What is fear? Where does it come from?
Fear is an emotion, a kind of an anguish, that arises out of ignorance. Ignorance about the nature of something or about its effect. Ignorance about what will happen. There is so much we do not know. And we fear what we do not know.
“It is said that before entering the sea,
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river cannot go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean,
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.”
– Kahlil Gibran
Fear spreads in many hidden ways within and among us. In times of a pandemic (Corona virus) like this, fear can spread much faster and wider than the virus itself. It can sweep through the collective.
Why should you reject fear?
Fear tends to attract the object of fear. When you fear something or are unhappy about something, it makes you more open to the causes of that fear or unhappiness.
“We know that fear always brings what one fears. If you fear an accident, this acts like a magnet drawing the accident towards you …. Fear can give you the apparent symptoms of an illness; and it can give you the illness too” – The Mother
You cannot make progress by living in fear.
How do we remove fear?
Since fear arises out of ignorance, the way to remove it is to shine on it consciousness, knowledge, force and light.
“That which knows has no fear. That which is perfectly awake, which is fully conscious and which knows, has no fear. It is always something dark that is afraid.” – The Mother
Here are some methods you can choose depending on what suits your nature:
- Face the fear. Look it in the face. Else it will keep coming back. This is very helpful, especially for people who have a lot of courage, a strong vital power. Also, often when you take fear head on, your find that what you anticipated is not as hard as you had feared.
- Use your mind to reason. Explain yourself why the fear is bad. Even if there is true danger, one has to come out of it using courage an not fear. Convince the part of you that is feeling the fear to not do so.
- Do something that gives you courage. For example, you could say affirmations like “I am fine. I will overcome this” or chant a mantra.
- Bring awareness within yourself and stand before the fear without shrinking. Such a deep awareness allows allows light to enter and darkness to fade away. It also helps you understand if there is a message in there that you could use for your own growth.
- If you are connected to your deeper self, your psyche, invoke it and get things back in order in the psychic light.
- If you believe in a higher power like nature or the Divine or in the goodness in the Universe, have faith in the same and feel your belongingness. No fear can then touch you.
Which one of these works for you?
For further reading:
1) “The Life Divine” by Sri Aurobindo
2) “Collected works of Mother“, Sri Aurobindo Ashram
4) “The Body Speaks – Healing through Knowledge” by Dr. Vandana Gupta