Face Your Fears and Be Free🔗

What is Fear? Fear is a deeper dimension of worry. Worry can cause ulcers. Fear on the other hand can even destroy life. However, unlike worry without which life is possible, fear seems woven into our lives. It is possible to face fear without fear. A person who we call courageous is not one without fear, but one who has learnt to face fear without fear. Fear is a form of energy inside us. That is why it cannot be destroyed. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another. Understand, your fear is directly connected to your life energy. Whenever you are facing a survival threat, you will see your fear rising and the adrenalin release happening in your body. That adrenalin 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. There will be so much energy in your body the moment you face a survival threat. Whenever that threat is real, the swadhishthāna chakra, the seat of life, gets completely shaken! Big Bang and Black Hole inside you When there is pure desire or pure greed in you without any object in particular, it becomes the overflowing energy of creation, expansion, or Big Bang! For no reason, you simply explode with energy. In the same way, when there is pure fear in you without any object in particular, it becomes contraction, black hole. Fear is your nature, but don't direct it towards any object. Having fear is natural. But connecting the fear to an object is societal. Pure fear helps in survival and it is spontaneous. Enormous energy radiating from you for no reason is pure greed. If it is because of an object, it becomes ordinary greed. In the same way, energy settling back within you for no reason is pure fear. If it is because of an object, it becomes ordinary fear. Unless the black hole happens, the Big Bang cannot happen. It is part of life, part of the drama, part of the game. Pure fear means you are relaxing into yourself, settling inside you. That is what we call destruction. The birth of this cosmos is the Big Bang, and death is the black hole. Birth of your being is a big bang for you. Death of your being is black hole for you. The inhaling breath is pure desire. The exhaling breath is pure fear. Prana – the life energy that enters along with the air - goes into you because of the Big Bang. Prana leaving your system with the outgoing air is the black hole. When you resist or fight with the Big Bang or black hole, you create disturbance in your system. When fear happens, when the black hole happens, it means that you are turning towards peace or getting ready for the Big Bang. Whenever pure fear happens, you become rejuvenated with a tremendous relaxation which surges as courage and energy in you!

Whenever you are afraid of losing something that you have, or you fear you cannot achieve something that you want to have, there is a fight going on between your potentiality and your negative approach to the future. If you are sure there is no possibility of achieving something, that you don't have the potentiality, you will not have fear. If you are sure that you can achieve something, then also, you don't have fear. Fear is the fight between faith and belief in oneself on one hand, versus the negative idea or expectation you have about your future on the other hand. You are literally fighting with your own positive and negative energies. If you are very sure you don't have the potentiality that you can't achieve, then you won't have fear. If you are very confident you are going to achieve, then also you won't have fear. However, if there is something you want to achieve, but you are not sure that you can achieve it, then you will have fear. The fight between these two ideas, the dilemma is what we call fear. There are two ways to escape fear. One way is to block all possibility. This means you can die, then there won't be any more fear! The second way to escape fear is to break the boundary of possibilities. If there is infinite possibility, if there is no boundary, if there is nothing that limits you, then you become fearless. Just by having this understanding, something will click in you and so many fears will disappear from your being!

People come and say to me, ‘I have too many fears. What can I do?’ I tell them, ‘If you have too many fears, the possibility for enlightenment is more. So many doors are available to you!’ For a person who doesn’t have too many fears, the possibility, the number of doors is also fewer because he leads a dull life. A person who leads a dull life will not have much fear. He has nothing much to lose, nothing much to decide. He is not taking many risks. All you need to do is this: every time you feel fear, do not disrespect yourself. Do not lose confidence or condemn yourself thinking, ‘What kind of a being am I?’ Actually people who can face their fears do not have so many problems. People who are afraid of their fears create more problems for themselves. When you brood too much about your fears, you start thinking you have problems. Sometimes, just by switching your attention to something else, you can come out of fear. But that is not fearlessness. Fearlessness means taking a quantum jump into the consciousness where you will never experience fear of losing anything! Be very clear: the fears that you have about your life - fear of failure, fear of losing your near and dear ones, fear of losing your wealth, fear of the unknown - every fear can be used as a door to enlightenment. Another important truth you should know: There is something within you that never dies which is your source of energy. There is also something within you that dies; something that is actually never alive, even now. The fear of death exists in you because you think there is something you have now that will be taken away from you. No! Anything that you have now cannot be taken away. Anything that can be taken away, you never had in the first place. Anything that can die can never occupy your inner space.

You cannot conquer fear. Fearlessness means intelligence to live the intense fear without directing it towards any object. When there is no object to be afraid of, the intense fear will give such an intense relaxation and peace. Fear is a powerful energy which gives a deep relaxation, self-centeredness. The fear center is the rejuvenation center. Be very clear: fearlessness does not mean non-existence of fear. It means the fear is there, but you have tremendous energy or courage to live with it and face it. Fearlessness means having the energy or the courage to live even with the maximum fear – going beyond that fear and being neither attached to nor detached from the fear. One more important thing you should know is fear is part of the nature of life. You can be fearless if you are already in your grave! Then there is no need to be afraid of anything because you have nothing to lose! If you have something to lose, you will have fear. That is the nature of life itself. Fear does not exist when things are definite and known. Fear exists only when things are not definite, when they are mere possibilities and unknown in that sense. For example, death is a possibility. As an incident it is definite, but when and how it might happen, is not clear. So there is always fear associated with it. If you can just look into the darkness, the fear, with awareness, you will live through it and get over it.

The biggest fear human beings have is the fear of losing their identity. Even the fear of losing one’s life is not as great as the fear of losing the identity. The fear of losing your identity is much worse than the fear of death.

All our fears – losing physical health, mental stability, wealth, name and fame, or loved ones - are actually fear of death under various disguises. The social fear – fear of being rejected by society – makes us do things to please society, even when it is not good for us. In this process, many times, we sacrifice what our being really wants to do. That fear of not being accepted by society is just another form of the fear of death – death of the ego. Every act of ours is unconsciously related to death and the fear of dying. Understanding death can change your entire perception of life. It can simply transform the way you handle all your fears.

Fear is what leads to anger. Fear is the passive form of the energy while anger is the active expression. When you are angry, just look into the anger. At the root of it, you will find a deep fear. Try this for yourself: if you are feeling fear, express anger at that time. Throw your hands, stamp your feet – express the energy. You will see the fear disappears. You will see for yourself how fear can simply transform to anger. Similarly, fear can also transform to hate. You just need to be aware of yourself and witness how the emotions subtly change from one form to another. When you understand this play, you can easily get out of the game.

Psychologists talk about fear strokes. Say 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 and not a snake, is what is called a fear stroke. A fear stroke is like shaking a rose plant from its roots - if you keep shaking it long enough, it will die. It is said that we undergo six to twelve fear strokes every day and night, in dreams and also in wakefulness. Imagine what happens to our being! Fear strokes originate from unconsciousness. When they are viewed with awareness and consciousness, they can be substantially reduced.

When you are faced with fear, don’t try to resist it or suppress it. Just look at the fear, note the fear and accept it. Acceptance of the fear dissolves the fear. Allow the fear to shake you. If your body trembles, let it tremble. If your eyes water, let the tears come. Just be like a blade of grass in the wind - bending without resistance. If you can face your fears, you see they have no depth. Because you magnify the fears, you imagine them to be an abyss. It is your choice, to let go of the branch, the fear, or to keep clinging onto it and torturing yourself. Acceptance is the only way to conquer inevitable things. When you accept, suddenly you see the fear disappear. The moment you accept, fear loses its power to frighten you. When you don’t fight with it, you will see fear as deep peace. When the fear stroke happens, just live it. That is the only way. When you have an object connected to fear, accept it. That acceptance transforms. The more you fight, the more you empower fear. Diverting your attention away from the fear is also not the way because then the fear still remains with you. It does not mean that you are out of fear. Allow the fear to take over itself. Go into the fear two to three times. Live the fear intensely without any reservations. Suddenly you will find that it doesn’t touch you anymore!

Fear is associated with the swadhishthāna chakra, the subtle energy center two inches below the navel region.

A very powerful way of overcoming fear is to visualize going through that fear as clearly as you can. The beauty with this technique is that it can be used when you are not in the fear situation, when you are calm and able to handle yourself. You can sit by yourself and visualize the situation that causes fear. Feel clearly the fear coming up in you; face the fear with deep awareness. If you suffer, if your body feels uncomfortable, it is fine. Don't suppress the fear, just allow it to happen. When you experience something completely, you drop it.

This is a very powerful technique that can be used twenty-four hours a day. Whenever you are attacked by fear, just sit back and relax. Put your awareness only on your exhaling breath. Repeat the word 'sah' silently as you exhale; that is, with the outgoing breath. Exhaling is like relaxing and letting go anything that can die. While inhaling you will be constantly trying to hold on to something. Exhaling is like letting go. Focus on exhaling without bothering about inhaling. When you inhale, repeat 'ham' silently. Place more awareness and energy on the exhalation. Help yourself exhale deeper. Let the inhalation happen automatically through the body. Place your energy, attention and effort only on exhaling. It is a silent intonation of 'ham...sah...., ham...sah'. Silent intonation of this hamsa mantra will suddenly take you into the awareness, the relaxation that never dies. Whatever can die will leave your system, your inner space. This technique can also be practiced at other times when you are not faced by fear - while you are sitting, talking, walking, eating, even while you are sleeping. It is a very powerful technique. Constantly, all twenty four hours, place your attention on exhaling and just intone the hamsa mantra silently – 'hamsah', 'hamsah', 'hamsah'. When you inhale, intone 'ham' and when you exhale, intone 'sah'. Understand, when constantly intoning this mantra, it will become ajapa japa - chanting without effort. Chanting with effort is called japa. Chanting without effort is ajapa. It means that which goes on automatically in you. You just need to intone, that's all. Fall in tune, that's all. The whole day it will be resounding within you. Whatever can die will leave your system, and you will realize whatever can die can never be part of you. If you are identifying yourself with something that can die, that identification will be disconnected and you will be unclutched. Whatever can never die, you will feel connected to that. Whatever cannot die is your very being. Try this technique for just three days. You will suddenly see that the fear of losing your wealth, parts of your body or your health, or your near and dear ones, or the fear of the unknown – all the fears will disappear. When you put your awareness on exhaling, whatever is occupying your inner space as a part of you that can die, will simply leave your inner space. You will be liberated.