BENGALURU : One has to be serious, for only those who are vitally serious can live a life that is complete and whole. And that seriousness does not exclude joy, enjoyment; yet as long as there is fear one cannot possibly know what it means to have great joy. Fear seems to be one of the most common things in life; strangely we have accepted it as a way of life – just as we have accepted violence in all its various forms as a way of life – and we have become used to being psychologically afraid.
We should, I feel, go into the question of fear completely, understand it fully, so that when we leave this place we shall be rid of it. It can be done; it is not just a theory, or a hope. If one gives complete attention to this question of fear, to how one approaches it, looks at it, then one will find that the mind – the mind that has suffered so much, that has endured so much pain, that has lived with great sorrow and fear – will be completely free of it.
To go into this it is absolutely essential that one has no prejudice which will prevent one from understanding the truth of ‘what is’. To take this journey together implies neither acceptance nor denial; neither saying to oneself that it is absolutely impossible to be rid of fear, nor that it is possible. One needs a free mind to enquire into this question; a mind that, having reached no conclusion, is free to observe, to enquire.
There are so many forms of psychological and psychosomatic fear. To go into each one of these various forms of fear, into every aspect, would take an enormous amount of time. But one can observe the general quality of fear; one can observe the general nature and structure of fear without getting lost in the detail of a particular form of one’s fears. When one understands the nature and structure of fear as such, then one can approach, with that understanding, the particular fear.
One may be afraid of the dark; one may be afraid of one’s wife or husband, or of what the public says or thinks or does; one may be afraid of the sense of loneliness, or of the emptiness of life, the boredom of the meaningless existence that one leads. One may be afraid of the future, of the uncertainty and insecurity of tomorrow – or of the bomb. One may be afraid of death, the ending of one’s life. There are so many forms of fear, the neurotic as well as the sane rational fears – if fear can ever be rational or sane. Most of us are neurotically afraid of the past, of today and of tomorrow; so that time is involved in fear.
There are not only the conscious fears of which one is aware, but also those that are deep down, undiscovered in the deep recesses of one’s mind. How is one to deal with conscious fears as well as those that are hidden? Surely fear is in the movement away from ‘what is; it is the flight, the escape, the avoidance of actually ‘what is; it is this flight away that brings about fear.
Also, when there is comparison, of any kind, there is the breeding of fear – the comparison of what you are with what you think you should be. So fear is in the movement away from what is actual, not in the object from which you move away.None of these problems of fear can be resolved through will – saying to oneself, ‘I will not be afraid.’ Such acts of will have no meaning.