Everybody has fear in their life but some people are in denial and don’t accept it. It is like a stigma in our society to admit that you are feeling sad or worried. ‘You have a nice family, job and even a nice home, then why should you be sad? Are you mad?’ People will ask. But who says you can’t be sad? Our mind doesn’t require things and people to feel happy. Happiness comes from a different source. And when the mind doesn’t have the access to happiness because it is occupied with all the duties and responsibilities, unable to explore its own reality, then we feel sad.
Why do I exist? What is mind? What is the mechanism with which the mind creates sadness or joy? Mind can create lots of pain and misery for us, but it can also make us happy and peaceful. It is about knowing how it functions and how to use this device in our favour rather than letting it work against us. Anxiety occurs when the mind is deeply identified and attached to this body and when it is unaware of what the truth is. If the sun is out then there is no doubt about its existence, you know it is the reality. Fear, anxiety, sadness, depression is all the darkness which will exist in the mind which doesn’t have the sun of wisdom in it. Dharma is about having that sun of wisdom rise within you.
Small children get scared upon seeing a tree thinking that there is a demon living inside the tree. The wind comes and all the branches and leaves begin to move and the child gets scared. In reality, there is no devil inside the tree but for a child it is the projection of his own mind onto that tree. In ignorance, even a tree looks like the devil. Similarly, anxiety, depression and fear are the devil created by our own mind. Now, if the father comes with a floodlight; lights the tree and says to the child, see there is no devil inside, it is just the leaves that were moving in the wind, then the child’s fear gets removed. For a gyani you are that child and the gyani says, there is nothing to worry about, it is just a matter of bringing the light of wisdom into the mind and then you will be laughing at the past state of your mind.
A fakir was sitting under a tree meditating and a thief ran in front of him. In a little while some villagers came running shouting: Thief! They saw the fakir and asked which direction the thief has gone. The fakir said, ‘I don’t know’. The villagers became suspicious as they thought that he must be an accomplice of the thief and they decided to beat him up. Fakir said, ‘wait, I will show you where the thief will be found’.
The fakir asked the villagers to follow him and he brought them to a graveyard. The fakir said, ‘you can wait here, one day the thief will surely come here!’ The villagers got angry but the fakir smiled and said, ‘I am just a fakir. I was sitting under the tree enjoying silence of the night, oblivious of the thief running by, so how would I know where he ran? But one day he will surely come here, one day everybody will come here!’ This is how the fakir made the villagers think about the transience of life. We don’t know where we came from and where we will go. This is a huge dark zone of not knowing.
A 7-year-old child asked a question: Why don’t we remember our past lives? Very deep question! You don’t remember what you dreamt last night or what you ate three days ago, then how will you remember your past life? One thing is for sure; one day this body will die but you will not die, that is Sri Krishna’s promise. That is why you need to explore this ‘I’. Body is like a dress which you wear and later on exchange for another one. In just a single day you may wear several dresses, and when you change the dress the body doesn’t change.
Body too is a dress which you wear but you need to know the ‘I’ which wears the dress and which does not change. You need to explore this concept; contemplate and meditate on who God is, who you are and how the mind functions. That’s how the pockets of fear in your mind slowly disappear. When you decide to make a change, that is the best moment of your life, because from that moment you will move upwards. One after another, the shackles get broken and you will soar high in the inner sky.
