In Fear: Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of Life, Osho takes the reader step by step over the range of what makes human beings afraid―from the reflexive “fight or flight” response to physical danger to the rational and irrational fears of the mind and its psychology.
Only by bringing the light of understanding into fear’s dark corners, he says, airing out closets and opening windows, and looking under the bed to see if a monster is really living there, can we begin to venture outside the boundaries of our comfort zone and learn to live with, and even enjoy, the fundamental insecurity of being alive.
Don’t move the way fear makes you move
Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move–not out of fear.
Rumi’s statement is revolutionary: Do not move because of fear.
You all have been living out of fear. Your relationships are out of fear. Fear is so overwhelming, like a dark cloud covering your life, that you say things which you don’t want to say, but fear makes you say them. You do things which you do not want to do, but fear makes you do them. A little intelligence is enough to see it.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move
In every twenty-four hours find a few moments that are fearless…which means in those moments you are not asking for anything. You are not asking for any reward and you are not worried about any punishment; you are simply enjoying the whirling, the going inward.
In fact, it is only in the beginning that it may look a little difficult. As you move a little inward you become automatically joyful, playful, prayerful. A gratitude arises in you that you have never known before and a space opens up which is infinite, your inner sky.
Your inner sky is not less rich than the outer sky: It has its own stars and its own moon and its own planets and its own immensity; it has exactly as vast a universe as you can see outside. You are just standing in between two universes–one is outside you; one is inside you. The outside universe consists of things, and the inside universe consists of consciousness, of bliss, of joy.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move, because fear cannot enter inward.
Why can fear not enter inward?
Fear cannot be alone, and inward you have to be alone. Fear needs a crowd, fear needs companionship, friends, even foes will do.
But to be alone, to go inward, you cannot take anybody with you; you have to be more and more alone. Not only can you not take anyone, you cannot take any thing either. Not only can you not take anyone, you cannot take any thing either. Your wealth, your power, your prestige–you cannot take anything. Inside you cannot take even your clothes! You will have to go nude and alone. Hence fear cannot move inward, fear moves outward.
To go inward, the first requirement is fearlesness.
Inward you will not find anything
Inward? But the fridge is outward. Inward? But the boyfriend is outward.
Inward you will not find anything. You cannot go shopping. You will just get drowned in nothingness. This being drowned in nothingness creates fear.
But the problem is that this fear arises only because you don’t know the beauty and the bliss and the joy of drowning in nothingness, because you don’t know the ectasy that opens up as you fall inward. It needs a little taste.
I don’t want you to believe, I want you to experiment.
There is no question of fear, just a little intelligence is needed–not friendliness with fear but an intelligence–the adventurer’s heart, the courage of those who go into the unknown. They are the blessed ones, because they find the meaning and the significance of life. Others only vegetate.
A little intelligence, a little sense of humor, a loving heart, and you don’t need much else to enter into your own being.
Complement Fear: Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of Life with Fear is for suckers: 5 helpful ways to navigate through fear.