Face Your Fears and be Free

A SMALL STORY

(His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam has delivered almost 20,000 hours of recorded talks till date. As part of the talks, He shares simple small stories that give powerful cognitive shifts to the listener. Following is one such story.)

People come and say to me, 'I have too many fears. What can I do?'

I tell them, 'If you have too many fears, the possibility for enlightenment is more. So many doors are available to you!'

For a person who doesn't have too many fears, the possibility, the number of doors is also fewer because he leads a dull life. A person who leads a dull life will not have much fear. He has nothing much to lose, nothing much to decide. He is not taking many risks. But a living being who is doing many things and making many decisions will experience fear. If you are experiencing too much fear then so many doors are available for your enlightenment!

One more thing: only if you can open it can it be called a door. If you don't know how to open it, then it is more like a wall. If you are experiencing too many fears in your life and if you know the right technique, all those fears can become doors and you can be liberated. Otherwise all the fears are like walls, and it is as if you are caught in a big prison.

If you are in tune with the idea, 'Nothing can be done by me,' youare a bhakti yogi - you surrender.

If you think, 'Everything can be done by me,' you are a gnana yogi - you explore and experience.

Bhakti yogi - A person who follows the path of devotion, bhakti yoga, as a means to enlightenment.

Gnana yogi - - One who follows the path of knowledge for Self-Realization.

All you need to do is, every time you feel fear, do not disrespect yourself. Do not lose confidence or condemn yourself thinking, 'What kind of a being am I?' Actually, people who can face their fears do not have so many problems. People who are afraid of their fears create more problems for themselves. When you brood too much about your fears, you start thinking you have problems.

If you understand the true nature of fear, it can be considered a blessing. If you are courageous enough to face the fear, it can lead you to liberation.

Sometimes, just by switching your attention to something else, you can come out of fear. But that is not fearlessness. Fearlessness means taking a quantum jump into the consciousness where you will never experience fear of losing anything! The fears that you have about your life, be it fear of failure, fear of losing your near and dear ones, fear of losing your wealth, fear of the unknown - every fear can be used as a door to enlightenment.

Either you are filled with tension or you are filled with energy. If you are filled withmtension, you are trying to take energy by force from the source within you that does not die, without knowing the technique.

There is a source of energy within you that never dies, your atman* or Self. If you try to take energy by force from this source without knowing the right technique, it creates tension. Whenever you try to create energy in youby remembering some desire or fantasy, it is like trying to kick the door in and take the energy from the other side. You want the energy but you don't have the patience to open the door. You can use the key to patiently open the door and allow that bliss and energy to come into your being. That key is called meditation.

Another important truth you should know: There is something within you that never dies which is your source of energy. There is also something within you that dies, something that is actually never alive even now. The fear of death exists in you because you think there is something you have now that will be taken away from you. No! Anything that you have now, cannot be taken away. Anything that can be taken away, you never had in the first place. Anything that can die can never occupy your inner space.

Fearlessness is courage to face fear You cannot conquer fear. Fearlessness means intelligence to live the intense fear without directing it towards any object. When there is no object to be afraid of, the intense fear will give such an intense relaxation and peace.

Fear is a powerful energy which gives a deep relaxation, a deep centeredness. The fear center is the rejuvenation center. Fearlessness is not suppressing fear. For example, when you are afraid to cross a dark area in the night, you start thinking of and repeating god's name. Because of fear, god's name will be topmost in your mind! You feel that you don't have fear because your inner chatter is engaged in something else! When you engage your inner chatter in something else, you feel that you are out of fear. But you have only diverted your attention, you haven't solved the problem completely.

There is a saying, 'When a cat drinks milk, it will close its eyes tight and think thatmthe whole world has become dark, and therefore, nobody can see it!' Understand, you also do the same thing when you don't pay attention to the fear, and then believe that the fear has disappeared.

Fearlessness does not mean non-existence of fear. It means the fear is there, but you have tremendous energy or courage to live with it and face it. Fearlessness means having the energy or the courage to live even with the maximum fear. It is going beyond that fear and being neither attached to nor detached from the fear.

One more important thing you should know is fear is part of the nature of life. People come and ask me, 'What should I do about my fear of the unknown?' I tell them, 'Fear is a good sign, it means you are alive! There is a possibility of losing something, and that is why you are afraid. If you don't have any possibility of loss, you will never be afraid.' You can be fearless if you are already in your grave! Then there is no need to be afraid of anything because you have nothing to lose! If you have something to lose, you will have fear. That is the nature of life itself. Fear does not exist when things are definite and known. Fear exists only when things are not definite, when they are mere possibilities and unknown in that sense. For example, death is a possibility. As an incident it is definite, but when and how it might happen is not clear. So there is always fear associated with it.

Atman - soul, spirit, consciousness, etc., as referring to the individual imperishable energy that is a holographic image of the Cosmic Consciousness of our own inner clarity. Suffering has tremendous potential to integrate and transform us.

Start to witness your experiences without judgment. See with clarity where you are suffering at the gross and subtle levels. If you are just aware, the suffering itself can open your eyes to the unreality of suffering. It can teach you how unnecessary it is to suffer at all. This is what I call 'necessary suffering'! Once you learn your lesson through necessary suffering, you will handle suffering in a much more mature and beautiful way.

The master Bodhidharma* says, 'Every suffering is a Buddha-seed.' Suffering can propel you to become a Buddha. It can bring you the wisdom of knowing all about life and reality. He says, don't be against suffering. Feel grateful to suffering and pain because they create the situation for you to search for the truth. Otherwise, you will just live life like a rock or plant. You will not realize the ultimate, which can only be achieved by the human consciousness. If the body and mind are the field, suffering is the seed, wisdom is the sprout, and the ultimate state you attain is the grain! When you sow the seed of suffering in the field that is your body-mind, wisdom sprouts from it, and you attain the ultimate state!

Mahabharata - The Hindu itihasa or epic whose central characters are the five Pandava princes, their hundred Kaurava cousins and enlightened master Krishna.

Kunti - In the epic Mahabharata, the mother of the five Pandava brothers who stood for righteousness.

Pandavas - The five princes in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Their father was Pandu.

Bodhidharma - A disciple of Buddha and mainly responsible for spreading Buddhism as Zen Buddhism.