68. Fear and Love

There is a saying that, if you love someone or something dearly, you also have the fear of losing that someone or something. Such love is already the root cause of fear. So it seems. We give it terms like infatuation, attachments etc. But Love and Fear and two ends of one feel. It is something like this, that, absence or limit of fear is Love.

How can we analyse Fear. Fear cannot be analysed, no matter who tells you. Human body reacts to fear like in anger. Assume a snake on you leg. You will either jump away or push it aside ( or rarely admire its beauty). There is a direct action taking place. Until that instant, what we have is a thought of fear and not fear itself. Fear itself enacts the body, as if it was the ‘entity’ to the body.  So when actual fear is there, there pure direct action. That is an instant when there is no analysis. There is either screaming or running or gunning the object of fear. It is either fight or flight that is happening when fear is happening. Or else, whatever is happening cannot be termed ‘fear’ in its right sense. May be after the act, there is a falling back of how insecure you were, and an imagination that you were in fear is what is likely. What is happening as a sensation in the body, before the act leading to fear, is not fear itself.

When we ‘think’ we are in fear, it is only a thought. Being scared is not fear. Its worse. We are scared at the mental images of objects of fear leading to imagine, how bad the end result can be. However Fear, actually and by itself is very friendly and useful. It a 'protective' program. It acts directly and not through thought. You can be sure that having a thought about fear is not what actually ‘the feel’ of fear. There is still ‘space’ not to get sucked into the idea that it is fear. It is just a feel, labelled ‘uncomfortable’ which is wrongly interpreted as fear. It could be due to acidity also ( joking). If it is accepted as a symptom of fear, even for once, it remains as a memory of fear to a similar feeling in future. So, next time, when a similar feeling sets in, it gets linked to the memory of fear, or is recognised as fear and starts to contract the body ‘as if for fear’. Most often people are afraid of cockroaches and lizards. The fear makes them runaway. It acts already. Given a chance to ‘see’ what the feel is about, it is ‘not’ fear already. You can then hug the lizard or crocodile, if this fear is dealt with correctly. ( Not exactly, because all of us are uniquely lived in a way).

Mind tries it best to dwell in a comfort zone of no fear at all. Psychological comfort so as to say. More the comforts enjoyed, more is the scope of imagined level of comfort. This leads to ideas to fulfil them, as if, that gap between imagined limit of comfort and the existing level, is presenting itself as a ‘lack’. When force is used to fulfil the apparent lack, violence comes into play. Security and pleasure are the main elements of comfort. But these are ‘mental’ happenings. It is a mental projection of a gap and tries getting filled with mental interpretations of physical experiences.

Absence of fear is ‘Love’. Whenever there is loss of a something we are attached to, or an object of feeling secure, there is fear. Fear is always of losing. Losing security or wealth, health, people, objects, comfort zones etc. When that loss is made good, there is sense of fulfilment. It is a zone of ‘love’. Fulfilment is a zone of not wanting, peace, comfort. In works in areas of dangers too. Dangers cause fear. But when you fall in love with uncertainties of life or dangers in life, there is an absence of fear. Falling in love with dangers is an adventure. Life is adventurous.  During such times, absence of fear feels as if a presence of love. It is zone of ‘good feeling’.  Extremities of life is seen being played either from a zone of fear or love. There are not two different zones. Its like a mountain with a high and a low. Either you are struggling upwards or enjoying a free fall. To come to terms with fear is to fall in love with life itself. Its like a roller coaster. The heights make fear, the speed makes fear etc. But for an adventurist, the game is full of joy. There is sense of security being strapped to the chair and all unwanted fear of getting hurt is out of the window. So too, you are strapped to life. Very secure. Nothing more is required. No labelling is required for the speeds and ‘ups and downs’ of the game. Just ‘go’ with the flow. Its a thriller. Its love, through and through.

Fear is when we feel personal with rest of the world and love is the absence of fear or absence of the feel of being personal. The labelling of fear just vanishes, when life is seen as wholeness. This body mind is a part of ‘what is happening’. It is secured by life because it is lived by life and not something called ‘me’. When reality unfolds itself, it is just seen as ‘what is happening’. There is a total absence of a ‘separate me’ in reality.

So next time when you feel afraid, take a moment, see how fear moves through the body. Screaming may happen, running or gunning may happen and in the end, it will pass too. It is a good practice to try and enjoy fear as a game rather than resist and brood over it. It can be adventurous ( when you look back in time).