Thursday, July 24, 2008

Fearlessness

Most of us reamins unhappy most of the time.

Sometimes it is anxiety of something, sometimes jealousy and sometimes fear of something.

Anxiety is the state of mind in which we gets panic. Panic that I am lagging behind in something, panic that I am not physically fit, panic that what will happen if things go wrong tomorrow....

Jealousy is another great killer of inner-self. Why someone else is doing better than me, this, as well as the pride of something, results in jealousy.

If we see deeply, both Anxiety and Jealousy comes from Fear.

Anxiety comes out of fear as something is going wrong or I am in poor health or I am not doing as good in job as my peers or bad health and so many other fears. This fear results in anxiety and panic.

Jealousy also comes out of fear. Fear that somebody else is going ahead of me. Fear that because of something, I will loose something tomorrow!!

So we see that Fear is the cause of all mental illness. To be in enlightened state, a person should be fearless.

But how?

There is always tension (fear) in life. Problems at home, in job, in market, about health about wealth...and so on so forth.....

No body seems to be out of this loop.

How to overcome fear?

Have you seen how peacefully a child sleeps in the lap of his parent, even at a noisy, crowded place? The hustle-bustle disturbs everyone, but not the child, due to his implicit faith in the protection of his parent.

So we see that the child is fearless because it is there in his inner-self that he is in safe hands. Somebody is there to protect him.

Can we draw some conclusion here? If we are convinced that “somebody” is taking care of us, we will be fearless.

But who is that “somebody”?

All of us strive diligently to overcome our many fears: financial, familial, social, academic and physical. However, the necessary security measures like insurances, helmets and health check-ups fail to free us from a disconcerting sense of insecurity within us. Why?

We are never sure that we are protected. We are never sure that we are in safe hands. From where that assurance can come?

All fear originates in an unbalanced, unrealistic material conception of life. The material aspect of our life has its importance; we need to feed, cloth, house and provide for ourselves and our loved ones. This is the aim of life.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.4.2) says:
"Fearlessness is the fruit of perfect Self Realization - that is, the recovery of nonduality".


Currently we are occupying material bodies and inhabiting this material world. The more we harmonise with our spiritual nature, the more we become fearless. Understanding that we are, at our core, spiritual and, hence indestructible, fills us with an unshakeable selfsecurity; we recognise that worldly upheavals that affect our material assets have no power whatsoever to hurt us.

By chanting the holy names of God like the Hare Krishna mantra etc., we progressively experience both our own spiritual identity and God's protective presence and guidance in our life. The more we enrich our faith by meditating on holy name, the more our devotion for Krishna increases. And when we make our life's work a devotional offering for His service, we focus more on the object of our service.

This shift of focus releases large reserves of mental energy, which are choked by our worry about the future. Chanting gives us the calmness to see that almost all fears are more perceived than experienced. The more we become free from fear of the future, the more we can fully absorb ourselves in our present duties.

Spiritual principles and practices empower us to access and utilise even our material talents better. Ultimately spirituality is the only way to conquer the greatest of all fears - death. For a mature devotee, death is not a fearful termination of existence, but a joyful reunion with God. Just as the child stays peaceful amidst chaos, let us become tranquil amidst ups and downs by empowering ourselves with spiritual devotion.

Acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression or discouragement. Because we possess such fear, we also are potentially entitled to experience fearlessness.

True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear; but going beyond fear.

In order to experience fearlessness, it is necessary to experience fear. The essence of cowardice is not acknowledging the reality of fear. Fear can take many forms. Logically, we know we can't live forever. We know that we are going to die, so we are afraid. We are petrified of our death. On another level, we are afraid that we can't handle the demands of the world.

This fear expresses itself as a feeling of inadequacy. We feel that our own lives are overwhelming, and confronting the rest of the world is more overwhelming.

Then there is abrupt fear, or panic, that arises when new situations occur suddenly in our lives. When we feel that we can't handle them, we jump. Sometimes fear manifests in the form of restlessness: doodles on a note pad, playing with our fingers, or fidgeting in our chairs. We feel that we have to keep ourselves moving all the time, like an engine running in a motor car. The pistons go up and down, up and down. As long as the pistons keep moving, we feel safe. Otherwise, we are afraid everything is badly wrong.

There are innumerable strategies that we use to take our minds off of fear. Some people take tranquilizers. Some people do yoga. Some people watch television, or read a magazine, or go to a bar to have a beer. From the coward's point of view, boredom should be avoided, because when we are bored we begin to feel anxious. We are getting closer to our fear. Entertainment should be promoted and any thought of death should be avoided. So cowardice is trying to live our lives as though death were unknown.

There have been periods in history in which many people searched for a potion of longevity. If there were such a thing, most people would find it quite horrific. If they had to live in this world for a thousand years without dying, long before they got to their thousandth birthday, they would probably commit suicide. Even if you could live forever, you would be unable to avoid the reality of death and suffering around you.

Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita (VII.3): "Out of thousands of people only a few strive for perfection; and out of thousands that so strive, only a few realise the truth of my true Being". In verse 19, the Lord says "Striving through several births, the wise one realises Me as existing in every being; such a Mahatma is rare to come across".

That explains self-surrender, the surrender to the supreme self, the ultimate reality, the joyous journey towards bliss and ecstasy.

This self-surrender is the key to fearlessness. When our inner-self is convinced that Krishna is there to protect me, we will be fearless.

Chogyam Trungpa in his book "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the warrior" says that Fear has to be acknowledged. We have to realize our fear and reconcile ourselves with fear. We should look at how we move, how we talk, how we conduct ourselves, how we chew our nails, how we sometimes put our hands in our pockets uselessly. Then we will find something out about how fear is expressed in the form of restlessness.

We must face the fact that fear is lurking in our lives, always, in everything we do.

On the other hand, acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression or discouragement. Because we possess such fear, we also are potentially entitled to experience fearlessness. True fearlessness is not the reduction of fear, but going beyond fear. Unfortunately, in the English language, we don't have one word that means that. Fearlessness is the closest term, but by fearless we don't mean "less fear", but "beyond fear".

Going beyond fear begins when we examine our fear: our anxiety, nervousness, concern, and restlessness. If we look into our fear, if we look beneath its veneer, the first thing we find is sadness, beneath the nervousness. Nervousness is cranking up, vibrating, all the time. When we slow down, when we relax with our fear, we find sadness, which is calm and gentle. Sadness hits you in your heart, and your body produces a tear. Before you cry, there is a feeling in your chest and then, after that, you produce tears in your eyes. You are about to produce rain or a waterfall in your eyes and you feel sad and lonely, and perhaps romantic at the same time. That is the first tip of fearlessness, and the first sign of real warriorship.

You might think that, when you experience fearlessness, you will hear the opening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or see a great explosion in the sky, but it doesn't happen that way. In the Shambhala tradition, discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.

The birth of the warrior is like the first growth of a Reindeer's horns. At first, the horns are very soft and almost rubbery, and they have little hairs growing on them. They are not yet horns, as such: they are just sloppy growths with blood inside. Then, as the reindeer ages, the horns grow stronger, developing four points or ten points or even forty points.

Fearlessness, at the beginning, is like those rubbery horns. They look like horns, but you can't quite fight with them. When a reindeer first grows its horns, it doesn't know what to use them for. It must feel very awkward to have those soft, lumpy growths on your head. But then the reindeer begins to realize that it should have horns: that horns are a natural part of being a Reindeer.

In the same way, when a human being first gives birth to the tender heart of warriorship he or she may feel extremely awkward or uncertain about how to, relate to this kind of fearlessness. But then, as you experience this sadness more and more, you realize that human beings should be tender and open. So you no longer need to feel shy or embarrassed about being gentle. In fact, your softness begins to become passionate. You would like to extend yourself to others and communicate with them. When tenderness evolves in that direction, then you can truly appreciate the world around you. Sense perceptions become very interesting things. You are so tender and open already that you cannot help opening yourself to what takes place all around you. When you see red or green or yellow or black, you respond to them from the bottom of your heart. When you see someone else crying or laughing or being afraid, you respond to them as well. At that point, your beginning level of fearlessness is developing further into warriorship.

When you begin to feel comfortable being a gentle and decent person, your reindeer horns no longer have little hairs growing on them -- they are becoming real horns. Situations become very real, quite real, and on the other hand, quite ordinary. Fear evolves into fearlessness naturally, very simply, and quite straightforwardly.

The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that, the warrior can be very brave as well. Without that heartfelt sadness, bravery is brittle, like a china cup. If you drop it, it will break or chip. But the bravery of the warrior is like a lacquer cup, which has a wooden base covered with layers of lacquer. If the cup drops, it will bounce rather than break. It is soft and hard at the same time.

"Of the material, there is no endurance and of the spiritual, there is no cessation". Beyond the stage of material activity that preoccupies our mind lies a vast, unexplored realm of spiritual tranquillity. We are spiritual beings, souls, originally from a spiritual world, the kingdom of God, who is our eternal loving father.

So we come to the conclusion; to have a good life, and to have a good after-life, we needs to be fearless. That fearlessness can come only with complete devotion and surrender to the Lord.

Let Krishna lead us to that path!!

Hari Om Tatsat!!!!

No comments: