Don’t Be Scared! Conquer Fear!

BY HDG B.S. TIRTHA MAHARAJ

The underlying tension of modern living is constant fear.
HDG B. S. Tirtha Maharaj shows how to drop the fear of fear.

When in a crowd, we become strong, confident and bold. We feel protected. This is how we keep ourselves deeply involved in fostering friendships, cultivating relationships, developing group interests, organizing social gatherings, taking part in altruistic activities, charitable work and philanthropic functions. We have a subtle urge behind all this, an urge to be in a crowd to remain completely secure. The urge is caused by fear, the subtlest of all emotions. It is unpleasant, often strong. This emotion is the result of anticipation or awareness of danger.

An infant starts crying instantly when it’s mother even appears to move away for even a few seconds. The anxiety that an average person feels when entering a school examination hall, the fear a small child experiences when coaxed to enter a toilet alone, the restlessness that  the mind suffers when an aircraft takes off during the first air trip or the palpitation one gets while learning to ride a bicycle or entering a swimming pool for the first time are all symptoms of our deep fear.

Now, a psychologist's study reveals another form of a malady known as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). According to The New York Times, millions are battling with this problem - an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive distressing thoughts and repetitive rituals aimed at dislodging those thoughts. For example, some people repeatedly wash their hands to ensure they are clean or keep checking and re-checking every thing while leaving home. Some come back to the kitchen from the garage to check once again if the gas-cylinder has been turned off or not. All these actions are indirect but clear manifestations or extensions of the fundamental fear, the fear of death.

We regularly hear and see news of death on radio and TV. In the obituary columns of newspapers, we read reports of death every day of people we know and do not know. We see dead bodies frequently on roads or railway tracks while travelling between our home and work. We occasionally watch on TV a huge procession behind the dead bodies of celebrities and dignitaries. Some of us have had the experience of seeing people dying. Others have witnessed the death of close relatives in their own arms, at home or in the hospital. The fear of death does not leave us. This fear haunts everyone, no matter how healthy and muscular one’s physique may be. This fear is felt, no matter how bold or brave one may appear to be. This, of course, excludes those who commit suicide or deluded suicide bombers who suffer severe aberration due to incorrigible mental perversion.

We are aware that normally, the weak fear the strong, the inferior fear the superior and the small fear the big. This notion was proved wrong when the USA executed a pre-emptive attack on Iraq. This was astonishing because America is strong, big and superior, whereas Iraq is weak, small and inferior.

The anatomy of fear is truly incomprehensible. It is absolutely amazing, astounding and agonising as to the causes of fear. Fear gives a powerful vent very often setting a violent trend when existence of an individual, society, community, country, a dynasty or religion is threatened. Generally, we are afraid of snakes, even in a dream not to mention a direct encounter. But even snakes tremble in fear, their bodies shaking violently, when  lightning appears in the sky. Anxiety and insecurity are also a variegated expression of fear and nothing else.

Srimad Bhagavatam, a Vedic scripture, of pure wisdom says (SB.11-2-37):

Bhayam dvitiyabhiniveshatah syad
Isad apetasya viparyayo ‘smrtih
Tan-mayayato budha abhajet tam
Bhaktyaikayesam guru-devatatma

Bhayam means fear. Dvitiya means the second. Abhiniveshatah syad means total absorption. That is, this fear is due to total absorption towards the products of the second.

The Supreme Lord Krishna possesses two divisions of energy: Prathama, the spiritual and dvitiya, the material. The first is the Lord’s antaranga or internal potency, while the second is his bahiranga or external energy. The product of spiritual energy is eternal, while material energy is ephemeral.

The spiritual realm is manifested by the spiritual potency of God Krishna and is known as Vaikuntha. Everything here exists eternally. There is no creation. No destruction either. Because there is no scope here for destruction or death, there is no fear or anxiety in the spiritual abode. This is the meaning of the very name Vaikuntha in Sanskrit. Vigatah means bereft of and kunthah means anxiety or fear.

This material world, on the contrary, is created by the second energy, the material energy of the Supreme Lord Krishna. It is also known as Maya. Everything existing in the mundane atmosphere, including the whole universe, is subjected to destruction and death. In the Gita, Lord Krishna says jatasya hi dhruvo mrityu, or, anything that takes birth or is created has ultimately to meet with death or destruction.

In Sanskrit, this world is called jada jagat. Jada means matter or that which lacks consciousness. Ja in jagat stands for jayate, created. Ga denotes gachhati, goes or destroyed and t indicates tishthati, stands or stays for sometime. In other words, jada jagat means that this entire universe appears at one point of time, continuous for a specific period and  is ultimately destroyed. Thus, fear is due to one’s mental absorption towards byproducts of dvitiya, the material energy of God. Our attachment to material possessions and bodily relationships is the root cause of fear. This attachment is caused by illusion and the illusion stems from ignorance.

What is this ignorance? The idea that "I am this body, these other bodies are my friends and relatives and all the assets like house, car, bank balances are mine", is called ignorance. From this ignorance, comes illusion in the form of attachment ,and this attachment is the basis for worry, anxiety and fear due to the realisation of the possible loss of all the material belongings, including one’s own body.

To overcome this attachment is not very easy as the old adage goes, blood is thicker than water. Even very learned intellectuals or men of high calibre, including physically strong ones, like warriors, become psychologically shattered owing to this meaningless attachment to bodily relationships and material belongings. Although only an elephant named Ashwattama was killed by him in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, when Bhimsen merely claimed to have killed Ashwattama, great Brahmana gurus like Dronacharya mistook the victim for his son who was also named Ashwattama. So he lost his total composure and became so weak in his combat that he was killed effortlessly by his enemy, Drishtadyumna.

Arjuna, the great hero of the Kurukshetra battle and the recipient of the discourse in the Gita from the Lord, completely lost his mental balance when he stood face to face with all his relatives and respectable elders arrayed on the enemy’s side. He literally wanted to flee from the battlefield, unwilling to fight and prepared to forego his legitimate claim over the kingdom. We have come across incidents of investors dying due to shock when informed on the phone by a stockmarket agent about the plummeting of share value of a particular company in which they had high stakes.

Krishna dvitiya, the maya is the cause of this kind of attachment. The Lord readily admits that and says, mama maya duratyaya, My divine potency is very powerful and insurmountable, Mameva ye prapadyante mayametam taranti te, those who surrender unto me can cross beyond her jurisdiction. Precisely therefore, while winding up his discourse, Lord Krishna explicitly enquires from Arjuna (Gita 18/72),

Kaccid etac chrutam partha
Tvayaikagrena cetasa
Kaccid ajnana sammohah
Pranastas te dhananjaya

O conqueror of wealth, Arjuna, have you heard this attentively with your mind? And has your illusion and ignorance now dispelled?

We are actually spirit souls, Atma and not the body. The fact is that the Atma, the real self, is eternal and is never created and is not subjected to death at all, because Atma is spiritual. The fear of death or all the extensions of fear is when we wrongly identify ourselves with our body. The verse describes this as asmriti, forgetfulness and viparyaya, contradictory conception. We have forgotten that we are Atma or spirit soul and wrongly consider the body to be the actual self.

This is our present predicament. Who causes this? Tan-mayaya, by Krishna's material energy, the dvitiya. This maya or illusion has two features, namely, avaranatmika, covering influence and  prakshepatmika, throwing influence. Thus, maya covers the knowledge of the living entity about its spiritual nature and throws it into the material world which results in delusion. So the human being identifies himself/herself with the material body as the real self. What or who inspires the maya to act in this way? Ishad apetasya, the living being’s turning away from God.

Ato budhah abhajet tam, therefore an intelligent person must take to worship of God. How to worship? Bhaktyaikayesham, through unalloyed devotional service. What is the method of execution? Guru devata atma, by surrendering and serving a bona fide spiritual teacher who is a devotee of God, Krishna or Vishnu. One should serve such a guru with total love and devotion considering him as good as the Lord himself.

When a living entity develops a spirit of independence and rejects the service of Krishna, he is forced to come to the material world and then he commits sinful actions to gratify his physical senses which creates fear for him. In the Gita (15/7), the Supreme Lord Krishna explains this as manah shashthaneendriyani prakritisthani karshati or struggling very hard with the six senses which include the mind. Everybody works hard. For what? For physical enjoyment. It is a fashion among the educated class to proclaim ‘Work is worship’. If that is the case, then a donkey must be the best worshipper because nobody can work as hard as a donkey. If both the donkey and human beings work hard with the only aim of attaining physical pleasures, then how is man superior to a donkey?

If the pleasures of this world are the aim of one’s life, then, he or she will always be subjected to fear. In the animal society, the weaker one, like a goat or a deer, is scared of a stronger one, like a lion or a tiger. It is the same in the human society. A person with a weak physique is afraid of an able bodied one. A child of six years with a tender body is afraid of the father who has a strong body. But when the father becomes an eighty-year-old man with a weak body, he is scared of his son who now has a stronger body. Then, where is the difference between the animal and the human society? Thus, if the objective of life is unlimited indulgence in sensual pleasure, both man or animals will have always to live in anxiety and fear. It is said in Srimad Bhagavatam (SB.11-2-38),

Avidyamano ‘py avabhati hi dvayo,
Dhyatur dhiya svapna-manorathau yatha
Tat karma-sankalpakam mano,
Budho nirundhyad abhayam tatah syat

Although the duality of the material world does not ultimately exist, the conditioned soul experiences it as real under the influence of his own conditioned intelligence. This imaginary experience of a world separate from Krishna can be compared to the acts of dreaming and desiring. When the conditioned soul dreams at night of something desirable or horrible, or when he daydreams of what he would like to have or avoid, he creates a reality that has no existence beyond his own imagination. The tendency of the mind is to accept and reject various activities based on sense gratification. Therefore an intelligent person should control the mind, restricting it from the illusion of seeing things separate from the Supreme Lord Krishna, and when the mind is thus controlled he will experience actual fearlessness.

Avidyamano api avabhati hi dvayo, although not existing in the ultimate sense, the duality of the material world appears to exist. What is this duality? It is the imaginary experience of a world separate from the Supreme Lord Krishna. Actually speaking, the natural purpose of all human beings is to render loving service to the Supreme Lord Krishna in his transcendental abode. When living beings rebel and desire the independence of the Supreme Lord Krishna, then the Lord creates this material world through his illusory energy, the divitya. Thus all living beings throughout this universe constantly remain in fear.

We generally experience two things. Swapna dream in sleep and mano ratha, day dreaming. All of us are aware that incidents we see in dreams are not true and we cannot act on those when we are awake. Day dreaming is nothing but what we desire in our mind while awake and, which, is not in fact, happening. What is the function of the mind? Sankalpa and vikalpa, meaning accepting and rejecting. At all stages in our lives, we have predilections and rejections. The mind always accepts something as good and rejects something as bad, someone as a friend and someone as an enemy. The mind has to be controlled. The mind itself becomes one’s enemy if it is not controlled. Actually the mind is maya or illusion. It can wreak havoc in one’s life. Great yogis who controlled their senses and breathing often deviated from their spiritual pursuit due to failure to control their minds, vijita-hrishika-vayubhir adanta manas turgam, because these very senses and life air will drag the yogi away forcibly.

Mano budhah nirundhyad, an intelligent person should control this wavering mind. Abhayam tatah syad, only when he or she can become fearless. How can the mind be controlled? Lord Krishna says in the Gita (2-61), yukta asita mat parah, after restraining the senses, a yogi should fix his consciousness upon Me. This is the faultless method. Unless one becomes Krishna Conscious, he or she cannot bring the mind under control.

The Supreme Lord Krishna assures us in the Gita (18-66), "Give up all duties, responsibilities and obligations arising out of bodily conception of life. Fully surrender and serve me, I shall free you from the effects of all sinful reactions. Do not fear."

So here is our answer: Totally abandon the idea that you are only your physical body; surrender unconditionally to the Supreme Lord Krishna and/or his 'acharya'; offer your loving service to Him; and you will be absolutely free from fear. Then there is no reason to fear - even fear.

The Bhagavat Vani Magazine 2009