HOW TO BECOME FEARLESS?

 

IF FREE WILL IS USED POSITIVELY, THEN HATRED WILL BECOME LOVE

When we suffer from emotional problems, we do suffer them without the realisation of Divinity. In other words, fear suffers within itself. Jealousy suffers within itself. Any form of negativity is perpetuated by itself. If there was a recognition of what Divinity was, and if those fears had to come about inspired or energised by it with a conscious knowledge of it, then these mechanisms of fear, greed and lust could be used to overcome various defects in us.

In other words, with a defect, we overcome another defect. As in homoeopathy, we use one thorn to remove the other. But when the thorn has been taken out, what do we do? We throw both thorns away. This comes with a higher realisation that all this happening within us is also the work of Divinity. With that realisation, fear becomes fearlessness, anger becomes love, hatred becomes love. The same energy is converted within us in its positive aspect. Having certain pent-up feelings does not mean we will get rid of the negativity within us by releasing those feelings. We have to release the pent-up energy, and the pent-up energy can be released positively. So why not choose the positive path?

There is a skinny dividing line between love and hatred, and there is a skinny dividing line between fear and fearlessness. A fragile veil separates the two. The whole crux lies in the energy that brings positivity or negativity. The crux of the matter, the basis of the question, is based upon energy and how that energy is used, utilised, and expressed. There comes free will; if free will is used positively, then that hatred will become love.

ALL FEARS STEM FROM OURSELVES

How do we use free will positively? Any energy can be used positively if an understanding is gained of that energy. Without understanding the power, we are in confusion, and whenever anyone is in confusion, you can be sure that that is within us. So, we start by getting rid of the confusion, and the best way to get rid of the confusion is to understand the situation, why do I fear? Once one has an understanding of the reason why one fears or why one hates, then half the problem is solved because of the very process of analysing the reason. If you go to a good psychiatrist or a good psychoanalyst, he makes you talk, and while he makes you talk, he will guide you slowly, he will guide you very subtly sometimes, to make you see the faulty reasoning that you have. He will make you see the fallacy, the misunderstanding you have.

On the spiritual path, we do the same; in Jnana Yoga, the yoga of discrimination, we can actively discriminate. With discriminative power, we can find the reason why we are hating, angry, and afraid.

Once we know why, I fear, it would be getting rid of half the problem, and the other half can be got rid of by gaining strength within us. It is like a person walking through a dark road, and he sees a rope lying there. At first sight, it might seem to be a snake, and he has that fear. But when he looks closer, he sees that it is not a snake but a piece of rope, and immediately, his fear vanishes. This situation can be applied to everything in life.

A woman fears that her husband is going out, the husband says, “I am going out with the boys,” but in the heart, the woman fears that he might see a girlfriend. She fears that. Why does she have that fear? The fear is there because of her inadequacy. It could be a conscious inadequacy or a sub-conscious inadequacy planted in her mind since childhood, perhaps because of happenings in her environment. She might have had specific experiences in life that would produce that fear in her. The fear stems from insecurity. She feels insecure, and therefore, she feels inadequate. She feels I cannot please or look after my husband in the way he should be looked after, and consequently, he might find another girlfriend. When that woman fears this, she has to analyse herself.

I am not talking of morbid fears or fears that are created by an imbalanced mind. However, some concerns come about in people’s well-balanced minds, but the thinking process is wrong. In that fear, so much attachment could make her think that her husband will be unfaithful to her. Meanwhile, he could be the finest man on earth. If she analyses the situation, “Where have I gone wrong to produce this fear in me?” If she analyses herself, she feels that she has been doing her duty correctly, that she has been loving as a wife should be loving, and that she has been caring for the husband as she should be caring. Firstly, he married her because he was attracted to her. Is she doing her best to remain just as attractive as in the honeymoon period, or is that past, and is she taking things for granted? If she analyses all these things and the answer is in the affirmative, that fear would be lost. Then she would say, “John, why are you sitting around at home tonight? Go out and have a good time with the boys.” That is good; she will develop.

So that very fear that caused this attachment, insecurity, and inadequacy can now be turned to love and adequacy and security, where she would say, “Stop sitting around watching the telly, if you feel like going out for a game of snooker with the boys, go!” She will say that. It is the same energy that has been used, but it has taken a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. So, all fears stem from ourselves and not necessarily from the environment, and even if the climate creates a fear, it depends upon our ability to succumb to or overcome the fear.

IT IS ONLY BY LOSING ONESELF THAT ONE GAINS

The primary fear in man is loss; we do not want to lose. In this example, the woman feels she is losing her husband. If we study every kind of fear, we will find that it is always based on the loss of oneself. In other words, loss of life, which in turn means loss of ego. Man tries to sustain himself as much as possible, and in doing so, he is only sustaining his ego, while real happiness and fearlessness can only be found by subduing the ego and not nurturing it. The ego is the one that gives one identity, and people prefer to keep their identity. Losing one’s identity does not mean you must refuse to be John, Jack or Joseph. You are still John, you are still Jack, you are still Joseph. It is the ego saying that the whole world revolves around me, I am the centre, but we have to lose the identity of that ego.

Whenever you find any kind of conflict in any home, it is because a person in the house thinks that they are the centre of the home, and everything must revolve around them, and that always causes conflict, always, always. That is the fundamental problem always, and by being, feeling, and thinking that we are the centre, all kinds of fears, inadequacies, and insecurities develop and cause all sorts of miseries. So, we are transposing ourselves from the rim to the hub and saying,” I am the doer; I am the centre” While we are not the centre, we are so uncentred. But when the person starts feeling that they are losing that individuality, losing that ego, and thinking that I am just the circumference, and everything is happening within the circumference, all fear would finish. Let me be the rim of the wheel that keeps the wheel of my home together. Let me not be the hub. Let the forces that keep this home together be the hub; that force is love, and love is God.

Man can centre himself, only after he can take the knocks of being the rim. When a cartwheel progresses on the path, on the gravel road, it is the rim that is most used, and when we can be most used in life experiences and take them bravely, can we turn to the centre? Otherwise, we cannot. But we are doing things topsy-turvy, up-side-down, wrong side up, where we think we are the centre when we are not. We are just the circumference serving the centre, and when we lose that identity and ego, all fear will end.

WHEN THERE IS NO SEPARATION, THERE IS NO FEAR

As I said, the greatest fear is losing oneself, yet we know that it is only by losing oneself that one gains. If you want to enjoy the sunrise, if you are going to enjoy the flower, if you want to enjoy the gurgling brook, you cannot fully appreciate or enjoy it if you stand apart from it. In reality, or apparent-ness, you are standing apart. But when you can identify yourself with the flower, when you can identify yourself with the gurgle in the gurgling brook, then you understand it, and then you appreciate it. Then you are not standing apart; by not standing apart, you are losing your identity and becoming one with the flower, brook, sunrise, or sunset. That is identification. To achieve identification, one has to lose individuality. One has to submerge oneself.

A salt doll went to the ocean to find how salty it was, but when it went to the sea, it melted away into the ocean and became the salt of the ocean. It became the ocean. It merged itself into the sea. Individuality ceases, and when individuality ceases, ego is subdued. That is what should be done, but we do not do it. We want to preserve ego identity. We can still preserve our ego identity by saying, “I am John. I am John.” We can maintain that “John-ness.” But let us lose the “I-ness.” I am John, keep the “John-ness,” but lose the “I-ness,” that I am John. And when that I-ness is lost, John and Jill would find no difference between themselves. That is identification, and when there is identification, all fears are lost because two make friction, and when there is identification, there is no friction or fear. Fear is always part and parcel of friction or conflict. Conflict can occur between two people or within oneself, and it is easier to patch up the conflict with another person. Still, it is more challenging to clear up the conflict with oneself.

All asylums are filled with people who have mental conflicts, and the basis of most of these conflicts is, of course, imbalance and imbalance is caused by fear, and there can be many, many kinds of fears that produce many, many different types of conflicts. We have to live in this world as individual beings. Yet, while living as separate beings, we still have to identify ourselves with all other beings in the sense of knowing that there is just oneness, and the separation that is apparently so, is only created by the thoughts in the mind. The separation is an idea, a thought, and those ideas of separation cause conflict and fear. But if the idea of separation is taken away, and the reality behind the concept is felt and found, that there is no separation, then who is there to fear when there is no separation?

This we can find through becoming more and more established in our meditational and spiritual practices because it is only at the level of more terrific refinement that this oneness is found. It is like the pyramid, so broad at the base, but so one at the pinnacle, at the point, and that is where we consciously or unconsciously are striving to reach, and that is where total happiness is to be found. And when we have total happiness, there is no fear, no hatred, because total happiness is love, and there is no place for anything else. And then “My cup runneth over,” and if the cup is so full, there can be place for nothing else, then it runneth over in giving, and when man gives, he has no place in that cup for anything else. It is running over and over all the time.

BY STRENGTHENING OURSELVES, WE CAN GET RID OF FEAR

So, the basis of fear is based upon our inadequacies, and inadequacy is itself a fear. The basis of fear is insecurity, which is fear. That can be got rid of by strengthening ourselves, developing a greater awareness, developing a greater integration between body, mind and spirit, and gaining a greater understanding of what life is all about. And by integration and understanding, the heart expands, and in that expansion and greater awareness, fear would become less and less.

This is so easy to talk about but so difficult to do. It requires years and years of practice for many people. To some, it comes much quicker, depending upon one’s evolution and our evolutionary stage. To become fearless would be accessible to those at a higher stage of evolution. To those still floundering, it would take a bit longer because the day when man becomes fearless, his ego is subdued, and when the ego is subdued, he becomes self-realised.

WHEN THE EGO IS LOST, THERE IS NO PLACE FOR FEAR

The basis, the root of the fear, must be uprooted. You can analyse and eliminate one fear, which may be a surface fear. But have we got rid of the root? If the root is still there, it will manifest again and again in different forms. Today, you fear a cat; tomorrow, you will fear a dog, and the day after, you will fear something else. So it is only by self-integration and sincere, devoted spiritual practices that we can eradicate the root, the basis that causes all kinds of fears. Once the root is gone, once the root is destroyed, no fear can overtake us, and then the sense of preservation of the ego is not there. The man who fears competition in business might overcome the competition, but the idea of fear is not gone. Once he overcomes the competition, some other kind of fear will get hold of him, and so it goes on and on. One has to get rid of the basis of fear, and to get rid of the basis of fear, would be through self-analysis firstly, self-integration most importantly, and then the ego is automatically lost, merged away in that ocean, which is called love and fearlessness. Then, there is no place for fear left.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1977 – 20