The Ending of Fear
We have many, many fears.
Fear of darkness, fear of living,
fear of public opinion, fear what my neighbour might say, fear of my wife
or husband or the girl or the man, fear of insecurity, fear when
you have security economically, fear that you might lose it,
fear - we have got so many fears.
Why haven't we solved these fears?
You have solved the problem of war that is to continue war,
and you applied your brain to prepare for war.
All the vast generals on both sides, or a thousand sides,
they are all preparing for war, plans, submarines, airplanes,
all the rest of it. They have exercised their brain to produce all that.
And why hasn't that same brain applied,
apply to this enormous sense of fear
man has from the begining of days.
Why?
Which means why have you and the speaker
not gone into this question seriously,
as you do go very seriously when you are hungry,
when you are ambitious, when you want more money,
you work at it.
Why have we not gone into this question of fear?
The psychologists, the therapeutists, have explained the causes of it,
in different ways.
If we could put aside all that they have said,
because after all it is all what they have said,
it may be merely verbal.
They might be as scared as you - probably they are!
I met several of them, I know they are scared like you,
about something or other.
And why have we not solved this question?
And is it possible to end the fear? We are going to go into that.
Apply not only your feelings, your emotions and your brain
to work at this, not escape from it, not try to rationalise it,
but to see why we are incapable, or allowed ourselves
to become incapable.
What is fear?
And you know when there is fear, the nature of it, how it throbs,
how your physical organism shrinks,
how your brain becomes addled, almost paralyzed.
Don't you know all this?
Am I describing something abnormal?
It is a fact.
It affects your sleep, it affects your daily life,
it brings suspicion, anxiety, depression
and you cling to something and hope
that won't change, and that won't bring fear.
Either we deal with the root of fear,
or we trim the branches of fear. Right?
Right, sir? Which do you want to do?
Trim the branches of fear
- please one is asking this seriously,
don't neglect what the speaker is asking.
Do you want to deal with the branches of fear?
There are a thousand fears.
Like a lovely tree
- a tree which is the most beautiful thing,
one of the most beautiful things on earth,
it has got many branches, many leaves;
likewise fear, which is so ugly,
it has also got many branches, many leaves, many expressions.
Do you want to deal with that, the expressions, the surface, outside?
Or do we go together into the root of it?
Personally, the speaker doesn't want to trim branches,
which is so futile. So let's together find out what is the cause of fear.
We know all the expressions of fear. So if we can find the root of it,
the expressions can wither away.
So what is the cause, or causation of fear.
If one asks you that question: what is the cause?
would you answer it?
The cause?
Or do you expect someone to explain the cause of it?
The explanation is not the fact.
Right?
You may paint a marvelous picture of the mountain,
hung in all the museums of the world,
but that picture is not the mountain.
The word 'fear' is not fear. - right?
But the word 'fear' may evoke fear.
So we are not dealing with the description,
with the word, but the depth and the strength of fear.
And we are trying to find out together,
not I explain, you accept,
but together find out for ourselves
so that is you discover it,
therefore it is your truth not somebody else's truth.
You can't live with someone else's truth,
you can only live with truth.
So what is the cause of it?
The cause of it - I will go into it.
Is it thought?
Is it time?
Is it thought? Let's look at it.
I am living - one is living now.
And thought says, 'I might die tomorrow',
or 'I might lose my job',
'I have my money in the bank, but the bank may fail',
'I am all right with my wife,
but she may turn to somebody tomorrow',
'I have printed a book and I hope it wil l be a great success',
which means fear.
'I want to be known'
which is the most childish thing in the world.
'I want to be known
and somebody is known already much more than I am'.
So there is this thinking,
that is, thinking I might lose,
I might gain, I might be lonely.
So thinking is one of the factors of fear - right?
I am all right with my friends, with my wife and my children
but I also know, I have experienced this sense of desperate loneliness.
Don't you know it?
A sense of deep frightening loneliness.
And I am frightened.
Have you ever examined what loneliness is?
Why it has its cause?
Don't you know, don't you have this feeling of loneliness?
Am I talking something, saying something abnormal?
Eh? You must all be saints.
Sir, what is this loneliness which causes - you understand, sir?
which causes attachment, holding on to something
however illusory, however false, however meaningless.
I hold on to my wife.
I hold on to my club, to my god, to my ritual,
to my friends,
because if I let go, I am utterly lonely.
Have you ever gone into that question:
why human beings are so frightened of loneliness?
They may live with a group,
they may follow some guru and all the rest of that nonsense
but strip them of all their decoration
and they are what they are, lonely.
Why? Why are they, what is loneliness?
Not to have any relationship with anything,
with nature, with another, with the friend
or woman or the man with whome I have lived,
all that somehow has withdrawn,
I am left utterly empty, lonely - why?
What is this feeling of utter despair?
I will explain,
but the explanation is not the fact.
The word is not the thing.
If that becomes very clear,
that the word is not the thing,
you Mr.Smith is not Mr.Smith,
the word is not you,
When you say, 'My wife', or 'My husband',
that is - you understand?
I am glad you understand that at least.
So explanation is not the reality, the truth.
So look at it, let's look at it without the word,
without the word 'loneliness'.
Can you do it?
To look at that feeling
without using the word 'lonely', or 'despair'.
Loneliness comes when all our days are spent in self-centeredness.
The very activity of self-centeredness
is producing loneliness - right?
Because it is narrowing my whole,
or the vast extraordinary existence of life
into a small little me.
And when one realizes that there is that feeling,
'My god, how lonely I am'.
And to face it, to be with it completely,
not move away from it,
then there is a radical change.
So we must come back to this question of fear.
We said thought is one of the causes of fear,
obviously.
I am thinking about death
because I am an old man, or young, or you see some hearse going by
with all the flowers, horses, cars.
What a civilized country this is, with all the noise of death.
And I see thought is one of the causes of death,
one of the causes of fear - right?
Do you see this? An obvious fact, right?
Right, sirs?
And also time is a factor of fear - right?
I am afraid what might happen.
I am afraid of something I have done
which others are using as a blackmail, you follow?
I am afraid of that.
So time and thought are the root of fear.
Time and thought.
There is no division between thought and time,
Thought is time - right?
Now the problem is
- I am sorry, I won't use the word 'problem'.
The question is: Thought is necessary,
time is necessary - right?
To go from here to there time is necessary.
And thought is necessary to drive a car, to take a bus, take a train.
Thought is necessary, time is necessary at that level.
Right?
Now I am saying as thought and time are the root of fear,
is thought and time necessary?
Vous avez compris?
There it is necessary.
But psychologically is thought and time necessary?
Right? Is it?
As long as time and thought, if you think are necessary,
in the psychological world,
in the world of the self,
in the world of psyche,
in the world of inside the skin,
then you will be perpetually in fear
- right?
If you perceive that,
if there is a perception
that tought is the root of fear and time,
perception, not acceptance,
then thought and time are necessary at the physical level,
inwardly it is not necessary,
therefore you are watching then.
You are watching, the brain is actively watching itself every minute
to see that thought and time do not enter into its realm.
This requires - you understand? -
this requires great attention, awareness,
so that the brain, which has accumulated fear for centuries,
or for one day, that brain sees where it is necessary,
where it is not necessary, therefore it is watching like a hawk
so that thought and time doesn't enter into the whole process of living.
You understand?
This is real discipline, this is learning.
As we explained the other day,
discipline means, the root meaning of that word is disciple,
the disciple is one who learns,
who is learning all the time,
he never says, 'I have learnt' and stays.
The brain is watching itself all the time so that it is active,
so there is no time for it to move or to change.
You have understood something?
It is now quarter to twelve, we must stop.
You see, sirs and ladies,
our difficulty is, we listen to a lot of things,
we know a great deal,
we have searched, asked, read,
we have sought the advise of others,
we have wandered the earth to find out,
to find out what it is all about,
but we never ask of ourselves,
we never demand of ourselves serious, deep questions.
We always ask superficial questions.
And so we make our life very superficial.
But if you asked questions,
questions that demand answers from yourself
so that you exercise your brain, your feelings,
your whole attention is given to that question,
then you begin to discover for yourself
without being told by anybody, including the speaker.
And so when there is freedom from fear
you don't want gods,
you don't want anything from anybody in the world,
then you are really a free man.
Comments
Post a Comment