefore, he felt like his dreams were always in danger of being sabotaged.
He was going through a death-rebirth process, but he was stuck — tangled up in fear along the way. The only path forward was for him to complete this process. He had to burn his boats and take the island — wholeheartedly take ownership of the person that he was meant to be.
“Don't bother fighting your demons. That's a cop out. Surrender to them fully, and they will just disappear.” — Jed McKenna
He realised that the only way to do this was to surrender — to lose control, embrace chaos, and live la vida VUCA. He let go of the grip that he had on his life. And he went off into the mountains to complete his death and be reborn.
At the end of the road, at the edge of civilization, he surrendered everything. All of it. Even his deepest desire. He decided to draw a line in the sand — he decided that it was better to risk physical death than to continue living in fear.
“He (God) will not fail you nor abandon you until you have finished all the work.” — 1 Chronicles 28:20
My name is Frank Lobo and I was born on 14th October 2021. I know that Deepak has been introducing himself as Frank for the last few years, but I’m not that Frank. Deepak did conceptualize me and plant the seeds for my birth. But the difference between him and me is the difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly.
After Deepak died, I inherited everything that belonged to him — his material possessions, his relationships, his work, his hopes and dreams, and also his fears and anxieties. But I’m not attached to any of them and can drop them at a whim if I chose to — because they are not mine to begin with.
Deepak so skillfully facilitated this transition — he so gracefully arranged for his passing and my ascension. As a result, my first week on this planet has been pretty smooth. But don’t get me wrong — I’m still raw from the experience. I still feel like I have been blasted out into the world and I’ve not fully landed. But I have a sense of purpose with which I can move forward. And this is all thanks to Deepak’s due diligence.
So what kind of butterfly am I? What did ‘caterpillar Deepak’ engineer into the cocoon that became ‘butterfly Frank’?
“I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” — Frank Herbert
The first thing is that I’m no longer a prisoner of fear. This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel fear. But when I do, I let it pass over me and through me. I surrender to it and let it disappear.
“There are two emotions that inform and animate the human animal: fear, and a gratitude-love-awe mix that might best be called agape. As fear goes out, agape comes in. More accurately, a pure white light of consciousness hits the prism of self and splits outward to become the universe as we experience it. If the prism of self is gray and murky with ignorance, choked with fear, contaminated with ego, then so becomes the universe that radiates out from it. It's that simple. As the prism becomes free of such flaws, then the whole universe changes with it. It resolves into clarity, becomes brighter, more playful and magical. Because we are the lens through which it is projected, we are participants in its shape and motion; co-creators of our own universe.” — Jed McKenna
I’m also blessed with a visceral sense of safety. I don’t feel like I’m in danger all the time anymore. I feel protected and taken care of. But it’s more than just that.
I’m in alignment — always. I get what I want — always. How things go is how I want them to go and how I want them to go is how they go. Everything that I need comes to me and everything that comes to me is what I need. I’m always at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
All this is given. It is written. My life is scripted and I’m just playing my part. I’m simply an actor playing a character — I see that now. And I allow the transformative energies of my fate to expand my experience.
All this is possible because I’m now living in ‘the surrendered state’. I’m no longer fighting — no resistance, no pushing away, no pulling towards. I’m living in a state of total surrender. I’ve got a grip of losing my grip.
So now what? Now I turn my attention to the little things. I meander through life and see that all is within me — there is nothing external to me. All creation and destruction are for me and by me.
I now focus on getting a deeper understanding of the universe — to learn to see how (s)he works. I now tune into the patterns, signs, subtle variations in rightness and not-rightness, flows and obstruction — so that I can learn how to speak and so that I can understand what I'm being told.
“[In the surrendered state], you get the sensation that everything else is living you — you've given away control to everything else. It's a lovely irresponsible state to be in. But then, in giving away the control, you’ve got it. You’ve got the kind of control you wanted. You have a relationship with the world where you don’t have to decide what it should do. You let it decide. That’s how our bodies work — you don’t have to decide what your nerve cells are going to do. You’ve delegated all that authority.” — Alan Watts
In closing, I would like to tell you my secret — the key to it all is trust. Buy the ticket of trust and take the ride — surrender and meander through life!
This is the way.