What is fear?

Osho, what is fear made of? It is always there behind a corner, but when I turn to face it, it is only a shadow. If it is non-substantial, how does it manage to have such a power over me?

Fear is the shadow of 'I', and because the 'I' is always alert somewhere deep down that "I will have to disappear in death".... The basic fear is of death; all other fears only reflect the basic one. And the beauty is that death is as nonexistential as ego, and between these two non-existentials -- the ego and death -- the bridge is fear. Fear is very impotent, it has no power. You say, "If IT IS NON-SUBSTANTIAL, THEN HOW DOES IT MANAGE TO HAVE SUCH A POWER OVER ME?" YOU want to believe in it -- that's its power. You are not ready to take a plunge into your inner depth and to face your inner emptiness -- that is its power. Otherwise it is impotent, utterly impotent. Nothing is ever born out of fear. Love gives birth, love is creative; fear is impotent. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were…

Osho, yesterday you told the story of Saint Peter and the three women. Please tell us what happened after that?

Saint Maharaj! Do use a little of your own intelligence. No story is ever told in full, because some trust must also be placed in your imagination—that you, too, can think a bit. You could have figured out for yourself what would happen next. The matter was so clear. My friend, what else could happen! What had to happen is exactly what happened. Saint Peter had barely dealt with those three women when three goddesses arrived. One had a white mouth-cloth tied over her face—she was a Jain nun. The second was a beautiful French model, and the third a Rajneesh sannyasin. Saint Peter first pointed toward the part below the French girl’s waist and asked, “What did you use this for?” Preening, the beauty replied, “I used it to revel with my eight wedded husbands and about a hundred and fifty lovers. I also used it to earn money…

Beloved Osho, could you say something to me about fear? What is fear? Will meditation help me overcome my fear of death? Why am I afraid to let go into something more powerful than me?

Your form is changing every moment. And death is nothing but a change, a vital change, a little bigger change, a quicker change. From childhood to youth... you don't recognize when childhood left you and you became young. From youth to old age... things go so gradually that you never recognize at what date, on what day, in what year, youth left you. The change is very gradual and slow. Death is a quantum jump from one body, from one form into another form. But it is not an end to you. You were never born and you never die. You are always here. Forms come and go and the river of life continues. Unless you experience this, the fear of death will not leave you. You are asking, "Will meditation help me overcome my fear of death?" There is no other way. Only meditation... and only meditation can help.…

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…

Beloved Osho, what to do with fear? I am feeling very tired being led around by it. Can it be mastered or killed? How?

What is fear? First: fear is always around some desire. You want to become a famous man, the most famous man in the world -- then there is fear. What if you cannot make it? -- fear comes. Now fear comes as a by-product of desire: you want to become the richest man in the world. What if you don't succeed? You start trembling; fear comes. You possess a woman: you are afraid that tomorrow you may not be able to possess, she may go to somebody else. She is still alive, she can go. Only dead women won't go; she is still alive. You can possess only a corpse -- then there is no fear, the corpse will be there. You can possess furniture, then there is no fear. But when you try to possess a human being fear comes. Who knows, yesterday she was not yours, today she…