NO FEAR IN REALITY.
Why is my mind caught in ideas? Is it because all of my predecessors have insisted that ideas, ideals, images, symbols, God, are the most important things? … Why don’t I live completely with actualities? The actuality is, I want security. The actuality is, I am afraid that I might not have security. The actuality is, I am frightened. There is fear – why do I have ideas about it?
~ J Krishnamurti
Fear is an invention of the mind when it is faced with something it doesn’t know or “understand”. Of course, there is functional, instinctive fear, like when someone approaches you with a knife you might well head in the opposite direction. But in life, what we experience 98% of the time is psychological fear…it is an idea that arises from uncertainty; from our constant need to know or be, secure. Indeed, as the saying goes: “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”
Fear goes away when we see clear to the bottom of it; when we look directly into it and see it for what it is – an idea, a sensation in the body. It’s a facile attempt by our mind to control what we deeply suspect is not in our control. Once we see we cannot now, and never could, control what is our next thought – much less what happens in the world – we move from being suspicious and fearful, to realizing that, in fact, we can and do happily live and function in total uncertainty..always have, always will! That’s the lived dynamic of life: it moves whither it will, with or without our personal, collective executive control. That fact may seem discomforting, but in reality, it isn’t. We come to rest in Being, in benign reality, in love; in a curious unknowing where there’s no fear, where ‘what is’ is what one is. No more, no less. 🙂
In fact, there’s no such thing as lasting “peace of mind”. The mind’s Operating System is binary – dual. It sifts, sorts, contrasts and compares concepts about reality without ever knowing what it actually, factually, is. In fact, this is easy for you to confirm: just quietly watch your mind make problems where there really are none! That’s what our conditioned minds’ do – they create our perspective about life and the supposed living of it.
In truth, and therefore in reality, our ego/mind invents ideas that we learn to believe…so if we really want peace say, when we meditate, it’s important to find the source of discontent and distress: “who is the meditator?” Is it our ego/mind searching for contentment?…can our mind ever rest or is it only able to function by continuously raising fearful questions after questions, after questions? Is the disquieted mind itself really capable of, or interested in, answers?
Beyond mind, unattached, choiceless awareness is our Being-nature. All physical and mental sensations come and go in this living and alert field that is always simply, infinitely, watching with an affectionate, non-personal and therefore truly intimate, involvement. Arisings that evoke fear are observed as they pass. When resistance occurs, suffering also results, and that pain draws a compassionate attention – a deeper seeing, loving and letting go! In fine, aware living is a constant letting go. 😉
Only the waking up is important. It is enough to know the ‘I am’ as reality and also love.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
To know your self-nature is to be free from belief in mind-made fear and to lovingly embrace the unknown and uncontrolable mystery of what is, exactly as it is. That’s the discerning domain of peace, beauty, joy and wonder. That’s where one really lives, yes. 🙂
