The root cause of fear

The reason you don't put my hand in fire, in fear, and that you know what you're gonna get burned. In order to avoid unnecessary danger, you need not fear — will be pretty minimal ingenuity and a little common sense.

In such practical cases, lessons from the past that is useful to learn. And then, if someone is threatening you with fire or with physical violence, you might experience something like fear.

You will instinctively cower and shy away from danger, but will not be afraid. You will not have the psychological conditions for the emergence of feelings of fear, about which we are talking. Psychological conditions of the emergence of feelings of fear exist separately from any specific, real, direct and immediate danger.

Fear is in many forms: for example such as alarm, anxiety, fear, phobia, etc.

This type of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of what is happening now. You are here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates a gap filled with anxiety.

And if you're identified with the mind and lost contact with the power and simple present, this alarming gap will be your constant companion. You always have the opportunity to deal with the present moment, but you will never be able to cope with what is only a mental projection — you cannot cope with the future.

Furthermore, while you identify yourself with the mind, ego, as I said, will be in control of your life and turn it into ruins. Because of its phantom nature, and despite the presence of carefully designed, well-conceived, skillfully made and well-functioning of the protective mechanism, the ego is extremely vulnerable and defenseless, and it always feels he is in danger.

Incidentally, that's the way it is, even if the outside ego looks very confident. And now remember that an emotion is the body's response to the state of mind. What is the message the body receives continuously from the ego, from this false, created by the mind “I”? “The threat, I'm in danger.” And what emotion is generated under the influence of a constant signal? Fear, of course.

It seems that fear has many causes.

Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of getting any damage, etc., ultimately, however, any fear is nothing more than fear of the ego to die, annihilate. For ego death always lurks behind the next corner. When you are in a state of identification with the mind, the fear of death has an impact on any aspect of your life.

For example, even such a seemingly trivial and “normal” thing as a persistent need to be in a dispute right and making another wrong, and defending the mental position with which you identify, is caused by fear of death. If you identify with a mental position and are wrong, then your mind based on self-perception is a serious threat of annihilation.

Thus, you, as ego, cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. This is the main cause of wars and the collapse of innumerable number of relationships between people.

As soon as you cease to identify yourself with the mind, your sense of self will become indifferent, you're right. Then reinforced, and forced a deep unconscious need to be right, which is one of the forms of violence will cease to exist.

You can clearly and firmly say how you feel and what you think, but all it will be free from aggression or need to defend themselves. Your sense of self will come from the more deep and real place inside you, not from your mind. Keep track of the appearance itself of any desire to defend, is born inside you. What are you defending?

An imaginary person, the image that arose in you mind, a fictional creature. Making this stereotype their behaviour conscious, becoming a witness to its occurrence, you will cease to be identified with him. In the light of your consciousness, the unconscious pattern of behavior will quickly dissolve. This will put an end to all disputes and power games that are so are damaging to the relationship.

Repression of others is weakness disguised as strength. True strength is inside you, and now it becomes available to you.

Therefore, fear is a constant companion someone who identifies himself with his mind and thereby becomes disconnected from their true strength and their deeper self rooted in Being.

The number of people that are outside of the mind, is extremely small, so you can safely assume that virtually every guy or friend you lives in fear. Varies only the intensity and saturation of fear.

It fluctuates between anxiety and fear on the one hand and the vague and diffuse anxiety and a sense of a distant threat. Most people start to realize it only when it takes a more pronounced shape.

© Eckhart Tolle





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