Fear Is Our Own Creation

Joy is our natural state, and suffering rises from unregulated thoughts and emotions. Fear and insecurity stem from our limited identification with the physical self, making spiritual exploration essential for true freedom. By experiencing life beyond phy

There is really nothing to be done to be joyous. If you stop creating misery, you are naturally joyous. Being joyous is not something you do; it is your natural state of being. But you create misery through your thoughts, emotions and other aspects of you being out of control.

There are many ways to see how one can come out of present patterns of creating suffering. Suppose today you are not peaceful. The first thing you might do is maybe quarrel with your spouse. The next thing you will do is yell at your neighbour. Then you will realize its time to go to the doctor. If you go to the doctor, he will give you a pill. This pill is made up of chemicals. If you put these chemicals into your body, your body and mind become peaceful. So one way of understanding this is, what you call as peace has a certain kind of chemical background to it. Similarly what you call misery, suffering, fear, anxiety, everything has a certain chemical basis. As there is a science for external wellbeing, there is a whole science as to how to create your inner chemistry. Yoga has many methods through which you can create the right kind of chemistry where being peaceful and joyous comes naturally to you. Human beings have been creating suffering, misery, fear and insecurities unconsciously. Why are we creating them and how to leave them behind? We do not have to leave our fears and insecurities because they do not exist. The fundamental reason why fear has arisen in you is because you are a little human being and you do not know the beginning or the end of this vast creation. You being the small, little entity that you are right now, naturally fear is overwhelming. As long as you are identified with the physical body, as long as your experience of life is limited to your physical and mental faculties, fear and insecurity are inevitable. It is just that different people may be in different levels of fear and insecurity. Today if your life is going smoothly, you might forget about your insecurity. Tomorrow if your life goes upside down, it reminds you but it is always there with you. Only when a person begins experiencing life beyond his limitations, only that person can be truly free of any sense of insecurity or fear. Experiencing life beyond the physical is what we are referring to as spiritual. When I say spiritual, do not think it is about going to temple or praying for this or that. If you look at your prayers, ninetyfive percent of the prayers in the world are all about asking for either this or that. ‘Please take care of me, protect me.’ There is nothing spiritual about it; the very basis of this is fear and insecurity. So when I say spiritual, I am talking about you beginning to experience something which is not physical.

Once this spiritual dimension is alive, once you start experiencing yourself beyond the limitations of the physical and the mental, there is no such thing as fear. Fear is a creation of an over-active and out-of-control mind.

By: Sadhguru
Ranked among the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. Sadhguru was conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished services.