We’re scared of being free because we’re used to being looked after; but if we calmly face the fear, it melts, and taking responsibility lets us enjoy freedom.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, could you please say something about the fear of freedom? There is such a longing to be free, yet especially in the last two weeks I see so much fear coming up at the same time. Is it nothing else but avoiding aloneness and responsibility?
It is natural, because from the very beginning of your childhood you have been told to depend on others, their advice, their guidelines. You have grown older, but you have not grown up. All animals grow older. It is only man who has two possibilities: either he can grow old like every other animal, or he can grow up. Growing up means getting rid of all dependence. Naturally, in the beginning it will create fear. You were surrounded by your own projections, and thinking that you were protected. For example, you have been told from the very beginning that God is protecting you. Even small children are told in the night, "Don't be afraid. Go to sleep. God is protecting you." That child is still within you -- and I say, "There is no God. You can sleep in darkness in safety. Nobody is protecting you." But that means you…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY AM I SO AFRAID OF BEING FREE? Everybody is. Freedom is a great risk. People talk about freedom, but nobody really wants to be free. It is pure talk. Everybody wants to be dependent, everybody wants somebody else to take the responsibility. In freedom you are responsible for every act, every thought, every movement. You cannot dump anything on anybody else. Just watch a Freudian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst. The patient is lying down on a couch, the psychoanalyst is sitting behind so the patient cannot see him. He is sitting behind the couch; he can see the patient, but the patient cannot see him. Some psychoanalysts use curtains so that the patient feels he need not keep his secrets to himself. And what happens -- in all psychoanalysis sessions all over the world, what is happening?
Beloved Osho, you say that fear and freedom, like ambition and love, cannot co-exist. But it is existence that brings into being fear and love of freedom, together.
Anand Maitreya, it is true that it is existence itself which brings fear and love of freedom together -- and I have been telling you they cannot exist together. They cannot. Existence gives you an alternative: to choose, so that your freedom is not interfered with. You can choose fear, or you can choose freedom. Freedom is not being imposed by nature on you, neither is fear imposed. Nature gives you alternatives. Now it is your own choice, out of your own intelligence that you have to choose. You cannot choose both together -- that is what I mean when I say they cannot exist together. Existence makes them both available, but you have to choose one. Most people have chosen fear. Out of fear they have created all kinds of gods, theologies, religions; out of fear they are being dominated by stupid politicians; out of fear they have been…
Beloved Osho, since you initiated me into sannyas, I have begun to fear you a little. Before that this fear was not there, although I have been frightened throughout my entire life. I know too that the freedom and love I have found in being close to you were not available to me even around my parents. If in the shadow of your overflowing love I am not going to find freedom from fear, then where else? How is this freedom from fear possible?
No, I am not talking of that love. I am talking of a love which is not related to anybody in any way, which is unassociated. This does not mean that you will run away from your wife, or keep the children at a distance, if this love is born in you. If this love is born in you, just your ideas of the wife as wife will dissolve; the very idea that your son belongs to you will dissolve. The ideas will be replaced by an understanding that everyone belongs to the universe, that you are just instrumental; and your love will go on showering, day in, day out. Questions about who is worthy of your love and who is unworthy will all wither away. You will flow like a river, and whoever is thirsty will be able to fill his cup and take it away with him. Your…
Osho, ever since I took initiation from you, I have also begun to feel afraid of you. Earlier this fear was not in me, though I have been afraid all my life. I also know that the love and freedom I have found in your presence I never found even around my parents. And if, even in the shade of a master as utterly love-filled as you, I do not become free of fear, then where else will I? How is this freedom from fear possible?
Take this as a touchstone: if the reason for which you went to the master is the very reason he accepts and works upon, he too is standing in darkness. You have come to me because of fear—I know. But it is not my task to lessen your fear; it is to awaken abhaya. You did not come for abhaya. You came for nirbhayata, a little courage to fight—you would be satisfied with that. You are easily satisfied; your discontent is not very deep. A drowning man is content with a straw. You are looking for a straw; I know that no one is saved by a straw. Perhaps because of the straw you will drown—whoever takes a straw for a boat stops looking for a real boat. Whoever mistakes a false shore will find the true shore very far. Whatever reason you have come with is not my concern.…