Fear is not a disease of the body; Fear kills the soul. — Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Fear, whenever I think about fear I am amazed, how can a single emotion such as this, can make people, can break people, can drive people in any direction as it wants !!

I have been thinking on this topic since a long time and was trying to analyze or to find out the answers of many of my questions like,

What all kinds of fears I and others have?

What are reasons for all those fears?

Was I aware of all those fears when I born?

What all fears are common to all of us or are natural and which fears are man made?

What are the consequences of all those fears?

Now question which arises here is, when do I feel fear? In my opinion, I might feel fear when I am not sure of getting what I want or when there is uncertainty of getting/doing what I want or when there is uncertainty of getting/doing what I don’t want or when there is uncertainty of fulfillment of desire and there may be many other reasons which I am unaware of. All those factors which might be responsible for creating that uncertainty might be responsible for my fears.

Now in the broadest category if I try to analyze that what I want in my life, then it turns out to me, Happiness and Continuity of it. So, with this goal, all the factors which come into my way of Happiness or which might disturb my Happiness in future or might break the continuity of my Happiness will contribute to my fears. In very abstract level we can say that

The greatest fear of life is the fear of being unhappy.

We see that we have many kinds of fears, fear of criticism, fear of rejection, fear of loosing public acceptance, fear of failure, fear of loosing respect, fear of loosing trust, fear of loosing wealth, fear of other human intentions, fear of loosing whatever physical or non-physical thing I posses and many more.

When I was born I don’t think I had any fear. As my knowledge about facts increased, so did my fears. When my knowledge about the facts associated with nature increased I realized that there are some fears which I have due to nature and which can not be avoided and they are,

Fear of Natural Calamities,

Fear of Bodily Diseases,

Fear of Wild Animals,

Fear of another Human Being.

These are some of the fears which we get naturally, which are given by nature. If I analyze then I rarely think about first three fears out of above four. The only fear which remains now is the fear of another human being.

The main thing which creates fear in a human being due to another human being is, Difference. I have discussed in my last post why Differences arise and how they can be advantageous and in what conditions they are disadvantageous. Difference is something which is given by the nature.

Difference is something which is given by nature.

As we see that a human being has 5 senses which are the source of all the inputs and sensations in his body. Those inputs are the source of our knowledge. Now the thing is these 5 senses are limited in capability. Like I can not see at my back while seeing in my front and similarly there are limitations of my other senses too. A person thus can not see the absolute reality associated with an object. Different people see Difference realities and make their assumptions. These Different realities and assumptions ultimately contribute to their Differences in opinions and thoughts. Now the thing to notice here is, a Human Being is seeing Different realities than the other Human being due to his limitations of the senses which is ultimately creating the Differences in their opinions, and these senses are given to the human being by the nature, so we can deduce that the Differences are something which are given by nature. The major problem arises when we assume that the reality (which is actually the partial reality) which we have seen is the absolute reality and become rigid on it and when some Difference comes into picture (which might be the other partial reality of the same object), we want to kill the Difference with violence. We feel that the Difference itself is the Evil.

Nature has given some fears to us, I could think of four, which I have written above. Generally in current situation we do not think first three fears, like we do not think of natural calamities like earthquakes etc, we do not think of fears related to wild animals, we do not think of bodily diseases after having got so much medical advances. The major dominating fear is the fear of another Human Being. Which is also natural due to the Differences between them because Differences themselves are given by the nature. The problem here is, there are many kinds of fears which we know and we suffer from these days and most of the fears are Man Made Fears.

When a man comes into society, he has many social bondages, many social expectations, many said or unsaid norms, many expectations from the family, friends, and many other people. There are current trends, there is a lots of influence from the environment, something is in more demand these days, something is less and there are many more things. It is something like a man is in a predefined framework where he is tied with many chains knowingly or unknowingly, and he is supposed to be in the same situation, by the society, family and most of the people around. The position of the person can be considered similar to the person shown in figure.

Like for example, if I start from the time when a child is born, the first label which is attached with the child is the label of religion. If I am born in a Hindu family then I will be a Hindu. If I am born in a Muslim family then I will be a Muslim and so on. Then comes the schooling part. During the schooling, child starts to identify his interest and wants to pursue it but if that interest is not matching with what parents want then it creates problem to the child. There is a lots of pressure on the child to pursue the interest of parents. The choices of parents are also generally influenced by the environment, society, current trends, current ups and downs, profession of people around them, what their children are doing, where more money can be earned, where there is scope these days basically scope for more money and many more reasons. Generally if you try to do something different than what your peers are doing, what current trends are, whats happening in your environment then you might have to face a lots of criticism, lots of back biting, and if your step is to bring some change in the environment itself, then you might even have to face a lots of opposition, criticism etc.

I t is really difficult to make your own way, when all other ants are moving on the path already set by other ants !!

In such situations it is the fear of criticism, fear of back biting which stops people to pursue their interests. Fear of criticism contributes a lot in what we call, The Peer Pressure. Peer Pressure is a kind of pressure which people feel due to their peers, due to their colleagues. Peer Pressure in my opinion is felt by people due to three reasons, first due to the feeling of comparision or fear of lagging or fear of being left behind like, “everybody around me is doing MBA, may be I should also do MBA”, “everybody is earning more and more by taking more and more bribes. then may be I should also start taking bribes and since everybody is doing, so there is nothing wrong in it.”. Second due to fear of criticism like “if I choose Arts as my field then I will be criticized a lot”. Third due to the fear of non acceptance from public.

Human being these days has become a kind of “Visible God” to most of other Human Beings. A human being is not able to do what he actually wants to do, or what he feels is right because of peer pressures, due to fears of rejection, due to fear of non acceptance by other human beings. A Human Being is driving the life of other Human Being. A Human Being has fears from other Human Being. So who is the God for a Human Being?

It is due to the fear of these “Visible Gods” people don’t want to be what they really are, people don’t want to behave the way they actually want to, people have lost their natural smiles, people do many things which they don’t want to do, people don’t want to take the responsibilities of their actions. The reason why Hypocrisy is increasing day by day is nothing but the fear of these “Visible Gods”. People want public acceptance, people want favor of public, people want themselves to be shown good in the public. These are some of the factors which takes away the natural behavior of the people. They are just being driven in the river downstream. They are just trying to uplift themselves up in the eyes of others by falling into their own eyes.

In society we have many prejudices, many assumptions which have no reasons behind them or people forgot the purpose and just remember the method and are following the methods without knowing the purposes. These assumptions or methods which we are following are also very much responsible for our fears.

Our own misconceptions, lack of understanding, wrong assumptions and incomplete knowledge are responsible for our fears.

One of the greatest and dominating assumption which people have these days is their belief in Cynicism. The word ‘cynicism’ generally describes the opinions of men and women who maintain that self-interest is the primary motive of human behavior, and are disinclined to rely upon sincerity, human virtue, or altruism as motivations. There are two things associated with Cynicism, first being cynical and second is believing in cynicism. Being Cynical means mistrusting the intentions of others and thinking that the other person is motivated by his self interest and people are generally motivated by their self interests. Believing in Cynicism is, thinking that the selfishness is the way of the life. Cynicism creates an environment of distrust. The main reason of distrust is Fear. Fear that other person will exploit me, Fear that other person has bad intentions, Fear that other person is being driven by his self interests and will definitely make wrong use of me.

One more reason which I could find behind fears is our own dishonesty. Our dishonesty makes us uncomfortable in the way that it creates a fear of revealing the dishonesty. We say something somewhere and something somewhere else. There is always a contradiction and calculation in mind “what I said last time?”. There is a lot of book keeping which we need to do and have to be very choosy and fast in calculation. But why the heck am I doing this? Is it really giving me Happiness? Am I really comfortable with this situation? I feel I am not. We ourselves are creating a feeling of fear for us and making ourselves unhappy.

Most of us are reluctant to Trust people and we say, “This is how things happen, if you want to survive in the society then be practical.”. Lack of Trust creates an environment of fear. Actually Fear and Trust are inversely proportional to each other. Fear increases, mistrust increases. Fear and Mistrust reinforce each other. Until fearlessness is not achieved Trustful environment can not be created and vice versa. This feeling of mistrust is filled in the child from the day he starts going to the school, “You have to practical. Be practical !!”, without giving the definition of “being practical”. If being selfish is being practical, if telling wrong things to others is being practical, if being cunning is being practical, if creating an environment of distrust and if considering other human beings as Gods is being practical, if being driven by wrong assumptions is being practical, if being in the rat race is being practical, if playing an unfair game is being practical, then I hate being practical. We all contribute a lot in creating this kind of environment and ultimately creating an environment of fear and mistrust. Unless we start taking the responsibility of our own actions, unless we realize that we ourselves are responsible for the current condition of the society and the world, unless we stop being indifferent, nothing can be changed. Generally we give many arguments in our favor, “I can not do anything and I am helpless and I have no other option other than being indifferent”. Unless we are not part of the solution, we ourselves are the problem.

Evil flourishes when good people of the country, society, family, group be indifferent, tolerant, and do nothing.

Many times we create environment of mistrust knowingly or unknowingly. We appreciate so called “pragmatism” and call the honest people “Impractical” and “Fools”. We motivate more and more people to become practical and demotivate people who are willing to fight against the system and change it, by giving the arguments “You can not progress like this. If you want to survive in the society and want to progress then be practical!!”. Most of us just criticize the system but do not do anything to change it. On the other hand we demotivate and criticize those who are working for the betterment of society. Being practical in the society is appreciated and it is the rule of the world that the thing which is appreciated is condemned to repeat itself.

Many times we do spread feeling of mistrust and environment of distrust knowingly or unknowingly. We criticize a lot of people at their backs. We have many assumptions because of which we understand what we want to understand instead of what the actual reality is. Our understanding depends of our perception and our perceptions is formed out of our entire preconditioning. Our preconditioning generally involves a lots of wrong assumptions which changes out attitude towards the surrounding and the people. We just keep on criticizing people at their backs, we just keep on gossiping and we feel good without even realizing the consequences of what we are doing, what kind of environment we are creating, and in the end we criticize the same system which we ourselves created.

Whenever something goes wrong then we start playing a blame game. We do not want to take the responsibility of our actions. We just keep on blaming the entire world and at the end of the day we say, its all about fate. Fate is just a tool or an excuse to evade from the responsibilities. Life is really very easy when we are not responsible for our actions and fate gives this opportunity. Blame fate if you can not find anybody else to blame but never look into yourself, this is what we do.

Maturity comes when we realize that we ourselves are responsible for our present and our future.

Maturity come with the realization of responsibility. Realization of responsibility comes with proper understanding and knowledge. If I see what I want in my life then it turns out to be, Happiness. Happiness can not be achieved without Maturity and Maturity can not be achieved without the sense of Responsibility and sense of Responsibility can not be achieved without Knowledge. So for Happiness a man needs, Knowledge.

So what is the solution? How can we be fearless? How can we live more happier life? As I discussed just now that the only thing which can kill our fears is Knowledge. It is only the Knowledge and right understanding which can kill our fears. It is only the Knowledge and right understanding which can control our uncontrolled emotions. It only the right understanding and Knowledge which can make us more happy. Unless we kill our prejudices, unless we kill our wrong assumptions, until we keep on living in the darkness of ignorance, we can never be Happy.

Truth, purity, and unselfishness—wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition. — Swami Vivekananda.

Few people have guts to stand for their opinions and fight against the system. One of greatest examples in history is Mohandas K. Gandhi. Such kind of people have guts to stand for their beliefs and fight against the system and change it. As it might be expected that it is not easy to stand against a lot of people when they are against you and are not ready to listen. We have to face a lot of criticism, a lot of opposition. For this Gandhiji said,

First they ignore you,

Then they laugh at you,

Then they fight you,

Then you win.

So the question arises as to, how did Gandhiji do this? He used two great weapons for this, Truth and Non-Violence. Truth gives great power. Power to stand for one’s believes, power to be determined, power to face criticism, power to face opposition. Non-Violence not only changes the system but changes the person also, which is a more permanent solution rather than just changing the system without changing the person. If the person is not changed then the system will become what it was, and the war against the system will never come to an end. The only thing which can change the system is the change in attitudes of the people.

A change in attitude can change everything.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. — William James

Now question is how Non-Violence can change the person? There are two kinds of violence, Active Violence and Passive Violence. Active Violence is physically harming the person. Passive violence is creating an environment of mistrust, creating an environment of fear, criticizing people at their backs, use of irresponsible language, use of provoking phrases, creating misconceptions between people, creating voids between people etc. We do Passive Violence a lot knowingly or unknowingly. Passive Violence is something that later becomes Active Violence. Generally people use violence to kill the Difference. As I discussed in my last post “Differences”,

The only way to kill the Difference is Knowledge.

If one tries to kill the difference with violence, it may be active violence or passive violence then there is very high probability that the other person will be provoked rather than being convinced and that provoking violence might even reinforce his wrong beliefs. Violence can bring the harmony for some time but not permanently. Violence is another way of creating a fearful environment around the other person, and the other person remains in control due to fear. It is not a permanent solution as the person is not changed, he is not doing anything because of fear of violence, but as soon as the person gets the power again, violence will start again. A permanent solution would be to increase the knowledge of the other person and make him realize that he is doing wrong. If that realization is there then the other person will NOT repeat his wrong thing again. Non-Violence makes a person to think on what he is doing, and ultimately changes the person. As I said that the only way to kill the Difference is knowledge, so to kill the Difference, Knowledge transfer is essential and Knowledge can not be transferred without humility.

Knowledge can not be transfered without humility.

Humility is something which can not be imitated. Humility is something which can not be artificially shown. Humility is something which should come from inside and Humility from inside does not come without knowledge.

Humility is Directly proportional to Knowledge.

So again the ultimate solution is Knowledge. It is the knowledge which makes a person to know the Truth better. It is the knowledge which improves a person’s ideas. It is the knowledge which makes a person humble. It is the knowledge which makes a person to understand his responsibilities and it is the feeling of responsibility which makes a person more mature. It is the knowledge which makes a responsible person to transfer the knowledge. It is the knowledge which when transfered can kill the differences. It is the knowledge which can change the attitudes of the people, which can improve the ideology of the people, which can change the person completely. When the knowledge to the people is transfered, attitudes of people changes and the Differences between the people are killed. When Differences between the people are killed a more Fearless and Trustful environment is created. When Fearlessness and Trust between the people are ensured then Peace in the world is ensured. And it all starts from Knowledge!!

Knowledge is the solution for everything and it is the incomplete knowledge and ignorance which is the reason for all evil. Knowledge is Divine and Ignorance is Evil.