Shiksha Main Kranti #19

Fear is certainly man’s deepest and most fundamental problem. Nothing is more important than fear, because our whole culture, civilization, religion, education—the entire arrangement of our life—has been made to avoid fear. And a precious formula of life is: whatever we try to escape, we never escape.

We hoard wealth to avoid fear; we gather friends to avoid fear. We marry, we build families. We form societies and nations to avoid fear. But fear does not end through these; rather, new fears arise. There is prayer in the temple, namaz in the mosque, and a call to God in the church—behind all of it, our fear is working. Wealth is from fear, and religion too is from fear. One becomes a householder out of fear; and if one becomes a renunciate, that too is out of fear. One commits sin from fear—that if he does not, he will fail, he will lose in life’s race; and one does virtue from fear—that he might go to hell, that he might wander in the next life. Fear is amazing! For we are doing everything because of it, and even after so much doing, we never come out of fear, because fear is a fact, a factuality of life.

We cannot run away from facts. The fictions we erect to flee from facts can become a distraction, a deception, for a little while—but again the pain of fear stands up before us. And to protect the imaginations we had built, we told lies; to protect those lies, we had to create more lies and new fictions—and man keeps falling into a web from which no way out seems possible.

This has been humanity’s suffering till today. When I look into it rightly, I see that fear is absolutely inevitable. Death will come; it arrives together with birth. It is as much a part of life as birth is. Sorrow will come, pain will come. Friends will be found—and friends will part. The flower that has bloomed will wither. The sun that has risen will set. Our mind wants the risen sun to remain risen; this very desire of the mind is wrong.

Our mind wants that what we have received never be lost; our mind wants love to be continuous; our mind wants that once a flower has blossomed, it should remain in bloom forever—its fragrance never cease, its freshness never fade, its youth never decline. These desires of the mind are demands for the impossible; they will never be fulfilled. If we look at life, birth and death stand together. They are two halves of the same life. One who understands life accepts it in its entirety. There, pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. One who accepts pleasure will accept pain too. When such acceptance comes into one’s life, one goes beyond fear. It is not that the causes of fear disappear, but the sting and thorn of fear dissolve—because fear too has been accepted.

Lao Tzu says something very wondrous. He says, “No one can defeat me, because I have already accepted defeat. Therefore no one can conquer me—one can conquer only him whom one can defeat. No one can push me back, because I am already standing behind. No one can bring me down, because I never climbed up. Victory over me is impossible.” There is insecurity in life. We do not want to accept it; this unwillingness is how we get caught in the cycle of fear.

The wheel of fear is born from the rejection of insecurity. The person who acknowledges insecurity as it is—his fear departs. A young man came to me, a very talented painter, with great possibility. He had returned from America; wherever he went, he received praise. But for two or three years, strange fears had taken hold of him. If he saw a lame man in the street, he felt, “I might become lame.” He saw a blind man and felt, “I might become blind.” He saw a corpse and felt, “I might die.” He would come home utterly exhausted, dejected—could not get up for hours. The family was worried. They had brought him to me. They had explained to him; psychoanalysis had been done; he had seen eminent psychologists—no solution. The more counseling and analysis was done, the more frightened he became. His parents and his wife brought him and said, “We are in difficulty. Please explain to him; perhaps he will listen to you.”

I said, “Explaining is itself wrong. What are you explaining to him?” They said, “We tell him that he is perfectly healthy; look at the medical reports: his eyes cannot go, his leg will not become lame, he will not be paralyzed—why worry unnecessarily?”

I said to his parents, “It is you who are misleading him. His fear is absolutely natural. Did the man who is blind today know yesterday that he would go blind? Yet he did. Did the man lying paralyzed today know it yesterday? Yesterday he was walking happily in the marketplace. Did the man who died today know yesterday that he would die? Life is very unknown, accidental. Anything can happen. Life is unpredictable; no prophecy can be made about it—anything is possible. Your son is right; you are wrong to ‘explain.’ He is right: the eyes could go, the legs could go—life itself could go. Whatever has been given will go. If not the eye alone or the leg alone, then the whole body together will go—but going is certain.

“Nothing is more certain than death. And what is most certain, we try hardest to block from our awareness. This young man is right.” As I was saying this, I saw his face change; his spine straightened. He said, “You mean this is certain, it can happen?” I said, “Anything can happen in life. You are trying to avoid it; that creates fear—and you cannot avoid it. Your fear and your ideas about fear have nothing to do with what will be. And why are you so afraid that if your eyes go, what will happen? If your legs or hands go, what then?” He said, “Then I will not be able to love, to paint.”

I said, “Then paint while the eyes are still with you. The eyes can go any day—tomorrow morning they could be gone. Tonight they are with you; paint. Love. The point is not to save the eye. Go home, and sleep in the ease that ‘all this is possible.’ Those who have been ‘explaining’ to you are wrong, and their explanations have only increased your fear. They themselves know it is a lie, yet to console you they create lies. I won’t console you. I will say to your mother, your father, your wife as well: your eyes could go, and you will also die. Don’t keep explaining to him—understand it yourselves. This is how it is.”

He left. The next morning, at five, he came back and said, “For the first time in three years, I slept peacefully. I wanted to deny the fact that this could happen—that my eyes could never go. But inside a doubt kept slipping in: they could. ‘I will never go mad.’ But a friend went mad—yesterday he was fine. If a sane man can go mad, why not I? I tried to remove it, to hide it. I asked others, hoping they would convince me. That made me worse. I lost sleep; I was going mad. But last night, seeing that all this is possible—and that if it happens to others, I am not exceptional—when I accepted that all this is possible, all fear left me. I slept peacefully for the first time in three years. This morning I woke a different man.”

It is our rejection of fear that increases our fear. And the mind has a rule called the law of reverse effect: what we try to do often turns into its opposite.

A man is drowning in a river. He tries desperately to save himself and sinks—and dies. A dead man can make no effort, yet he floats to the surface. Strange: the dead float, the living sink. What is the point? If the living man, like a dead man, let himself go in the water, he could not sink. But he cannot let go. He tries to save himself, tires, panics, swallows water, and drowns. If even a living man surrenders himself on the water like a corpse, he will not drown; he will float. Water does not drown the dead.

A man learning to ride a bicycle is afraid he may hit a pole. The road is sixty feet wide; the pole occupies four inches. He’s terrified of the pole, tries to avoid it: “I must not hit the pole.” In trying to avoid it, the road vanishes; only the pole remains. His concentration fixes on it. The sixty-foot road disappears; there is only the pole and him—and the effort to avoid it. His handlebar turns, his wheel moves toward the pole. He becomes hypnotized; the pole is everything now. He collides. It is not the pole’s fault. If he had ridden with his eyes closed, he would have had less chance of hitting it. But the reason is clear: what he tried to avoid, what he feared, is what he evoked in his mind. The more he said, “I won’t hit the pole,” the stronger the opposite grew inside, “What if I hit it?” In the conscious we think one thing; in the unconscious its opposite happens.

Between the conscious and the unconscious a contrary relationship sets in. A man thinks consciously, “I must not fear,” and unconsciously he fears everyone. A man wants to avoid sex in the conscious mind; the unconscious fills up with sex. Whatever we flee in the conscious, the unconscious surrounds us with it. We can deceive others that we are not afraid, but how will we deceive ourselves? We will go on knowing: the fear is there, utterly present. We are frightened, shaken.

It will surprise you that those who strut about in the world with great swagger are, inside, very frightened. So what you asked about—vanity—is linked with fear. In truth, the vain man, the stiff, arrogant man who says, “I am somebody,” is inwardly afraid that he is nobody, and he is busy proving to others that his fear is wrong: “I am somebody.” He is very sensitive—just a little nudge and he retorts, “Don’t you know who I am?” He is extremely sensitive lest anyone take him as a nobody, because inwardly he knows: I am nobody. I am nothing.

The truth is: no one is “somebody”—and because of that, the mind creates the feeling of being somebody. Inside there is a nobodyness, a nothingness—what is a man, after all? More than a bubble on water? But we do not accept this fear within, so we do the opposite. A man afraid of death threatens others: “I will kill you,” trying to convince himself: “If I can kill others, who can kill me? I will not die.”

The Genghis Khans, the Taimurs, the Hitlers—threatening to kill others, actually killing others—are people afraid of death. By killing others they seek the assurance: “I can kill many; no one can kill me.”

In the conscious mind we begin to do exactly what we fear within. Often the fearful man wears a cloak of fearlessness, walks with a swagger. His swagger is only proof of fear. The one who has accepted fear does not walk stiffly. He admits, “Yes, there is fear.” Then a different simplicity dawns in his life, and his conscious and unconscious meet; they cease to be opposites. A harmonious mind arises within. He accepts what is; he stops denying. For you may deny, but what sits deep in life does not vanish by denial.

We know we will die; this sits in the unconscious with certainty. In the conscious we deny: “I will not die. Everyone else will die, not I.” A conflict is created within. In truth there are not two minds called conscious and unconscious; mind is one. But the conscious holds such notions that it must shove the real ones into the dark. The facts of life are pushed behind a wall, so that one need not know that the real thing is hidden within.

There is a mind we have been given, and a mind we have constructed. The given mind knows the facts of life; the constructed mind is pure projection, pure fiction. There is fear, so we create a false fearlessness. There is fear of death, so we construct doctrines that death cannot be. The soul is immortal. Love can break, so we invent the belief that love is eternal, that friendship can never break, that those who are “ours” are ours forever. We erect these in the conscious mind. Out of all this, vanity is born. Vanity is fear inverted—fear doing a headstand. The ego stands upside-down, and now imagines itself secure. “Finished! Now there is no fear.” But fear remains inside; it will go on eating you.

The man who is very grave outside is found henpecked at home. The officer who struts in the office goes home afraid of his wife and children. The man who holds himself stiff all day long will have fearful dreams at night—nightmares. One side he controls, the other side asserts. You cannot escape it. That is why it looks surprising that great generals, great emperors—whose bravery is unquestioned—become afraid at home in front of a simple woman. The reason is not the woman; it is that at home they relax. You cannot be stiff twenty-four hours; you must rest. If you are stiff outside, you will be limp at home; when you relax, the swagger falls away and anyone can dominate you.

We split our mind in two. Fear becomes ego—fear that refuses to accept itself becomes ego. My suggestion is: do not reject fear—acknowledge it. Today there is love; tomorrow, who knows? Life is uncertain; everything here is uncertain. Certainty is only a human idea. Nothing here is fixed. My friends today—tomorrow, who knows? They could be my enemies. This possibility remains; I must accept it. Then what is the reason for fear? There is none. I accept that this may happen; there is no inner resistance. If it happens, I will accept it; and until it happens, I will taste the joy of friendship. Such a person enjoys friendship; and if tomorrow it ends, he will not be torn apart. He knew the flower that blooms will wither.

Such a person will not be seized by any sorrow. He will pass through life’s pleasures and pains with simplicity. When happiness comes, he knows it is not certain; it will go. When sorrow comes, he knows it is not certain; it will also go. Seeing that everything comes and goes, he gradually becomes free of all—neither happiness nor sorrow can possess him. He knows: sunshine comes, shadow comes; all this comes and goes. Slowly he becomes a witness to whatever happens.

A fakir died. His disciple beat his chest and wept. The disciple had a great reputation—hundreds thought he had attained knowledge. Thousands came on the fakir’s death. Seeing him weeping, they became troubled. Some said, “We are surprised you weep. We thought you were enlightened. We thought you knew there is no death, that the soul is immortal.”

The disciple said, “That I knew—and still know. But whatever happens, I never stop it; I accept it. Tears are coming: I accept them. Weeping is coming: I accept it. I will not suppress it. Rain comes, cold comes, sun comes. And I am not weeping for the man’s soul; the soul does not die, I know. But his body was very dear too; that form will never be again. And anyway, I never think of what I should do—whatever happens, I accept.” Maybe they could not understand that he had attained knowledge, because our idea of knowledge is: one who is never afraid, never sad, never in pain. We do not know that one who smiles and accepts smiling will also cry, and should accept crying too.

In truth, the person who has attained to life’s truth does not choose one pole of the duality; he becomes even-minded between both. Even while weeping he remains a witness: “Weeping is happening; what can I do? It is fine.” There is no suppression. All the truths of life should be accepted. We should know: it is as it is. Things are as they are. When this awareness deepens—that it is so—and we do not try to escape any fact, fear dissolves.

And when fear dissolves, all the lies of life dissolve, because the lies were erected to escape fear. Then a man will not call any woman “wife,” because that was a lie—raised out of fear that love might break. Afraid that love today may be gone tomorrow, we made a legal arrangement; we took witnesses before society. He will no longer call anyone “wife”; a friend may be a companion. And that friendship is such that it can depart any moment. My understanding is: whatever we know can depart, we relish more deeply, not less.

A stone lying by the road is not so delightful; a flower in bloom that will fade within an hour is far more delightful—so alive, so intense is its life; therefore it will depart. Such a person will not bind friends. Possessiveness will not be there, because he knows things can slip away—and the strange thing is: the more possessive one is, the sooner things slip away. The less possessive one is, the more things come close. From the one who tries to bind us, we seek freedom; with the one who never binds, the question of freedom does not arise—we can be friends for lifetimes.

Friendship breaks because of possession. Love breaks because of possession. Possession is born of fear: the fear that tomorrow you may love someone else. So I raise walls on all sides, put locks on doors: “Don’t you start loving someone else; if you do, what will become of me?” In such arrangements I will kill love. It is like locking a flower in a safe; you will find only ash in your hands. Flowers are not for safes—only dead things can be locked in safes. Nothing is more dead than money; therefore it can be locked, and it remains as it is. It is dead already. Flowers cannot be locked. Love cannot be locked.

Man is alive, and love is the flowering of life. Whatever is important here cannot be imprisoned: imprison it, and it dies. Our fear wants to imprison everything. We even want to imprison God—claim Him: “This is my God. No one else may enter this temple.” The same possessiveness we have toward a woman, a wife, a friend, we have toward God: “This is a Devi’s temple; that is a Muslim’s mosque; this is a Brahmin’s temple—no Shudra may enter.” Our proprietorship extends even there. We kill God too; therefore the living God cannot be found in temples. The living God can be found in life—anywhere—but not in temples. As a flower dies when locked in a safe, so God dies when locked in a temple. We bind because we want to feel secure—so that whenever we wish to find Him, He must be available. If we go to the temple, He must be there. So we install a stone idol that will always be available.

Wherever we have sought security out of fear, there we have gone wrong. Then our prayer is not true, our love is not true—because behind everything fear is stealthily moving. When I say to someone, “I love you very much,” if you look within, you may find that I do not love at all; I say it to keep the relationship running, to maintain possession. A man folds his hands in prayer, and the whole time he is frightened—perhaps that is why he has come to pray: afraid that if he does not pray, God may be displeased, some misfortune may befall him. Then prayer is false.

Fear has made everything untrue—and has raised a thousand untruths to avoid itself. If fear does not go, no one can ever attain truth. Fear is the original source of untruth, of lies, of fantasy, of dream—the primal source of arbitrary imagination. If one is to rise above fear, one must accept fear. This is what we fail to understand: accept that from which you wish to rise above, and you rise above it. Acceptance is the transformation. Total acceptance is total transformation. Step outside this acceptance, and the matter is finished.

Let death come to my door—and let me wholly accept her, as one welcomes a friend or a guest—and death becomes futile. Death’s meaning is to frighten me; if she frightens me, I die before dying. If she cannot frighten me, death will come—and I will remain. Death will come—and I will remain. Those who have accepted death have found the soul immortal. But we are upside-down people: we talk of the soul’s immortality precisely so we need not accept death. Our belief in the soul’s immortality is maintained from books, confirmed by asking gurus, by touching the feet of sadhus—just to be assured: “The soul is immortal, isn’t it?” If the soul is immortal, our fear of death will go. If it is not, we are scared—we will die. Therefore, where there are many believers in the soul’s immortality, know that there are many who fear death. Very few come to know the soul’s immortality—because the condition is one: those who have accepted death. Those who have embraced death saying, “Come,” step beyond it. Death becomes powerless over them—she is defeated.

Any sorrow we accept, we go beyond. Sorrow conquers us because we reject it. Whatever comes, we accept; there is no denial within, no opposition, no resistance. Life is like winds passing by trees: when the east wind blows, the tree accepts it; when the west blows, it accepts that too. The branches lean to the east and the leaves tell the news of the east; when the west blows, the tree accepts the west. However the winds blow, the tree consents. If the winds set it trembling, it consents; if it stands still, it consents. Consent to all arises—acceptance of all the facts of life, whatever winds blow—and a man immediately steps outside fear.

Certainly, education based on comparison is extremely harmful—poisonous, toxic. The moment we teach a person to think in terms of comparison, the moment we compare one person with another, we create inferiority, fear, ambition. He becomes afraid. For when we compare, we tell A, “B is superior to you; you must rise above B.” Instantly, we sow fear in A. He becomes frightened of life: how to get ahead of B? And even if he goes beyond B, what is the difference? C is standing ahead. There are thousands in the line ahead. He must be at the very front. The person becomes terrified, anxious.

And when we compare a person with someone else, it means we do not accept that person. He is rejected in that very moment. As he is, he is not acceptable; only if he becomes something else will we accept him. We have insulted his individuality so deeply that this insult will agitate him, frighten him, and to escape this insult he will join a mad race.

True education will not stand upon comparison. True education will accept each person as they are. True education will not teach comparison. True education will not teach going ahead of others. True education will teach one to know what one is. It will give self-knowledge. Present education gives comparison with others, not knowledge of oneself. And from comparison with others, a race begins that has no end; a person keeps trembling lifelong with the fear of being left behind. However much he runs, he is always behind, because others are ahead. Life is a circle with infinite people in it. No one has ever become number one in everything. From one side he may be number one, but from twenty-five sides he remains number two to others. Someone becomes prime minister and finds he does not have the knowledge that some other person has. Someone becomes knowledgeable and finds another is beautiful. Someone is beautiful and finds another is healthy, strong, an athlete. Life has a thousand dimensions, and in all dimensions no one can be number one. Therefore everyone remains number two, number three, somewhere or other. And then unhappiness remains, insult remains. This insult eats away life. Any education that insults a person does not honor or respect the person.

I want an education in which each person is intrinsically honored and accepted as they are. There is no question of comparing them with another—and comparison is wrong. No two persons are alike; therefore comparison is impossible. Comparison could be, if all human beings were the same. But each person is only like themselves. There is no other quite like them. No one else has the same parents as this person. No one else had the same home. No one else has the same eyes, the same body, the same mind, the same soul. This one is unique. In the whole history of humanity, incomparable—neither before nor after will there ever be the same person. For the same person to appear again, the entire constellation of infinite conditions would have to repeat itself, and that cannot happen. Man is always new, distinct, manifest in a different way; comparison is wrong.

Education should cultivate the understanding that each individual is unique. Each person is unique, and each person, as they are, is worthy of respect. Our effort should be to help them search for themselves and express themselves, to go inward continuously, deeper and deeper, to know all their potential. What seed lies within them? Education should become a collaborator in developing that seed. Let the person become that which they were born to become. Let them be what they can be. There is no question of comparison in this. A flower of the grass will be a flower of the grass. A rose will be a rose. And the irony is that only man’s habit of comparison has made the grass-flower low and mean, and the rose a Brahmin, superior. In the realm of nature, the flower of the grass is as full of glory as the rose. When the winds blow, its fragrance...