Overcoming Fear

 

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Overcoming Fear

Everyone is afraid. Of the known, of the unknown, fear is creeping in us. Sitting or standing, sleeping, or waking, the fear continues. There is fear in all our behaviour, in every thought and deed. There is fear in love, in hate, in virtue, in sin – in everything. It is as if our whole consciousness is created of fear. What else are our beliefs, concepts, religions, and gods other than fear?

What is this fear? There are many forms of fear, but the fear is only one – the fear of death. That is the basic fear. At the root of all fear is the possibility of being destroyed, annihilated. Fear means the apprehension of not being, of disappearing. Effort goes on all our lives to escape from this anxiety. All efforts are to avoid this basic insecurity.

Fear is not going to help. Fear always means the fear of the unknown. Fear always means the fear of death. Fear always means the fear of being lost, but if we really want to be alive, we have to accept the possibility of being lost. We have to accept the insecurity of the unknown, the discomfort and the inconvenience of the unfamiliar, the strange. That is the price one has to pay for the blessing that follows it, and nothing can be achieved without paying for it. We have to pay for it, otherwise we will remain fear paralyzed. Our whole life will be lost.

We can make use of fear in two ways. The one we use now is to run away when there is fear. We believe in the logic of the ostrich and bury our head in the sand. How will we progress if we run from fear? Fear is an opportunity. The other possibility with fear is to surrender. Accept the existence of death; do not turn your eyes away from it. The day we encounter death with open eyes, we will see death disappear into oblivion. We had never come face to face with death, and therefore it existed for us. All fears of life flee in this manner if we face them in full awareness.

Move within, but do not move the way fear makes you move, because fear cannot enter inwards. Why can fear not enter inwards? Fear cannot be alone, and inwards one has to be alone. Fear needs a crowd, fear needs companionship, friends, even foes may do.

But to be alone, to go inwards, we cannot take anybody with us; we have to be more and more alone. Not only can we not take anyone, but we also cannot take anything either. Our wealth, our power, our prestige – we cannot take anything. Inside we cannot take even our clothes! We will have to go nude and alone; hence fear cannot move inwards, fear moves outwards.

Fear disappears only when, in deep meditation, we become acquainted with death; when in deep meditation we know: ‘I am not the body, not the mind. Then how can there be death?’ The body will go into the earth – dust unto dust – but our consciousness will persist forever. Then fear disappears.