Understanding fear

Because fear is love standing upside down, everything that can be interpreted with love can also be interpreted with fear. A child clinging to its mother can be understood in both ways - the child clings out of love, or out of fear. This primal instinct of fear can be totally transformed through awareness of Divine love.

Fear is an impression of the past reflecting the future of the present. When people deny fear, they become egocentric, when they recognize and accept fear, they go beyond it - they become free from it. Total lack of fear is possible only in utter chaos or in utmost orderliness. Neither a saint nor a fool has fear, but everywhere in between there is fear. 

Fear is essential to preserve orderliness in the world. It is a primal instinct. Fear of death preserves life. Fear of wrong maintains right. Fear of sickness encourages hygiene. Fear of misery makes you righteous. A child has a pinch of fear so it is careful and alert while walking. A pinch of fear is necessary to keep things moving smoothly. Do not try to eliminate fear. Just meditate and know that you are nobody or that you belong to someone special.

Whenever a boundary is broken, it creates some fear. This fear creates aversion, this aversion in turn brings you back inside the boundary, and to keep yourself in the boundary, you set up defences. But when you try to defend your position, it becomes a stress and every time you work to defend your position it makes you weaker.

On the path, people use even knowledge as a defence against criticism. Do not use knowledge as a defence. Knowledge is like an umbrella for you - a shelter, not a weapon. Of course, sometimes "do not use knowledge as a weapon" becomes an excuse not to be in knowledge. I say, drop all your defences. Anyone can make a mistake - even you. Do not defend your mistakes, just accept them and move on. 

When you are totally defenceless, that is when you will be completely strong. See the whole past as a "happening" and the present as a "doing". If you see the past as a "doing", then ego and regret come along. And when you see the present as a "happening", then laziness and unawareness set in. If you apply the "doing" for the future, it brings tension and worry. 

If you apply the "happening" for the future, it might bring some confidence and also lethargy. Let the "happening" be for the past. Let the "doing" be for the present. And the future is a mix of both. The wise will see "doing" in "happening" and "happening" in "doing" simultaneously. 

Only someone who is 100 percent in "doing" can recognise the “happening". Are you confused now? One who does a lot of work will never say he did a lot . 

When someone says he did "a lot" of work, that means he could do even more, he has not done enough. Work does not tire you as much as the sense of doership does. Be 100 percent in "doing" without the sense of doership.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji