Freedom from fear !

Rajesh Bhola

We all fear for one thing or the other. Most of us spend our present fearing about what will happen in the future. Recognizing what we fear and facing it is the best way to deal with it. Overcoming fear is a true test of life. If the devil has another name, it is fear. He strives to enter our minds and puts the fear of fear in us. It nags and torments us…literally makes us sick. Our ancestors feared thunder, floods, volcanoes…and beasts…and this made them turn to God worship. If left unchecked, fears can develop into debilitating phobias. We all go through dark phases and dark places in our lives – in terms of disappointments, loneliness, phobias, compulsions, obsessions…and the thought of death. Even reliving traumatic experiences fills us with fear. When fear interferes with our normal functions or immobilizes us, it is time to seek counseling.
Fear is in our imagination. This is because our imagination conjures all sorts of potential 'worse than' scenarios – though the actual event often passes off as an anti-climax. Fear tends to magnify only the negative outcomes.
A positive attitude in such situations leans more on the 'better than' scenarios. Both schools of thought don't change the reality. They only modulate the mindset - by making it either bearable or unbearable. If we look beneath the appearances and seek the hidden reality, we would be free from our fears. It is common knowledge that anxiety about an unpleasant event is worse than actually dealing with the event itself. It is illusion that causes fear and we fear because we are deceived by it: as a man walking in the night through the street might mistake a coil of rope for a snake.
If we really understand that life essentially is benevolent power, we would fear nothing; and even if suffering came, we would not fear it. If we are able to see beneath the appearances of the world and discover the reality that underlies it, then our fears of the unknown will disappear. Something in us is every moment seeking either consciously or unconsciously for that stable, permanent, unchanging element, which is the basic hidden secret of our existence. We see the temporary realities and the material appearances but do not understand the true reality that can make us free from our fears. We need to distinguish inward fact from outward fable.

Fear is in our imagination. This is because our imagination conjures all sorts of potential 'worse than' scenarios – though the actual event often passes off as an anti-climax. Fear tends to magnify only the negative outcomes.

For most of us, death is the most terrifying fear of life.
Death makes us afraid. We feel so helpless and alone. Atheists latched onto this fear of death to 'explain' the need for, and appearance of, a God – 'a make-believe story that made everything all right'. The idea of God as an imaginary coping mechanism began with Sigmund Freud. The famous neurologist and psychoanalyst was an atheist and could not accept the possibility that God might actually exist. He believed that the struggles of life and the lack of strong, loving father figures inspired the construction of an imaginary Father-God.
This Father-God would provide for all the psychological needs of the deluded. The fear of death is truly universal and is also the cause of all religion. Humanity is so afraid of death that they had to come up with a belief system called religion – to also help explain mystical occurrences. Many people come to religion because they want an answer to death. Fear is the psychosomatic response of the body to any painful or unwilling stimuli. The most painful stimuli is the fear of death. While fear is primarily a physiological response of the body, constant fear can pervert this into a pathological one. Group fear or Community fear comes from a herd instinct. There is a primordial form of fear that keeps us always on the edge.
Some feel constantly persecuted, by a grand conspiracy…they always feel a sense of impending doom. This psychological anxiety, sooner than later, manifests as a plethora of somatic ailments. As soon as we understand and realize the temporary nature of the material world, where things must change in cycles, we learn to gain equipoise. Just stop, become still and quiet, and in the midst of all your fears you will feel a strange and marvelous presence - more powerfully than you have ever felt before.
Why did all great saints not fear death? These great saints knew the truth about life and did not deeply care whether they died or lived, because they did not identify themselves with their body. Death to them meant no more than birth; life is eternal.
A knower of truth does not unduly cherish the body. On the other hand, world history is testimony to the fact that the worldly-minded ones, who held entrenched places, feared the divine voices and sought to still them; there is a long line of saints and prophets who have been punished because they dared to speak the truth. While fear is in the future, never in the present…. eventually, today becomes the tomorrow that we feared yesterday.