Face The Fear

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.

So what is death?

You will tell me, 'Death is what happens at the end of our lives.' If death were nothing more than that, it would be so easy!

But death is not something that happens at the end of our lives. It is something which is happening every moment of our lives. Every act of ours is unconsciously related to our death, the fear of dying. Death changes the very quality of our life. It is not the end; it is the climax of our lives – towards which our whole life is oriented.

Why do I say that? Because our whole life is controlled by our concept of death. Even our social structure is dictated by our concept of death. In fact, all great religions and world philosophies have arisen out of trying to answer one question, 'What happens after death?'

In trying to answer this one question, different life solutions have taken root.

The cultures which believe in a single life, with no concept of reincarnation, have poured all their energies into excelling in life. They have achieved the peak in terms of assimilation of information, gaining of knowledge and material comforts.

These cultures have given rise to science. Science helps us live life at its optimum and get the maximum out of this life.

The cultures which believe in reincarnation have turned the focus of their life inwards. Their search is different. They are not motivated to live life in a hurry, because eternity is granted to them.

You can see it clearly in the behaviour of the people. In Bharat, if a program is scheduled to start at 6 o'clock, you can be sure that it won't start before 7.30, because people have eternity before them!

Our whole mental set-up, the course of our lives, our society, our culture, our religion – everything is based on our idea of death. We try our best not to think about death, but death pervades every moment of our life!

When we understand the depths, the secrets and mystery of death, we will understand the secrets of life. We need to solve death and see it as a mere continuity in a different form. Otherwise, we will miss life itself.

If we understand that death is nothing but continuity in another form, we will not fear death. And when we stop fearing death, we will know to what extent we have been missing life.

We take life for granted and we live so superficially that we miss many aspects of life. Death will simply teach us to look into life with more awareness. Death is the greatest guru ever.

When we want to bring in conviction about something, we can do it in two ways: We can either experiment and see for ourselves what the truth is or we can take reference from someone who has already undergone the experience of it. We will now understand a reference from the Upanishads, the vedic scriptures from ancient Bharat.

There is an Upanishad called Katopanishad, which is the wonderful dialogue that a child had with Lord Yama – the Lord of Death. In Hindu mythology, the presiding deity for death is Lord Yama.

There was a famous King by the name of Uchaishravas. He was suddenly possessed by a desire to control the entire world and so he performed a Vaajapeya yaga – a fire offering that is done when one wants to rule the whole world.

According to the rules of this offering, one has to give away as offering, all valuable things that are of great attachment to them. Only then, one can get the position of the lord of the world.

Kings are always good businessmen. They have to be, otherwise they cannot be kings and have control over such vast property. They will see what minimum they can give and what maximum they can get out of it.

This king started offerings things such as cows that were at the fag end of their lives, that had given all the possible milk they could give for a lifetime, and that had given birth to as many calves as possible in their lifetime and ready to die. He was offering all such worthless things.

His son, Nachiketa, about 7 years of age, was watching what was happening.

Nachiketa is the hero of this story.

He knew that his father was not doing the right things but he did not know how to tell him.

You see, children are very sharp and intelligent. You can't cheat them. Society has not yet corrupted and conditioned them.

He was watching his father carefully. He finally went up to him and said, 'Father, you have to give away all your highly priced possessions. I am one of your highly priced possessions. To whom are you going to give me as an offering?'

The king understood that his son was digging at him for what he was doing; but his ego didn't allow him to give way.

He continued with his worthless offerings.

Once more, the boy asked him the same question and the king kept quiet.

The third time, the boy shook his father and asked him to whom he was planning to offer him.

The king got very angry and blurted out, 'I will give you to Lord Yama. You go to Yama.'

An ordinary boy would have said, 'Why should I go? You have lived a full life, so you go!'

But Nachiketa was a very sincere and committed boy.

Commitment and honesty possessed him like a ghost.

To respect his father's words, he decided to go and meet Lord Yama.

Remember that the first and the last person on planet Earth to go and meet Yama was Nachiketa. Normally only Yama comes to meet people, but for the first time, Nachiketa went to meet Yama.

He reached the abode of Yama, but Yama was not there! He had gone out.

For three days Nachiketa waited.

Understand one thing here: A great truth is established at this point of the story. When we go in search of death, or we have the courage to face death, death will not be there as we know it!

Anyhow, Yama returned after three days.

His servants told him about the young boy who was waiting for him.

Yama rushed to see Nachiketa.

He apologized for not being there to receive him.

He further told him, 'For having made you wait for three days, I grant you three boons. You may ask for any three boons, and I will grant them to you.'

For Nachiketa, death turned out to be a God that granted him boons!

He asked for three boons.

The first boon was, 'My father should not be angry any longer. He should recognize me and receive me with love when I return.' Nachiketa asked for this boon out of the deep love for his father so that he does not suffer from the consequences of consigning his son to death.

Yama granted him the boon.

The second boon was, 'Instruct me in the fire sacrifice that leads to heaven, for there is no fear in heaven, nor old age nor death.'

This boon was also granted and Yama led Nachiketa through the fire sacrifice, and then named it Nachiketa Agni. This was a fire which could raise one¹s consciousness to a heavenly experience; an experience of pleasure.

The third boon was, 'Please teach me the truth of Existence, of life and death. Do I exist after death or not. Please tell me this!'

Yama was shocked at Nachiketa's question.

He told him, 'Please do not ask me this question. You are asking the very secret of death which I cannot deliver to you. I will give you immeasurable wealth if you wish, but please don't ask me this question.'

But Nachiketa was insistent.

He said, 'Even if I take all this wealth from you, I will be a mere trustee to your wealth for about 100 years to 1000 years, that's all. I still have to come to your abode once that period is over! It is not going to be of any use to me. So please tell me the secret of death instead.'

Yama saw the maturity and commitment of the boy to know the truth.

He decided that he should give Nachiketa the truth. The experience he took the boy through became the experience of the soul for the boy and Nachiketa flowered and became enlightened.

This is a beautiful story from the Upanishad. Don't analyze whether this story is a fact or not. Don't start looking for dates and history. It conveys the truth – that is enough. Use it as a ladder to reach the truth, instead of clinging onto the ladder and missing the truth.

What is the difference between an ordinary person meeting Yama and Nachiketa meeting Yama?

When an ordinary person meets Yama, Yama takes away his family without his permission. Yama takes away all his pleasures. Finally he takes away his life itself. All the things he covets like family, pleasures and life he takes away suddenly without his consent. Also an ordinary person never goes to Yama. It is Yama who comes to him as an unwanted guest. But Nachiketa went to Yama and Yama gave him back his family in the first boon. Through the second boon, Yama gave him the experience of heavenly pleasures, and finally in the third boon, Yama gave him enlightenment.

Four things need to be understood from this wonderful story. The first thing is that when we go in search of death, when we face death, it will not be there as we thought it would be. This is symbolized by Yama being absent when Nachiketa goes to meet him. Secondly, even if death is there, it is not the terrifying thing that we think it is; it is loving and giving. This can be seen from the way Yama greeted and spoke to Nachiketa. The third thing is that death is our greatest teacher ever. That is why Yama taught Nachiketa many things. Lastly, death can give us the ultimate gift – enlightenment, which Yama did!

For most of us, life never goes beyond the fear of death. We live and die between desires and fear*.* We don't know any other way of life. Or we don't have the courage to take on any other way of life.

In earlier times, people lived without the life security that we have today. There was no vaccination available against fatal diseases. There was no satellite-based advance warning of natural calamities and there was no security against famine or floods. Therefore, people were always mentally prepared for struggle, even for death. Especially the warrior class had to be ever-ready for death.

The Samurai warriors of ancient Japan knew the way to face death calmly.

We all live in constant fear of death. We are ready to escape it at all cost. Death is seen upon as our greatest enemy.

A small story about Socrates, 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.

Death is never a discontinuity. It is either continuity in some other form, or simply liberation, that's all. When man understands this, he will realize how foolish it is to suffer on this account.

Man is very attached to the physical form and that is why he suffers so much. The body is a mere vehicle for the soul. This has to be understood very clearly.

Although the only certain thing on planet earth for man is death, he is always taken by surprise when it actually happens! This is the most surprising thing about man.

A small story:

A lady was celebrating her 100th birthday. Her entire family was there for the occasion. They were opening all the gifts and reading all the cards that had been received from family and friends. They showed the lady one card that had been sent by her 94-year old friend. The lady shrieked, 'God! She is still alive!'

We are able to apply death to everyone else except us! Everything in life we are prepared for except our own death. The irony is, everything in life is so unpredictable except death. The only certain thing in life is death. But the last thing we would like to be told is that sooner or later we are going to die!

Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi, the enlightened master from Bharat, became enlightened through a conscious experience of death.

When Ramana was a young boy, one day he was just lying on his bed in his uncle's house in Madurai in South Bharat.

Suddenly he got the feeling that he was going to die! He felt that death was coming upon him.

He had two choices – either to resist the feeling, or to accept it and go through it.

Usually people resist, so they pass into coma and leave the body in a state of unconsciousness.

99% of us leave the body in a state of unconsciousness.

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.

Ramana was courageous enough to choose the second path. He co-operated with the feeling.

He allowed death to happen. He decided to see what would happen during death.

He saw clearly one by one, the parts of his body dying.

Slowly, his whole body was dead. He saw his body turn into ashes.

Suddenly he realized that something remained even after that; something which cannot be destroyed. He suddenly realized that he was pure consciousness, beyond the body and mind. He was simply a witness to his own death!

That knowledge was tremendous and it never left him and when he came back into his body, he was Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi – an enlightened master.

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.

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 swadhishtana 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.

Because of your capacity to accept death as just a continuity in another form, your capacity to enjoy life is transformed. Your whole body relaxes; your consciousness expands; your living capacity expands. By understanding death and fear of death, your life will turn out to be rich; not wealthy maybe, but rich. Richness is what is really important in life.

But if I tell you all this now, you will not believe me. You will think that I am talking about impractical things.

A small story:

A man who had been born blind was promised a cure by a doctor.

The doctor assured the man, 'After this operation, you will get your vision back! You won't need to use your stick anymore!'

Hearing this, the blind man became afraid.

He said, 'Doctor, I understand that I will get my vision back. But how can I possibly walk without my stick?'

The stick had become such an integral part of the blind man that he could not even understand that he would be able to walk without the stick! How can you explain to a blind man that once he gains his vision, he simply won't need the stick? Right now he is too afraid. So all you can do is, perform the operation, and let him see for himself, that's all. He will throw away the stick on his own!

In the same way, even if I tell you that all your fears are only the ultimate fear of death, and that your self is immortal, that it is only your body which perishes, you will still hold onto your own ideas of fear, because you haven't experienced it.

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 first is fear of losing our wealth, our comfort, name and fame, prestige, and other outer world things.

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.

The third is the fear of losing our mental health, our mental stability.

The fourth is the fear of losing our loved ones, or their love.

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.

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 feel this way because 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. Every action of ours has been due to the pull and push of each others' ego, each others' desires, each others' emotions etc.

If you deeply analyze your own life, you will understand what I am trying to say. You start your life where your parents left it. You simply take over the crown of desires, guilt, fear etc. that was passed down for generations, live your life and pass it down to the next generation before leaving. You have never lived totally.

What do I mean by living totally? 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. I am not asking you to be selfish. I am only asking you to bring clarity into the whole thing.

A small story:

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.'

He means to say, 'I have lived every moment of my life, moment to moment. Every single moment has been so much for me! Why should I be afraid?'

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.

Continuously compromising for the sake of others, trying to live out a life that is not natural to us, trying to fit ourselves into a mould that society has prepared for us; all these things lead to a lack of fulfillment. The fear of life is what is reflected in the fear of death.

When you have lived in the deepest possible way, to your full satisfaction, you will not be in fear of death. Live without fear.

Live with the deepest individuality that you can manage. Live to your complete satisfaction and you will lose your fear of death.

If you live totally, without any hangover of any feelings, when you live your emotions with great clarity and totality, you will never fear losing your family and relatives also.

You fear someone's loss only because you feel you have not justified the relationship in some way in your life. You feel you have not been in it in totality, so you are not ready to let go. Physical separation is only one aspect of the fear. The real reason is lack of fulfillment in the relationship.

The word 'justification' comes into relationships because you have always been taught to live for the sake of others, fulfilling their needs and desires. And if you don't do these things, you get into the cycle of guilt and fear. If you just live totally, with deep clarity of the whole play of society, you will never be gripped by such compulsions.

You can live with total fulfillment and still not lose out on any love in relationships. If you live totally, not with a transaction type of relationship but with just pure loving energy towards the other, there will be no room for guilt or fear. Even if the person passes away, you will continue to feel love towards him or her, never fear of any separation.

Most often, relationships suffer because of the lingering fear of losing one another. If you deeply analyze fear in any relationship, you will understand that because our relationships are just transactions of some sort, this fear is prevalent.

Between a husband and wife, there is fear that the other may start looking outside of marriage. Between mother and son, there is fear that the son may start paying more attention to the wife instead of the mother. Between father and son, there is the fear that the father may not pass on the inheritance to his son or the son may not keep up the family prestige.

Like this, in any relationship, there is a core expectation which needs to be satisfied and guarded, and this gives rise to fear. But you can never satisfy any relationship totally. Any one who has tried to please their whole family will only become a dropout!

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, worship etc.

Fear is what takes the form of jealousy also in relationships. Fear is the basis for most of our actions and emotions. Jealousy, anger, greed – all these emotions are rooted in fear. But we are not aware of this. We don't know that fear is the causative factor for all these. That is the problem. That is why we continue to be in the dark as far as our behavioural patterns are concerned. That is why relationships turn out to be difficult.

Understand that fear and love can never co-exist. If there is pure love in a relationship, there can never be fear. If there is fear, there can never be pure love. There is some vested interest in the relationship. There is some purpose, some objective, some expectation of security or greed or returns in the relationship. That is why fear sets in.

We look for security in every relationship. We need some security to settle down comfortably. This is actually a kind of imprisonment that we enjoy. People talk of freedom, but I tell you, they are so afraid of it! They like only imprisonment. In the comfortable cushioning effect of imprisonment, they think they are free.

A small story:

A small girl asked her father one day, 'Dad, what is the meaning of the word guaranteed?'

The father replied, 'It means that something is made well and it will last for a long time.'

That night before going to sleep, the girl called out, 'Good night guaranteed father!'

All of us look for security continuously in our lives. But we say that we are looking for freedom. If we are really looking for freedom, why are we looking for security? Why fear? As long as you have fear in you, you will look for security. Until then, you can only delude yourself by saying that you want freedom.

A master is one who will throw you upon the utter insecurity of life. He is the only one who gives you complete freedom. That is why with him, you feel insecure, you feel afraid. Freedom creates fear.

You will never feel utterly insecure in your other relationships because there is always some push and pull of greed, fear and anger that keeps you well-settled in the familiar patterns of relationships. But with a master, you are totally free. So you become afraid.

A small story:

A man was in prison for 20 years.

On the day of his release, he appeared very worried and tense.

His friend in the prison asked him, 'What has happened to you? Why are you so worried?'

The man replied, 'I am afraid. What will I do when I go out?'

The prison has created such a solid pattern of security for the man that he does not know what he will do when he goes outside! This is the danger of getting caught in patterns and security.

A master will never offer you the security you are looking for. He will never offer you the patterns you are looking for. When you don't get the security you are looking for, you will grow with deep centering within yourself. You will grow fearlessly because you know there is nothing to lose. And when you know there is nothing to lose, you have no fear.

To show you that there is nothing to lose, the master throws you upon utter insecurity. Out of his deep compassion for you, out of deep concern for your growth, he doesn't offer you security. When you don't find the mundane security, you will find God!

All your fears are because you don't clearly know that there is nothing to lose. Just one encounter with near death can show you that there is nothing to lose and that all your fears are baseless. The master simply makes you understand this in his own way.

So don't try to escape from the master. Understand that he is here only to show you what you actually are. Your inherent nature is fearlessness. Over years, you have been instilled with fear. The master tries to break the layers of conditioning that you have taken upon yourself. If you just allow him to work upon you, with trust and love, you will see yourself transform in front of your own eyes.

Let me tell you a small story about a Swami with whom I was acquainted:

This Swami used to have a number of clocks in his room, and each of the clocks would show a different time! I asked him about it one day.

He replied, 'Time is not my master. I am the master! Whatever time I want it to be, I simply choose the time from that particular clock.'

This Swami had already predicted that he would be leaving his body on a particular day and time.

On the night before his death, the Swami asked all his disciples to gather around him and sing hymns.

One of the singers was somewhat arrogant about his musical abilities. He never sang on this occasion.

As was the custom, the Swami wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it on to him.

The disciple was flattered, thinking that it was a request for a particular song.

But when he opened the note, he saw that the Swami had written, 'Please don't sing after my death!'

Even on his deathbed he was in a humorous mood!

Later that night, he instructed his disciples to take good care of the orphans who lived in the ashram. He said, 'Especially tomorrow, you will all be busy with preparations for my cremation. Don't forget to arrange for food for those children!'

Till the last minute, his concern was for the people he was leaving behind.

The next morning, exactly at the time he had mentioned, he joined his hands in a namaskar to all and his hands dropped, simply like a drama.

What a beautiful, calm and courageous way to face death! That is the way we should all go to death and that is the way we should look upon death even when our own family and relatives pass away. When you understand this, your whole idea of fear will slowly dissolve, because as I said, the underlying basis of fear is death itself.

Men are mainly caught in the lust and women are mainly caught in fear. The fact is, they both know this and exploit each other appropriately!

The man knows where exactly to touch the woman's weak chord. He will play with her insecurity and fear and exploit her. Similarly, the woman knows where the key lies with the man! She will play the game appropriately and exploit him. This is what goes on all the time in marriages.

Actually, at the time of Hindu marriages, a vow is taken wherein the man and woman vow to each other that they will both work towards exhausting each others' karma – unfulfilled actions and desires - in a smooth way, without accumulating any more karma in this life.

But these days, people are not even aware that they have taken such a vow because they are not the ones who are getting married. The priests are the ones who utter all the chants and get married!

It is such a beautiful vow that they take. We have accumulated enough and more karma in our lives. The only concern for us should be to exhaust it all at least in this birth, and attain liberation.

If you watch the drama of marriage from outside, you will understand how the couple create karma for each other.

Only when you watch from outside you will understand what a foolish game is being played. I always tell people that for actors and actresses it would be so easy to watch life as a game because they are all the time assuming roles and enacting them. They are the closest to seeing life as a great drama. The rest of us are so caught up with our roles that it becomes a solid reality for us.

First of all understand that all small fears are mere projections of the ultimate fear of death. Second, don't resist the fear in you. Just keep repeating to yourself that you are scared and go through it, that's all! You will soon find that the fear is no longer there because you saw it through. Start doing this every time you feel fear.

When you consciously work on this, you will understand that what you call fear is nothing but your response or reaction to an incident or thought. Depending on how you respond, you can claim that you did not have fear or had fear. And, with more and more awareness, you can respond towards fear without fear!

Remember one thing: No one can claim to be fearless. One can learn to handle fear without fear, that's all. If anyone professes to be fearless, be very clear that they have not analyzed deeply the subject of fear and human response to it. Don't start thinking that they are superhumans and you are a lesser human being.

(A young girl speaks) Swamiji*, I remember how you made me overcome my fear of spiders! While in our discussions one day, I jumped up when I saw a spider and you laughed at me for it. You told me to meditate on the spider every time I saw one. Every time I saw one, I looked at it with awareness and concentration. Slowly I started wondering why I was scared of it after all*!

Yes. It is only a question of bringing awareness into our fears. You will then wonder what it was that caused the fear in you!

You can even sit by yourself and imagine that your fears are happening to you. In your imagination, confront them with deep awareness and calmness. If you suffer in the process of visualization, it is alright. Don't suppress it or punish it. If your body shakes with fear, let it. Just co-operate with it. Anything when lived out completely will have no effect over you. All your fears are simply fear of your fears, that's all!

A small story:

A disciple was caught in a river one day. He was terrified of losing his life and he shouted out to his master to save him from drowning. The master said, 'Stand up!' The disciple screamed out, 'How can I? I am drowning.' The master said, 'Have I not taught you to help yourself? Now stand up!'

The disciple said, 'Master, you are preaching to me at this moment of my impending death. Why don't you just save me!'

The master persisted, 'I said, stand up.'

The disciple was enraged at the master's persistence.

He simply stood up. The water came up only to his knee!

All your fears are nothing but the fear of your fears. If you shake off your fears and allow your intelligence to surface, you will find that your fears are just shadows of objects that don't exist.

If you deeply analyze the fear of death, you will come to know that people are afraid to die because unconsciously, they feel that they should have been somewhere higher up than where they are now. They feel they have not reached their actual place in life and so they are not ready to leave.

Some people feel that others have cast eyes on them and so they have not been able to progress! The truth is that you have not cast your own eyes properly on yourself. That is why, even in your last days, you prolong your death.

If you properly analyze and understand your desires, fear and other emotions, you will not blame anyone for anything.

People who live their lives without any of these convoluted fears, will be able to live their death also. As I told you earlier, there are so many stories of living masters who told their disciples exactly what time of what day they would die and they died that way.

Many of the disciples have learned from their masters' death what they failed to learn from their teachings when they were alive. When we say that they lived their death, we mean they were able to announce that they were going to die and they died consciously. In their case, their death is literally 'leaving their body', that's all.

We all leave our bodies unconsciously, with a lot of suffering – the pull and push of unfulfilled desires torture us on one side and the body tortures on the other, saying that it has had enough. The mismatch between the mind and the body tortures us while we are alive and at the time of death also. When we are alive, if we live inside our boundary, inside our body, we will also leave our body peacefully. The problem is, when we live, we are always outside our body, never inside.

Let me explain this to you. Just look deeply into your way of life. Early in the morning, when you brush your teeth, what are you doing? You are already thinking of going to work. When you are at work, you are thinking of catching the bus to go home. When you are at home, you are thinking of work next day! When you are on vacation, you think of your office and when you are at office, you think of going on vacation.

Wherever your body is, you can be sure that your mind is not! You have never lived any moment of your life with fullness. You have always lived either in the past or in the future. This is what is called 'not living inside your boundary'. This is why at the time of death, you feel so pre-occupied and unfulfilled and unwilling to go. This is why you fear death.

You may ask why you need to know about dying consciously. Only when you know about death, can you live with the right understanding of life. Otherwise, you will not live life the right way.

In life, you keep postponing everything. You postpone your enjoyment, you postpone your work, you postpone everything for tomorrow. You have to understand that 'tomorrow' also comes in the form of 'today' only! When it comes as today, you say 'tomorrow' again! It is a game that you play with yourself.

Finally, when death comes, you are so unprepared! You feel there is so much to be done. You feel cheated by life itself. The truth is, you have been deceiving yourself all along. But you land up blaming life for everything. That is why a clear understanding of death is necessary for you to live. Then there will be no delusions and you will be ready to die any time.

Procrastination is the mentality by which we lose out on life itself. People ask me, 'Swamiji, how are you able to do so many things in such a short period of time?' It is amazing for them to see my calendar for the year! They are amazed to see the various things happening throughout the year across the world. I tell them, 'It is very simple – I live totally in the present. I don't procrastinate like you.'

In our meditation programs, we take people through a guided meditation wherein they are told to visualize that they are going to die in just 24 hours time and that they should complete all the things that they would like to complete before they die. It is a beautiful meditation technique. They are even made to visualize their own death ceremony.

Once after this meditation, a young girl shared her thoughts.

She said, 'Swamiji, I saw a poster in a shop which said, 'When you plan, plan concretely taking into account the future years to come. When you execute, execute like you are going to die the very next minute. After doing this meditation, I understand what it really means!'

You see, when you plan, you have to have a futuristic plan, so that too many things don't have to be re-structured for at least a few years. But when you execute, you have to execute in such a way that every sub-task that you take up in the master plan is completed successfully without any loose ends.

Even if you are going to die then, up to the point of what has been executed, everything will be perfect and the master plan will still be there as a reference for people to follow or amend as the situation demands. This can be achieved only if you work without procrastination in every sub-task that you take up.

Often, procrastination is what takes you to poverty. Poverty is your own choice. When you defer decisions, you take steps towards being poor. But you are blissfully unaware of this. You feel you have not been treated rightly by God and that life has been too short for you to realize your dreams. If you had used all your energy in the proper channel and with clarity, you would not feel this way and you would be ever ready to die.

If you just look at the mirror everyday and tell yourself that today is the last day in your life, you will stop procrastinating. You need not tell yourself this all your life; just a month will do. Automatically, you will start living your life without procrastination. Not only that, your fears about losing your prestige, embarrassment, pride and expectations will all dissolve, because you will know that you have nothing to lose.

People who have had a near death experience in some way like a narrow escape from an accident or a cure from cancer or something like that, will be able to live more fearlessly because they will know that they have nothing to lose! They will also live their lives with greater clarity and more intelligence.

The first lesson that you need to learn from all your education is that you should do the right thing at the right time and move on. Somehow, this is the last lesson that we learn thoroughly! After having gone through all the other lessons, we learn this lesson!

Procrastination is something that you bring about yourself. But the rest of the fears, society instills in you. Society makes you afraid of your own self, of others and of God. It makes you afraid of yourself with simple things like morality, names and forms, prestige and what not.

In the name of morality, it makes you lose confidence in yourself and that is why you are so unsure of yourself when it comes to morality. When you start following morality out of fear, there will be no chance for your inner intelligence to guide you.

Morality always instills fear

In our lives, morality is nothing but a poor substitute for intelligence. When you act out of your own intelligence, you can be confident of yourself. But when you act out of rules and regulations, you can never be sure of yourself, because you are not yourself to start with! You are not centered in yourself; you are centered on the rules.

If you live out of intelligence, these types of fear will never grip you. People who preach morality are so deeply in fear. That is why they preach about it. They are afraid either because they are unsure of themselves or because they know to be moral only with fear. Moralists can become neurotic with their concept of morality and discipline.

A small story:

Once there was a moralist who normally walked on the streets with carefully measured steps. One day it suddenly began raining very heavily. The moralist just followed the crowd and ran along.

After running for a while, he realized that he was careless about his manner.

He said to himself, 'What am I doing! Running is undignified. A gentleman must correct his mistakes regretfully if he has made any.'

So he returned in the rain to the place where he had begun running, and walked again, with measured steps.

Morality makes you totally dull and dead!

When I tell you this, I am not telling you that this is a free world and you can do anything you like. I am telling you that you have to develop your own intelligence and live so that rules will only be a confirmation of what you already know and feel. This is real intelligence. Any proper rule will only be a confirmation of what the rightly flowered intelligence feels. So drop your fears and try to find your inner intelligence, your inner master.

A small story:

A young sannyasi lived across the road from a beautiful courtesan.

The sannyasi was all the time trying to meditate.

The courtesan on the other hand, carried on with her way of earning money.

Many men came and went from her house.

The sannyasi used to try his best to concentrate on his meditation, but his attention was more on the young woman and he kept cursing her for the kind of immoral life that she was leading.

The courtesan on the other hand, was not even aware of the sannyasi staying across the street.

Despite her lifestyle of offering pleasure to men, the courtesan was immersed in her love for Lord Krishna and spent as much time as she could in praying to Him and playing with His image.

The sannyasi and the courtesan died on the same day and reached the gates of Lord Yama – the Lord of Death.

After their records were analysed, the courtesan was sent to heaven while the sannyasi was sent to hell.

The sannyasi expressed deep feelings about the injustice of Yama.

Yama calmly explained to the sannyasi, 'All your life, under the guise of meditating, you were harboring lust for the courtesan. She, on the other hand, despite whatever she was doing, was totally focused on the reality of God.'

Moralists live a superficial, fearing and shallow life. They don't live totally. They are in constant fear of stepping out of morality. Their true intentions are kept well covered under the guise of morality.

Like morality, prestige also gives rise to fear. Prestige, name and fame, social status – all these give rise to fear. These fears are nothing but fear of hurting your own ego. What prestige are you trying to cover? Just live with inner fulfillment and dignity; that is enough. The people who guard their prestige tend to be hypocrites.

They are also the people who live in constant fear. Their so-called prestige is so much in control of them.

A small story:

A man was fishing in the river one day. He was sitting for a long time without catching any fish. He dozed off with the fishing rod in his hand. Suddenly, a heavy fish caught the bait and tugged at it. The man just tumbled into the water before he could wake up. A boy was watching this from a distance. He asked his

father, 'Dad, was he catching the fish or was the fish catching him?'

With prestige, you have to be very careful. When prestige becomes larger than life for you, it will start consuming you.

Prestige makes you feel that you are extra-ordinary. It gives you a solid identity in society. People with money and prestige do all sorts of nonsensical and immoral things and get away with it. People talk about them behind their backs and greet them to their face because of their power and prestige.

This is the kind of prestige they are trying to guard so carefully. Understand: Existence will never choose you if you are like this. In the material world, you may get what you want, you may appear successful, but in the eyes of Existence, you will remain poor. Existence has its own ways of choosing.

Understand that prestige, name, fame and power are all your own imagination. You give life to them. You create them and develop a fear about losing them.

Just live with infinite love for everyone and everything around you. Feel deep love for anyone and anything that comes your way. If you live this way, automatically prestige will come to you. People will respect you for your quality, not for your quantity. And with this kind of prestige, there is no fear of losing. You don't have to guard it all the time.

Even fears like fear of public speaking are fear of losing one's prestige in a way. When you are afraid of talking in front of a gathering, you are actually afraid of what they might say about you. You are afraid that your ego might suffer because of something that they might say about you. And so you get into stage fear. It is a passive form of guarding your ego. Fear is very much a manifestation of ego. Understand that.

So what if people don't approve of your talk? The moment you are afraid of what others will say, you are only guarding your ego.

Fear of the ego suffering is also the reason why people get afraid when they go into meditation. When you go into meditation, there is always the fear of losing yourself – to Existence, to the Existential energy that is surrounding you. So you hold on. You resist meditation. Instead, if I tell you to chant something, you will happily chant. There will be no fear.

Your ego is so afraid that it will dissolve. If it dissolves, all the labels with which you identify yourself will also dissolve. You become a nobody! So you resist and remain somebody at least to yourself. This resistance is purely the fear of the ego.

Yes, I am coming to that.

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.

A small story:

One man was traveling on a train.

The ticket collector came to him and asked him for his ticket.

He frantically started searching for the ticket in his wallet, in his luggage and in his pants pocket.

The ticket collector was watching him and said, 'Sir, why don't you search in your coat pocket.'

The man replied, 'Please don't ask me to look in it now. My only hope is that it will be there.'

We are so afraid to look! We are afraid to look at our fears; that is the whole problem. So we delude ourselves in comfort zones and keep carrying on.

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.

Don't go too much into the subject of spirits and ghosts. It is of no use. If you are well-centered and clear about yourself, it is enough. Automatically, nothing can touch you and you will also not have fear of such things.

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.

You are afraid that something might happen to you in the dark. This is what I mean when I say that every fear of yours is in some way related to the ultimate fear of death. In the case of darkness, it is very obvious, but in the case of your other fears, it is very subtle, that's all.

Actually, darkness is beautiful! It is like your own mother's womb. When you were in your mother's womb, you were in complete darkness. But after you came to the world, you lost this connection with darkness. You started fearing it as something unknown. Tantric followers meditate upon darkness to feel the intensity of Existence.

There is no need to be afraid of darkness. Just once, if you can look into darkness with deep love, with the soothing feeling that it is your mother's womb, you will not be afraid of it anymore.

When a child gets scared of darkness, don't tell him, 'Be brave'! If you tell him this, he will only become tense because he is not supposed to get afraid. He will not drop his fear for darkness. Just allow him to go through the fear of darkness. Let him tremble a little. At least he gets a chance to explore his fear. When he does this a few times, he will slowly lose his fear of darkness.

Now we come to the fear of God. God is also unknown to us and so we fear God. Understand that God is nothing but the name that we give to Existence, to the Cosmos, to Existential energy, to the Life Force that pervades this universe. This Existence, this Universal energy knows only to love. If you can understand this much, automatically all your fears will drop.

People ask me, 'Swamiji, people say that if we do good deeds or punya instead of doing bad deeds or paapa, we will go to heaven and not to hell. Is this true?'

First of all, understand that hell and heaven are not geographic. There is no heaven located above your head or hell beneath your feet. They are terms created just to instill fear and greed in you, that's all. Hell or heaven can be interpreted as having either a tumultuous death or a peaceful and conscious death, that's all.

Any moment in your life that you have spent in meditation is a moment of punya or good deed. When I say meditation, I don't mean closing your eyes and sitting. I mean, moments that you have been consciously in the present; when your consciousness has been with you.

Any moment that has not been spent in such states is paapa. All the moments of conscious states are like your bank balance. At the time of your death, it is these states that will surface and liberate you.

People think that if they offer pots of milk to the deity at the temple, their punya will increase and they will reach heaven! Let me tell you: by offering milk to the Lord, nothing is going to happen. When you feel a swelling gratitude towards Existence, you can express it by offering milk to the deity that you worship as Existence. That is perfectly alright. But please do not link it with punya etc.

Even a drop of milk offered with pure joy and gratitude is a moment of sincere meditation that will stand by you at the time of death. On the other hand, pots and pots of milk offered out of sheer fear of missing out on gathering punya, will not get returns. So, please increase your awareness and live consciously. Make every moment, whatever may be the thing you are doing, a meditation. That is enough. Then you can live without fear of sins.

Let me narrate to you one incident:

I went to a Shiva temple in a remote village in Bharat. At the entrance of the main deity, there was a tubelight burning.

The light was hardly visible because on it was written in black ink, Vishnunathan B.Sc.

I was wondering how Lord Shiva was called Vishnunathan. Then under that I saw in small font, Kailasanathan – the correct name for Shiva.

Vishnunathan was the name of the person who donated the tubelight!

We have been taught to collect good deeds in our lives. So we start creating bank balances of good deeds. And we don't stop at that. We inform God repeatedly about all the good things that we have done… so that he doesn't forget! We become materialistic even when it comes to God!

Understand: God is not running a resort in heaven where you can enter by doing these good things on Earth. Thinking this way is like building a house in your dream, painting it, decorating it and waking up to find out that the whole thing was a dream. Where is the house? Is it of any use to you after you wake up? No! In the same way, you are only deluding yourself by this 'good deeds' concept.

I have seen people who decide to visit a particular deity in a particular temple with an offering, every Saturday of the week. If they are not able to make it on a particular Saturday, they will send their driver with the offering to the deity!

God knows you better than you know yourself. So there is no reason to fear Him or please Him. Even better than your mother or father, God knows you. He knows you not only in this birth but in all the births that you have taken until now. You are an open book in front of Him. He can refer to any page at any time!

So drop your fear of God and look upon Him as a totality of Existence. Look upon Him as the ultimate friend. However hard society tries to make you afraid of God, don't listen to it. Develop your own relationship with God - a solid and trusting one; the only relationship that is required in your life.

When you start relating with Existence or God, you start relating with yourself much better than before. You will know what exactly is going on inside you. Your inner intelligence will grow. Your fears will drop. You will learn to look properly into anything before feeling fear about it. You will not feel any compulsion to do anything. Intelligence will replace fear. You will be more relaxed and joyful. You will feel liberated.

When you understand this about Existence, all the wars that go on in the name of religion will not be there. The people who are in fear of their religion, the people who fight for their religion are people who have not understood the loving Existence. They simply miss the whole thing. They are like blind people fighting with one another.

And most importantly, please don't pass on your ideas about God to your children and instill fear of God in them. Teach them to embrace God. Teach them that God is the all-pervading Existence. Teach them that God is pure love and nothing else. Help them to grow with a loving attitude towards God and Existence as a whole.

A very commonly asked question!

Your present moment is the totality of all your past decisions. Now you are here in this place. You decided to wake up early in the morning, take the proper route, come here, sit, and continue to sit, am I right?

Like this, all your past decisions form your present – like being here right now. Your future is going to be a result of all your present decisions. When we make our decisions unconsciously and don't expect some of the results that come our way, we call it fate.

When we make conscious decisions, we are aware of the sideeffects and after-effects. When we are not aware of the sideeffects and after-effects, we call it fate. Actually, life is pure choice. It is we who make the decisions; never somebody else for us. May be a few major things in your life is driven by fate. But even those can be changed. Attributing every small thing to fate is pure escapism.

God is so gracious, even though the world is His, He allows us to have our choice! The only way you can make the right decisions is by infusing awareness into your very breath so that every action of yours, every decision of yours, happens with awareness and you never slip into any subconscious or unconscious decisionmaking. Then you don't have to worry about fate and destiny.

Understand one more thing: No one is waiting to lay their hands on your wealth and cause you so-called ill-fate. Somehow, we live with the constant fear that people are waiting to rob us of our wealth. It is not true.

In this fear, we build many walls around us. Finally we find ourselves entrapped in our own cell. That is why I say, 'Open the door, let the breeze in.' Have faith that the life force will take care of you. I am not saying 'Don't lock your house!' You need to lock your house. But after locking, drop the obsession with the lock, that's all!

Just take for example, you are traveling in a train. As soon as you settle down in your compartment, what do you do? You start conversing with the person next to you. You ask them where they are from. You try to make out what religion they might believe in. You ask questions about their background etc. Why? Are you genuinely interested in their details? No! It is because you see them as unknown and if you know all these things about them, psychologically you feel comfortable traveling with them, that's all.

If you are a Hindu and they are also Hindu, you feel relaxed. If you are Hindu and you find out that they are Muslim, you start feeling uneasy and afraid; you start eyeing them suspiciously. You might even start thinking about changing your seat. This is how your fear works. You are always unconsciously in fear of losing something.

Sharada Devi, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's divine consort says, 'Trust others even if you are exploited. The very quality of trusting the universe will make you live like God on Earth.'

When intellect sharpens, you will be able to understand like a scientist. When emotions sharpen, trust flowers. When feelings sharpen, enlightenment flowers! So drop your fears and allow understanding and trust to happen in you.

Drop your fears about your property. Everything belongs to Existence. You are a temporary possessor of it, that's all. If you relax into this understanding, it is enough.

You are talking about what is called a fear stroke.

Fear strokes are short spikes of fear. They just come and go in a few micro seconds' time. For example, you may be walking on the road. Suddenly you see a rope and think it is a snake. You experience a sudden rise of fear, which subsides in just a few seconds because by that time, you realize it is only a rope. This is a fear stroke!

There is always a current of fear in us. At times, it rises to a peak, that's all. These fear strokes can happen with great intensity although they are for a very short duration of time. Fear strokes weaken the immune system. They release depression-inducing chemicals and even accelerate our ageing process. They are believed to even cause a heart attack or make our hair turn white.

On an average, they say that every individual has fear strokes a day consciously or unconsciously. Examples of fear strokes would be the telephone ringing well past midnight, or while in the car, a motorist suddenly swerves to your side, or when you are watching a horror movie and someone taps you on your shoulder… so many things like this.

You get fear strokes in your dreams also, but you forget them when you wake up. Fear strokes are like shaking the roots of the rose plant. It is very dangerous for the system.

As you said, at the time of the fear stroke, you will not have any time to go into awareness. You won't have time to chant any God's name and go through it. But after the fear stroke, you can very well analyze the stroke and get a deeper imprint of the understanding of your fears. This will help in dissolving the whole idea of fear.

The intensity and frequency of fear strokes can be greatly reduced by reducing the intensity and the depth of the regular fear that is in us. Only from this regular fear, the fear strokes arise. If deeper understanding and clarity can reduce the regular fear, the fear strokes will also reduce.

Fear in general, is so overpowering that it can completely throw you out of control.

A disciple kept bothering a Sufi master to give him an initiation.

Finally the master told him that he would initiate him on the condition that he went into the nearest town and kissed a woman in burkha and proceeded to the forest beyond to beat a tiger with his stick.

The other disciples protested saying that this was too simple.

The master just smiled and asked them to wait.

A week later the disciple returned. He was terribly wounded and bleeding.

The master asked him what had happened.

The disciple said, 'I don't know why, but I beat the woman and kissed the tiger!'

Fear can simply blind you! It can take away your thinking and intelligence altogether for a few moments. That is why you need to deeply understand fear and overcome it.

In so many cases, when there is some fire or some calamity happening, people will be running in all directions out of fear. They will be opening doors in the wrong direction. They will be running towards the wrong exit although they know that it is not the right exit. Fear is so blinding.

Just as lust can change to love through awareness, fear can change to fearlessness and intelligence out of pure awareness.

Anything suppressed only takes up another form. It doesn't get 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.

When you continuously look into your fears with awareness, even when death comes, you will look into it with awareness and allow it to happen to you. It is important to be able to do this because ultimately all your fears are nothing but the fear of death. When you work on your day-to-day fears, your fear of death unconsciously decreases, and when your fear of death decreases, your day-to-day fears decrease! It is a virtuous cycle.

We will now do a beautiful meditation called the *Nirbhaya Dhyana*, to work directly upon our fears.

Emotion: Fear

Location: 2 inches below the navel

In Sanskrit, swadhishthana means 'where 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.

Meditation Technique to face the fear: Nirbhaya Dhyana – a technique from Vedanta

The Nirbhaya Dhyana is a meditation technique taken from Vedanta. It is a darkness meditation. Darkness meditation stops the mind from thinking of anything known. When the mind stops thinking of the known things, thoughts automatically dissolve. This is the concept behind this meditation.

Sit comfortably on the floor. Those who cannot sit on the floor may sit on a chair. The head, neck and spine should all be in a straight line.

Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Imagine that you are walking into a dense forest. You are walking into the densest part of the forest. You enter a deep, dark cave. You cannot see anything with your eyes. You sit down in the dark cave. You cannot see your own body. Except for your own feeling of being there, you have no other identification.

How ever much you try, you are not able to see anything. In the deep darkness, you can only sense by touch that you are there. (1 minute)

You are born from the darkness that was in your mother's womb and you dissolve into the same loving, compassionate darkness. (1 minute)

Breathe in deeply the utter darkness that surrounds you everywhere. Breathe in deeply the darkness that has made your identity disappear.

Slowly, very slowly, experience your body merging with the darkness. (5 minutes)

Slowly, very slowly, experience your body becoming the darkness. (5 minutes)

With every cell of your body, breathe in and breathe out the darkness deeply. (15 minutes)

Begin to feel yourself. Start to feel your whole body with all your senses. Move your body very slowly in the sitting position. Get up and move out of the cave. Start walking out of the dense forest.

Return to the meditation hall…(3 minutes)

Just carry this silence with you.

Thank you.