According to Osho, fear is not a real substance but a negativity—like darkness—simply the absence of love. You cannot fight or remove fear directly; you can only bring love, presence, and relatedness, and fear vanishes on its own. Love in all its layers—from sexual intimacy to meditative union—dissolves bodily and psychological tremors, birthing natural fearlessness beyond both cowardice and bravado.
Fear is like darkness; you can’t chase it away—turn on the light by loving more and it disappears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Will you comment on the nature of fear?
He sailed off in his boat -- just in the middle of the lake he could not believe his eyes: those three persons, those foolish people, were coming running on the water. They said: Wait! Once more! We have forgotten! Now this was impossible to believe! The priest fell at their feet and he said: Forgive me. You continue your Prayer. The third love energy is prayer. Religions, organized churches, have destroyed it. They have given you readymade prayers. Prayer is a spontaneous feeling. Remember this story when you pray. Let your prayer be a spontaneous phenomenon. If even your prayer cannot be spontaneous, then what will be? If even with God you have to be readymade then where will you be authentic and true and natural? Say things that you would like to say. Talk to him as you would talk to a wise friend. But don't bring formalities…
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…
You talk about love and how good it is to meditate upon it, but fear is much closer to my reality. Would you talk to us about fear and what attitude should we have towards it?
The possibility is there, but why worry? There are so many people. If one says no, don't take it as a hurt don't take it as a wound. Simply take it -- it didn't happen. Simply take it -- the other person didn't feel like moving with you. You didn't suit to each other. You are different types. He has or she has not said no to you really; it is not personal. You didn't fit, move ahead And it is good because the person has said no, because if you don't fit with a person and the person says yes, then you will be in real trouble. You don't know -- the other has saved you a whole life of trouble! Thank him or her and move ahead, because all cannot suit to all. Every individual is so unique that in fact it is so difficult to find the…
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…
You have said that one who is in fear cannot love, nor can he reach godhood. But how is one to get rid of his fear according to tantra?
Then you are not afraid of fear. It is there, a part of you; nothing can be done about it. You have accepted it. Now you don't pretend, now you don't deceive anyone, nor yourself. The truth is there, and you are not afraid of it. The fear starts disappearing, because a person who is not afraid to accept his fear has become fearless -- that is the deepest fearlessness that is possible. He has not created the opposite, so there is no duality in him. He has accepted the fact. He has become humble before it. He doesn't know what to do -- no one knows -- and nothing can be done, but he has stopped pretending; he has stopped using masks, faces. He has become authentic in his fear. This authenticity, and this fearlessness to accept the truth, changes you. And when you don't pretend, don't create a…