1. Fear - Lessons 1 to 2

V O L U m E 1

THE SPH THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

All our fears are actually fear of death but under various disguises. Every single fear is related to the fear of death, but in a roundabout way. Because it is roundabout, we don't see it as fear of death. Without fear, the word death itself loses the meaning that we have been associating with it.

Fears are only the ultimate fear of death, and that your self is immortal, that it is only your body which perishes,

We can categorize all our fears into five major categories:

• 1. The first is fear of losing our wealth, our comfort, name and fame, prestige, and other outer world things.
• 2. The second is the fear of losing our health and parts of our body through some accident or disease; the fears concerned with our physical health.
• 3. The third is the fear of losing our mental health, our mental stability
• 4. The fourth is the fear of losing our loved ones, or their love.
• 5. The fifth is the fear of the unknown: fear of God, fear of ghosts and fear of death itself

Actually, if you deeply analyze our fears, all the five categories of fear are related to the fear of death. They manifest themselves in different ways, that's all.

Closed = Fear Opened = Courage to face fear Element = Water (jal)

We wear glasses of greed and fear, which do not allow us to see reality. When you experience death psychologically, you release the energy that has been locked in the fear energy center called the Swadishtana chakra in your body, which is located between the mooladhara and the Manipuraka (navel center). When this energy center is activated, the whole quality of your life changes.

Swadishtana means ' your being is established' – from swa which means 'self' and adhishthana which means 'established'. This chakra is locked by fear, especially the fear of death and it can be made to flower by facing fear; by facing death itself.

the Greek philosopher: Socrates was killed by being forced to drink the juice of the poisonous herb called hemlock. Just before he drank the poison, one of his disciples asked him, 'Master, are you not afraid of dying? You appear to be so calm.' Socrates replied, 'Why should I be? I know that only two things can happen after death. Either I will continue to exist, in some other form or name, or I will cease to exist after death. In the first case, there is nothing to worry about. In the second case, who will remain to worry? So either way, there is nothing to fear! Socrates was fearless of death purely because he had a clear understanding of death and its consequences. Death is always looked upon as a 'discontinuity ' and that is why people suffer when they see death

Though we know from the moment of birth that our life will culminate in death, we never try to visualize it. We never try to actualize the possibility; we never try to welcome it. At least once if you go through it with consciousness, you will lose your fear for it automatically. When you conquer the fear of death, you conquer death itself, because death is just one more imagination! Just like how our greed makes us imagine the world to be more beautiful than it actually is, here our fear makes us imagine death to be more frightening than it actually is

Unless death becomes a conscious experience, the fear will never leave you. But you can do one thing. Repeatedly listen to these words. Develop a conviction about them. Try to see how your minor and major fears are actually related to the fear of dying. Bring some clarity into all your day-to day fears. See how interrelated all your fears are. Bring awareness into your fears. Then you will steadily evolve and come closer to the truth

The main reason why people fear death is, they have not lived their lives totally. They are afraid because they feel desperate that they have not lived life enough. They f e e l this wa y be c aus e throughout their lives they have lived in memories of the past, in the anxieties of the future, for the sake of others, never in the present.

Try to live with more clarity, that's all. Make the other people see sense in whatever they try to impose upon you. With clarity, you will be able to identify what your own desires are, what others have imposed on you and what desires you have borrowed from others. The first set of desires alone need to be fulfilled without any harm to any person or property. The other two need to be dropped with the help of clarity

If you live this way, you will no more be fulfilling others' desires and you will be no more living others' lives. You will live your own life, and experience fulfillment, and you will be ready to die when the time comes. You will have no lurking confusion and fear of death.

Once a Zen monk was ordered by the king to be put to death. He was supposed to be killed the next day. The monk remained calm and silent. One of his disciples, shocked by the monk's calmness, asked him, 'Do you realize you have only 24 hours to live? Are you not afraid?' The monk replied calmly, 'I have lived, and therefore I have no fear of dying.'

If you look deep inside, you will realize that most of us are not afraid of dying, but we are afraid that we haven't lived our lives enough. We are afraid that we have lived a pseudo life. We feel a deep unexplainable regret about the whole thing. We feel we have not lived as we wanted to live. We don't feel fulfilled – and there starts the fear of death

Wh e n y o u st a rt l o v i n g beyond names and forms, you are not losing anything, you are only losing what you are not; the illusion which you need to lose. What you have gained is reality. So just have faith and don't fear when you find yours e lf merging with the whole.

U n d e rst a n d : F e a r is a l w a y s imprisoning, while love is always liberating. But unless society instills fear into you, you will not listen to it and so it instills fear in you through a ll possibl e me ans – t h r o u g h i n s e c u r i t y , r u l e s , regulations, worship etc.

Fear of the unknown is nothing but the fear that we have of darkness, of ghosts and spirits, of God and finally of our own death

Never fear to look. The moment you fear to look, you are only creating more fear because it becomes more unknown to you. When we talk about fear of the unknown, fear of spirits and ghosts is very common. There is no need to fear them at all. Just understand that spirits and ghosts are much less powerful than we are. We give them much more power than they naturally would have and let them control our fears. There starts the problem..

Understand: Fear is always imprisoning, while love is always liberating. But unless society instills fear into you, you will not listen to it and so it instills fear in you through all possible means – through insecurity, rules, regulations,

Fear of darkness is also fear of the unknown. Fear of darkness is nothing but the fear of death. The same garden in your house, which you walk in at daytime, will you walk in at nighttime? No! You are afraid! Why? You know the boundaries of your garden well, yet why are you afraid? You are afraid not because of your garden but because of the darkness

by the time it becomes "Sandhya" evening sunset, the Swadishtana will become active asking for rest and f e e ling ins e cur e . Tha t is why evening time literally brings life, to fear patterns. that is why you should only do completion and fall asleep. e v e n i n g w h e n t h e f e a r st a rts r a ising be a c ti v e , do something very creative and active, like working, doing some action, some voluntary services or some puja, or some chanting, some Homa.

If your cognition is established in the truth 'change' happens in life continuously then you are in the most stable place on the Planet Earth. Because the effects of the change happen inside your inner space that makes you afraid of change. The effects of change inside you makes you afraid. The fear of incompletions you need to go through during every change puts you in a space that you are afraid of even change! But without change, it is not just that you are going to be happy with your life. Peace brings boredom!

The state of fear can be born in you only when you are inauthentic. Every time inauthenticity is allowed to live in you, it leaves powerful fear in you.

Inauthenticity makes postponing, procrastination as a pattern in you. Postponing as a pattern in you.

Inauthenticity starts in you. The first symptom of inauthentic is postponing.

Never instill fear in your child! Let him be free; let him climb and fall a few times. If you constantly discourage the child, it can lead to various phobias like height phobia, darkness phobia, which can later turn into fear of climbing, of making new decisions etc. Just follow these simple things, it is enough

Introduce the kids to the topic dealing multiple clues so that they can guess the topic by themselves.

To make the kids understand fear, and how it affects us.

To make the kids understand fear, and how it affects us.

Fear is a deeper dimension of worry. Fear becomes only possible when we have negative thoughts. We cannot have anything like happy fear. Anger and pain is related to fear. Fear can even destroy life. It is possible to face fear without fear. A person who we call courageous s not one without fear but one has learnt to face fear without fear. Fear is not good or bad. Fear is life energy which exists in us. Fear is a form of energy inside us.

That is why it cannot be destroyed. 'Fight or flight response'. Whenever you are facing a survival threat, you will see your fear rising and the adrenaline release happening in your body.

That adrenaline release gives you so much energy that you can almost fly. We call it the 'fight or flight' response: either you face the fear and fight, or you run away. Whenever our adrenal gland is working, it shuts down the other systems. Pure fear helps in survival, and it is spontaneous. Fear is the fight between oneself versus the negative idea about the future.

When fear is not directed towards any particular event or object in general, it becomes a contraction and an unknown black hole. It is not the object we fear; it is only the idea about the object which makes us afraid. When we change our idea to a positive one, we can avoid fear.

Paper, sketch pen or pencil.

Give each child the materials and ask the children to imagine loneliness. Encourage the children to depict loneliness in pictorial format. Each one is given a turn to express what they have drawn about loneliness. Ask them to visualize a scary thing and depict it in a funny fashion.

Loneliness creates fear in us, but when we understand that it is only a thought in the mind, we can overcome fear. When we understand the whole cosmos is with us, we will never feel alone. When we believe the cosmos takes care of us, we will never feel fear.

We are going to remove fear from our lives and hearts.

Use the chalk to scribble furiously on the floor. If they take their hand off from the floor, remove the chalk. The idea is to scribble in one go with all their fear and energy until the whole piece of chalk is gone into dust. After the children finish, ask them how they feel. It is like a stress reliever; it leaves them feeling empty and free of fear.

Review the previous day 's topic and talk about fear strokes, and about overcoming fears.

strokes, and how to overcome fear.

When we have anger, we lose the power in ourselves, and we fail to understand that we have a problem. By being aware of the fact that everything is suspicious, we can overcome anger. Fear is the passive form of the energy, while anger is the active expression. It is said that we undergo six to twelve fear strokes every day and night, both in dreams and also in wakefulness. Fear strokes originate from unconsciousness

When they are viewed with awareness and consciousness, they can be substantially reduced. You must understand it is OK to fail, to lose something, learn from that to be more aware. What are fear strokes?

For example: you are walking in the garden in the dark, and you see a coil of rope. You start shivering, imagining it to be a snake. That sudden shock you get before realizing it is just a rope, not a snake is what is called a fear stroke. A fear stroke is like shaking a rose plant from its roots. Every fear can be used as a door to enlightenment.

If you are experiencing too many fears in your life, and if you know the right technique, all those fears can become doors, and you can be liberated. Otherwise, all the fears are like walls. All you need to do is, every time you feel fear, do not lose confidence. If you are courageous enough to face the fear, it can lead you to liberation.

Fear strokes are short spikes of fear. Fear strokes weaken the immune system.They release depression — inducing chemicals and even accelerate our ageing process. Fear can be changed to fearlessness and intelligence out of pure awareness

Anything suppressed only takes up another form. It doesn't set uprooted totally. So suppression is not the way to overcome fear. Awareness is the way. In fact if you suppress fear, you are missing the chance of overcoming it. Having fear is natural. But connecting the fear to an object is societal.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Color crayons, scary picture

Give each child a scary picture and ask them to color the picture with different color crayons

Let them visualize the scary thing and ask them how they feel, what is going on in them. Where do they feel the fear in their body?

Part 2: Fear - Lessons 1 to 2_English_part_2.md

Strips of paper, stapler, colored pencils

Gather the materials together.

We have many thoughts that are so different and unrelated. Sometimes, our thoughts go together,but when you stop to analyze your thoughts, you will see how bizarre they really are.

You will be thinking. "Oh, I am feeling so sad and lonely, I wish I had a new toy to play with, wish I had this thing or that, look at that dog crossing the street with bone in his mouth". We can stop and write down what thoughts are in our head, and instead do something constructive, instead of wasting our time as it is of no help to anybody

Give each person strips of paper and have them write down immediate thoughts that come to mind, we are always thinking! Take the thoughts and attach them together,linking them up to form a chain.