Overcoming negative emotions 3 – Fear

[Talk at North Florida University, Jacksonville, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, thank all of you for coming today evening. And, we have been taking a series on overcoming negative emotions.
The first session overcoming negative emotions. The first part I took, wasn’t even there for the first part? Yeah, you are of course there. You remember the first topic? Yeah, second was depression.
Yeah, resentment. Thank you. So, we are analysing how our own negative emotions can sometimes overcome us and how we can overcome them.
So, resentment and depression were what we discussed in the previous two sessions. This time I will be discussing about fear. So, a little bit of a background before we move forward.
Each of these sessions are independent. So, we will get more than 90% of what we discussed today, but some background. The main metaphor that I use for explaining how our emotions work is a three level conception of the self.
There is the body, the mind and the soul. So, the body is like, if you compare it to a computer system, the body is like, does anyone remember? The hardware. Yeah, thank you.
The mind is like the software. And the soul or the self, the spiritual essence of us, that is the user. So, I may have a very good computer with me as far as the hardware is concerned.
And I may also be an expert at working on a computer. But if my computer software is infected by some viruses, I won’t be able to work. Similarly, if negative emotions infect our mind, then we can’t function.
Even if we are physically healthy, and even if we have certain plans and aspirations to do things. And the mind is at an intermediate level of existence. Just like the software is intermediate between the user and the hardware.
And the emotions that come in the mind are not necessarily bad. Because the software is required for working on the computer. But just as whatever exists at the software level, we have to select what works for us and avoid or eliminate what works against us.
So, we have antivirus software, which is a software. But it works to remove the harmful software. So, in this session, what we are discussing is how we can equip ourselves with the attitudes that can work as our own antivirus software.
Which will help us to deal with the negative emotions which come like viruses in our minds. So, today I will talk about fear. Now, who is operating this? The first point is, fear is not bad.
Sometimes people talk about overcoming fear. That was the topic I started with. And I will qualify it right now.
It is not necessary nor is it desirable to overcome all fears. Fear is a natural and desirable response to danger. So, fear protects us just as pain protects us.
Pain itself is not desirable. But pain protects us from further damage. So, if there are some children who have some genetic defect because of which they just don’t sense pain.
And for some children often they may just run and hit a pillar and their head may be bleeding and they don’t realise it also. They just keep playing. And their mother sees them horrified.
What happened to you? What happened? I don’t know. So, it’s not that the damage is not there. The damage is there.
But they don’t feel the pain. So, pain is not pleasant. But pain protects.
Again, this doesn’t mean that we have to cause ourselves pain. The point is that when something harmful is there at that time we get the awareness of the presence of that harmful agent through the pain that we feel. And that is meant to alert us to move away.
To take proper action by which we can minimise or eliminate the danger that is there for us. So, what pain does at the physical level fear does at the psychological level. So, that means if I peer out from an open window like this a hundred story building say I am.
I am peering out. Now we feel some fear. And if we don’t feel fear, others will feel fear.
Hey, what are you doing? So, that fear is good. But suppose I am no longer looking down a tall building from a window. But I keep looking down.
What if I had slipped? What if I fell down? What if someone pushed me down? When there is no danger and even in spite of that there is the negative feeling. That fear is undesirable. That is when we become fearful.
So, we are going to talk about overcoming fear. We are essentially going to talk about overcoming fearfulness. That means when there is fear when it alerts us about danger we just move away from it.
But when there is no danger and still the fear is coming up that is when we need to deal with it. And in today’s world most of us we do use a lot of gadgets and function at the physical level. But our fears are not so much physical.
How many of us are afraid that say a tiger will bounce on us and kill us? Or how many of us are afraid that say we may be walking on the street and somebody may stab us or kill us? Yes, that might be an occasional fear. But we live relatively speaking in physical safety. Most of our fears are actually emotional at the level of the mind.
And they deal with things that are definitely harmful to us but they are at the level of the mind primarily. Can you go ahead? Most of the time when there is fear in fearfulness what is it? Actually there is nothing happening right now. There is false evidence appearing real.
False evidence. It’s not there but it appears to be real. There was a woman who went to a doctor and she told the doctor that I have got a frog in my stomach and it’s moving around, moving around, it’s making my life hell.
Please take it out. And the doctor told her there is no frog. Frog can’t live inside the stomach.
It can’t get in. Even if it gets in, it can’t live. No, I can feel it.
It is there. No, it’s not there. Don’t worry.
Please do something. No, nothing is there. So, she just went away in great agitation to another doctor.
That doctor also said, there can’t be a frog in your stomach. Don’t worry. You are just imagining.
She left that doctor. 3rd doctor, 4th doctor. She went to a 10th doctor.
And 10th doctor heard her story. And he also heard that she had been to 9 other doctors before. So, he told her that ok, let us do some check up.
He realised her problem was more in the mind. So, she had to be assured in a different way. So, he decided to put some probes.
Oh, you know, you are right. We found that there is a frog in your stomach. I was telling everyone.
Why was no one believing me? We will need to do a surgery to remove this frog. When can you do it? Do it right away. So, they got her admitted.
And then they gave her some anaesthesia. And the doctor just did some small incisions on her belly. And he told a nurse to go to a nearby pond and get a small frog from there.
And he brought the frog. And then when she came back to consciousness, he told her, this is the frog we found in your stomach. Now, you are safe now.
She was very happy. Thank you, doctor. You saved my life.
Thank you very much. And she went away very happy, very grateful, very relieved. And the doctor and the medical staff thought there is a very clever solution.
That is what she was imagining. So, deal with it that way. But a week later, she came back.
And she says, doctor, doctor, the frog had babies. The frog had babies and they are still in my stomach. Please remove them.
So, what has happened over here? When the mind starts imagining something, then even if it is false, it is false evidence, but it appears real to us. So, the fears, when they come in, it is not just a matter of understanding the facts. Yes, facts are important.
But for us, our feelings are also important. And if the confrontation between the feelings and the facts happens, at that time, it is not necessary always that the facts will win. The reality is not going to change.
But there is the reality and there is our experience of the reality. And for us, our experience is what is real. So, yes, eventually, we do have to understand the facts.
And we need to face the facts. But the point is, fear is a disposition of the mind. And it needs to be addressed not just by dealing with the external situation.
Yes, we need to deal with the external situation also. But we need to have an internal redirection also. Otherwise, even if one particular fear is addressed, if the mind’s attitude is not changed, the mind will find something else to be fearful about.
And then something else, and something else. So, that’s why we look at this fundamental point that fear, what it means is, that there is something false, something which is not true, but appears real because of fear. Let me go ahead.
So, we look at different attitudes towards fear. One could be just forget everything and run. It’s very dangerous.
I can’t bear it. Just leave it, drop and run. This is… Another approach could be, I’m going to fight my fears.
I’ll fight everything and I’ll win and I’ll rule. I’ll try to control everything. These two responses are often called by psychologists as the fight or flight response.
The flight response is, it’s too difficult, just let me run away from here. Fight means, come on, I’m going to deal with this. At one level, the second response may seem to be better than the first.
But we are all finite beings. And if I try to fight everything, we just can’t do it. We just overwhelm ourselves.
And when we feel overwhelmed, this problem, that problem, that problem, then eventually we lose heart. And we start beating ourselves up. Why am I not able to deal with this? So, in our life, in every situation we are in, there are some things in our control and there are some things not in our control.
And the things that are not in our control can easily cause us fear. So, if I think that I should have everything in my control, that day is never going to come. If somebody wants to learn car driving and they think that, okay, I will learn everything perfectly about my car.
I’ll learn all about the parts, I’ll learn about all the road signs, I’ll learn about all the roads where I may have to travel, and then I’ll start driving. Yes, I can prepare like that. And I should prepare as much as I can.
But at the same time, can I control everything that happens on the road? I am fully prepared, but what if there is a drunk driver on the other side? So, in every situation that I am in, there are things which are in my control and there are things which are not in my control. So, the first response is, fear means forget everything and run. That means, when I see that there is something not in my control, that something is going to threaten me, I just, oh, I can’t control anything, just let me give it up.
The other is, when I see that something is not in my control, at that time, I try to fight and get everything in my control. So, if I am driving and if I see somebody is driving crazily, then what do I do at that time? If somebody is just swerving unsteadily, I may get fearful and think, this person is crazy. So, it is possible that person may hit me, it is possible that person may not hit me.
What I have to do is, if I just forget everything and run, I just either get out of my car or just take my car off the road and that person will just pass by and I have unnecessarily injured myself. The other is, if somebody is drunk or somebody is mad, what are you doing driving like this? I try to control that person. That person goes white.
So, that person may hit me out of spite or anger because when people are drunk, they themselves are not in their control. So, basically, these two approaches stem from misperceiving the situation. This is the extension of what I said, false evidence appearing real.
So, what is the false evidence? When I see that something is not in my control, then either I just give up whatever is in my control or I try to control everything. And neither approach works in life. For example, if I am giving an exam and that time I look at the first question, I don’t know the answer to this question.
Second question, I don’t know the answer to this one also. Third question, I don’t know the answer to this one also. As I look at the questions and I don’t know the answer, what happens? My fear starts increasing.
If at this point, I think, this exam is too difficult. I am not going to do it. I just hand in the paper and go away.
What’s going to happen? I am going to fail. It may well be that out of 25 questions, first 5 I did not know the answers to. But the remaining 20, I might be knowing the answers to.
The other extreme is, I see the first question, I studied so much, how can I not know this answer? I will try to figure out this answer right now. And I have half an hour for 25 answers and I spend half an hour on the first answer trying to figure it out. This is foolish.
So, with both these examples, when I talk about car driving or giving an exam, it’s easy, most of us won’t be so foolish as to just give up everything because things are not in control. Nor would we try to control everything. I don’t have to get every answer right.
But in real life, things don’t work out like that. When we face any situation of uncertainty, we either just drop everything and go away or we try to control everything. If we are in a relationship with someone and we start seeing that the person is not behaving properly, and this is not going to work, I just drop it and go away.
Or, I try to mould the person to become what I want them to be. Now, neither is going to work. They are an individual, we are an individual.
Now, whether that relationship is going to work or not, that we will have to explore. But the point is, the two extremes of no control or all control, these are both counterproductive. And fear can impel us to do both.
Fear, although in one sense when I am trying to get a lot of control, it may not seem as if I am fearful. It may seem as if I am domineering. But actually, most aggression is a cover-up for insecurity.
Most aggressiveness that people exhibit, it’s simply a cover-up for their insecurity. That they can’t tolerate the fact that things are out of their control. They just want to clamp down on things.
So, most aggressive people are actually insecure people. And as a spiritual teacher, I interact with many religious groups. And among religious people, we have seen that it is the most fanatical people are often the most insecure people.
Because what happens, for them, if they see somebody else is following some other practise, then that makes them doubt. Maybe my practise is not right. And for my practise to be right, this person’s practise has to be wrong.
And if it is not wrong, I will make sure that it is wrong. Some people say, this is the only way. If you are not following this way, you are going to go to hell.
And some fanatical people say, you are not only going to go to hell, we will send you there. So, this is again, religious intolerance is actually religious insecurity masked. So, same way, both these responses, just as religious intolerance is religious insecurity masked, similarly, the attempt to control everything, that is also actuated by fear.
So, we move on. So, we will talk about these four aspects about how to deal with fear. What is the healthy attitude towards fear? So, focus, engage, arise and release.
Can you move forward? Let’s focus on focus now. So, whenever we face a situation where we start feeling fear. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? So, the first thing is, what is happening right now? The first question that we can ask ourselves, how does this affect me right now? The future can’t hurt us today unless we let it hurt us.
That means what? The future can’t hurt us today. Going back to the example of the exam that I am giving. Okay, I couldn’t get the answer to three questions.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I won’t be able to get the answer to the fourth question or the fifth question. But if I start worrying, what if I couldn’t answer the fourth question? What if I can’t answer the fifth question? What if I can’t answer all the questions? So now, if I am thinking of all the future questions, it may well be that the fourth question is answerable for me. But that fear blocks my memory and once my memory is blocked, I can’t answer that also.
So, the future can’t hurt us. How is it affecting me right now? So, if I am in a situation where I don’t know the answers, I am fearful. What if I don’t pass this exam? What if I don’t clear my college? What if I don’t get a job? What will happen to me in my life? So, the mind is at this stage, when we become fearful, the mind basically starts showing us a free horror movie.
And in the horror movie that the mind is showing, we are not the spectators. We are the victims. So, at this point, when the horror movie starts off, this is like, pause the button.
I don’t want to see it anymore. I thought this was a nice movie. Maybe it’s a romantic movie or whatever kind of movie I like.
I thought it’s a comedy or it doesn’t, but it’s turning out, I don’t want to watch it. Stop it. So, this question, focus.
This is one way we stop the mind’s horror movie from playing out. Focus. How does this affect me right now? I may say that, no, the future is going to come and I have to face the future.
Yes, but we can face it later. Whenever the future is going to come, the future is going to come as the present. So, I can only face the present.
I cannot face the future. And yes, I want to prepare for the future. But the way to prepare for the future is not by worrying about the future.
The way to prepare for the future is not by worrying about the future. The way to prepare for the future is by working in the present. So, this step, what it does is, focus.
How does it affect me right now? Suppose I have got some swelling on my hand and I start thinking, what if this is a tumour? What if it is malignant? What if it is in stage 4? What if I am going to die in 3 months? Oh no, I am going to die in 3 months. Well, all I have right now is just a small swelling on my hand. Okay, so how does this affect me right now? Well, the swelling actually doesn’t affect me much right now.
So, this question just helps us to refocus. How does this affect me right now? Now, as if the mind still goes back, no, no, but you have to deal with it in the future. What if it happens in the future? You will have to deal with it.
Yes, we will deal with it. We will come to that in the next steps. But just this first point can actually ground us in reality.
The mind often takes us from reality to fantasy. Usually the word fantasy is used in a positive sense. Something is fantastic, something is wonderful.
But the mind can take us into a negative fantasy also. That means something horrible. So, when this horror movie starts off, what we have to do is to come back to reality.
Come back to reality. Come back to the present. How does this affect me right now? Okay, what if? Whatever the mind comes up, how does it affect me right now? Then, let’s go to the next step.
The next step is engage. This is where we begin the preparation. What can I do about this right now? Okay, I have got this swelling on my hand and I would like to find out what it is.
What can I do about it right now? I can fix an appointment with the doctor. So, if I do that. So, what happens here is the more we deal with what we can, the more we feel confident about dealing with other things.
Dealing with the rest basically. The more we deal with what we can, the more we feel confident about dealing with the rest. So, for example, going back to the exams.
So, I didn’t get three answers right. I start feeling worried. The fourth answer, if I am worried about how is the fifth question going to be, sixth question going to be, seventh question going to be, then I can’t focus and I don’t get the fourth answer right also.
And that time, I know that I know the answer to this question. But I have forgotten that. So, that forgetfulness causes even greater panic.
Just focus, okay. I will deal with the remaining later. Let me focus.
So, when we get one answer right, that increases our confidence. And then I look at the next one. Oh, this also I know.
Let me get this answer right also. So, we need to focus on dealing with what we can. And what can I do about this? These two questions.
So, basically in life, there are things that happen to us and things that we do. And there are many things that may happen to us in our life, in future. And there are many things which we may do in future.
And sometimes the things that may happen to us may be bad. Sometimes the things we may do may also be bad. Just like if I am driving a car, then a drunk driver may hit me in future.
That’s something that can happen. But it may also be that I just get distracted, talk with someone and I take my car off the road. And I hit a curb and there is an accident.
All these are possibilities. So, in life, basically there are these two things. Some things that happen to us may go wrong.
Some things that we do may also be wrong. So, these two questions and our mind can go off into a horror movie in both ways. That bad things may happen to us and we may ourselves do bad things.
So, what we are doing by these two questions is grounding ourselves in reality. What can happen in the future? Okay, let’s see. How is this affecting me right now? Come back to that right now.
Second is, what can I do about this right now? And this question, basically, if you have a torch and if I use the torch to look at the sky, how much can I see? I can’t really see much because the sky is so big and say it’s a dark night. If I look at the sky with the torch, the sky’s light will get simply dissipated. But if I turn the torch around and look straight ahead, if it’s pitch dark, again I’ll not be able to see much.
But if I focus the torch right in front of me, it can illumine the area around me. Okay, I can take one step forward. I can take one step forward.
So, similarly with us, when in this big world that we are in, there are many things that are not in our control. But there is something which is in our control. So, when we become worried about what may happen or what we may do, basically in both the situations, we are focussing the torch high up in the sky.
It doesn’t illuminate us. It doesn’t help us. But, even looking at the torch far ahead also doesn’t help.
But, I look, get the torch down. Next. Okay, I can see.
This is a step here. This is a step here. I can take it.
So, we get the torch right in front of us. What can I do about it right now? I’m walking along a road, and suddenly power goes off. So then, everywhere is dark.
Everywhere is dark. I can get fearful. I take out my torch and take one step forward.
Take one step forward. So, engage. Usually, engage can be something as simple as when we feel worried, just take a few deep breaths.
You can close your eyes. Let us take a few deep breaths right now. You can take three deep breaths.
Breathing is… Thank you. Yeah, you can open your eyes. So, breathing is one of the physical things that is very closely connected with the mental.
The breath is a physical act. It’s a physical action, but it’s connected with the mind. So, when the mind starts going wild, when we are worried, our breath also starts going faster.
And just by slowing down the breath, two things happen. First is that… Just let me take a deep breath. Now, that thought is even taking breath.
It is not a very difficult thing to do, but it requires some attention. I have to exhale. I have to inhale.
And just doing this gets the thought of the anxiety of the horror movie that is being shown in the mind. This may go wrong. That may go wrong.
So, we have to get the thought, get the mind of it. So, deep breathing is a simple way by which we can get our mind of the negative thoughts of the horror movie. That’s the first thing that deep breathing does.
And second thing is, because deep breathing is connected with the mind, so just slowing down our breath also slows down the mind. And slowing down the mind helps us find out what I can do. When the mind starts showing us the horror movie, what actually happens is, we start saying, this may go wrong.
And the more we think of things that may go wrong, the more we go wrong. The more we feel disempowered, the more we feel helpless, the more we feel victimised. And then we just can’t do anything.
So, just get the thoughts of the horror movie that is being shown by the mind. So, what can I do about it right now? The first step I may decide is, let me just take a few deep breaths. Let me calm down.
And what can I do? This has happened right now. I can do this. A, B, C. Generally, as I said, there is the mental, there is the physical and there is the spiritual.
So, the mental is at the transition level. There is the mind, there is the body and there is the soul. Now, when at the mental level, we are going off track.
Ultimately, to deal with the mind, we have to come to the spiritual level. But it is very difficult to, it is very difficult to immediately rise from the mental to the spiritual. So, if you can get from the mental down to the physical, even that takes us out of our head.
And then we can rise to the spiritual. So, for example, what I mean by this is, that if I am feeling very worried about things, engage. What can I do right now? I might just, if I am feeling, if I am feeling that my tumour might be cancerous, then let me right now call up a doctor and fix an appointment.
Let me do one thing. Or, let me just write down what I can do. One, two, three.
Just start writing down. That itself helps us to gain a sense of control. It is not complete control.
We can never have complete control. But it is not that we don’t have no controls. So, when we start focussing on how does this affect me and engaging, what can I do about this? These two steps help us to stop the horror movie and start acting tangibly.
Can you go ahead? Yeah. The third is arise. So, I talked about how from the mental we come down to the physical.
What can I do right now? And, now I am going to talk about from the mental how we rise to the spiritual. Arise means rise to a higher level of consciousness. If we are caught in a flood and say we are in the first level where the flood is coming in.
At that time, I feel fearful. What if the flood comes? I may get drowned. What can I do about it? But as I am in this room, I can see the water level rising, rising.
I look around, look around. And, say it’s a house which I was not very familiar with. I have just gone to a place, rented a house and I am staying there.
And, suddenly I discover, hey, behind this door there is a small staircase. And, I just go up the staircase and I find there is a second level. And, I go up.
I feel relieved because the water is no longer threatening me immediately. So, when there is a danger of the water flooding, if I just rise to a higher level, I get relief. So, we need to raise our consciousness.
And, spiritual wisdom helps us to raise our consciousness. We are actually where our consciousness is. So, we are physically sitting here right now.
But, if our consciousness is somewhere else, if our consciousness is, after going home I have to do this work. I have to talk with this person. What will he say? What will she do? Then, we are actually experiencing reality in relationship to where our consciousness is.
So, for example, say there is a sports match. And, a student may be in a class. But, the sports match is going on.
And, the student’s consciousness is all there. What’s happening in the sports match? Is my favourite team winning? Is my favourite team losing? And, the student is experiencing everything. Or, maybe they have their phone somewhere.
They are looking at the latest updates of the score also. And, they are hearing the teacher. And, they look at something bad.
I don’t know what happened. And, although they are physically there, but they are not experiencing anything related with the class. Because, their consciousness is in the sports field.
So, similarly for us, the point which I am making is that we are essentially where our consciousness is. So, if we can raise our consciousness to the spiritual level, then the anxiety substantially goes down. What does it mean to raise our consciousness to the spiritual level? Like I said earlier, if I was trapped in the building, which I thought was one level, and I felt the flood is going to destroy me.
But, then I discover it’s another level. That gives me relief. So, most of us think of ourselves as simply physical creatures.
And, anything goes wrong with the body, this is a threat to me. This is going to destroy me. But, the first insight in spiritual growth is that we are more than our bodies.
Our personality extends far beyond our biology. So, there is a whole another dimension to our being, which we have not yet discovered. And, this, if I know there is a staircase, how do I go up that staircase? There is another level I need to get there.
So, there is another level of existence, level to our being. And, we go to that level through knowledge and through experience. So, through knowledge means just understanding philosophically that I have a spiritual core that itself calms us down.
And, the process of meditation, especially what we practise is called mantra meditation, where we hear spiritual sounds, we recite spiritual sounds. The spiritual sound of mantras, they act like elevators. They raise our consciousness to a higher level.
And, when our consciousness rises to a higher level, we experience relief. So, arise means that we try to practise some spiritual process. When the mind is fearful, the mind is fearful at that time, just we chant the mantra Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram Ram, Hare Hare.
Or, this mantra acts like an elevator for raising our consciousness. So, when we ourselves understand that I am indestructible, then that brings relief. That doesn’t mean the problem has gone away.
We will talk about dealing with the problem. But, the first thing, even if I am in the first level, the water coming in is a problem. But, it’s not as immediate a threat as it was if I was in the first level.
So, when we recognise that I am at my core spiritual, that helps me to calm myself down. And, the second aspect of spiritual understanding is that we are not alone. That we are not alone in this world.
At our core, in our heart, we are souls. But, along with the soul, which is finite consciousness, there is also infinite consciousness. That infinite consciousness is known by different names in different traditions.
The Bhagavad Gita, which is the book, yoga text based on which we are discussing right now, the Bhagavad Gita refers to that infinite consciousness by the name Krishna. Now, there are, as I said earlier, in every situation in our life, there are things in our control, there are things not in our control. The first two steps were for understanding that, okay, what can I do? How does it affect me right now? What can I do about it right now? This is to focus on the things that are not in our, things that are in our control.
Now, when we talk about spirituality, what we are doing is, the next step is, when I rise to spiritual consciousness, the things that are not in my control, they are not an immediate threat to me because I am spiritual. And the second step is, I am not alone. That means there is a higher plan working.
The things that are not in my control are not out of control. There is some plan working. So, when we understand this, this brings some calmness.
So, what happens by these two things is, when we raise our consciousness upwards, we can be concerned but not disturbed. If I am not concerned, that will be irresponsible. Yes, this is a problem, I have to deal with it.
But if I get disturbed, that is also another way of being irresponsible because I am getting so overwhelmed that I can’t deal with the problem. So, when we arise upwards, then we can see, okay, this is a problem, this water is rising, it’s not a threat to me. But immediately, it’s a problem.
If I am high up in a helicopter, I will be rescued. So, I will be concerned. Okay, this is my town, they are my friends, my other people.
I am concerned. But I don’t feel immediately threatened. So, raising our consciousness is vital for addressing fear.
And raising our consciousness has two aspects. One is, I am indestructible. So, this danger is not to me immediately.
And second is, this danger is not just to things wildly carrying out of control. There is some plan. I am not alone.
Let’s move to the last point. Release. Now, release is, again, the things which are not in my control, I said that, what can I do about it? Just let go.
Letting go is not weakness. It is strength. How is it, how can letting go, see, if I let go of things, you know, I am losing control.
And how is that strength? Just right now, in California, there is a wild forest fire that is going on. It has raised large parts of the, one part of California. So, there are, this has happened twice in the history of, you could say, firefighting with forest fires.
Once it happened in Texas, once it happened in California also. So, there were, it is almost similar that thing that happened. There were these firefighters who went deep into the forest to try to extinguish the fire.
And when, so they had their fire hoses and they were connected with the main place where the water was coming, the fire extinguishers, all that they had. And at one particular point, the fire started becoming too much. And they were in communication with their coordinator and told, just come back.
This fire can’t be managed, come back. And the order they gave him was just to drop everything and come back. Now, what happened at that time is they thought, at the fire extinguisher, it gives you a sense of control.
You have something, if a fire comes, I’ll just extinguish it. So, they had some stuff remaining in that fire extinguisher. So, there were around 20 of them.
This is a Texas case. There were 20 of them. And the 10 of them, they just dropped everything and ran back.
The fire extinguisher is not very heavy. The remaining 10, they kept hold of the fire extinguisher. And they also ran back.
And eventually they found that these 10 had held on to the fire extinguisher. They burned to death. And actually, by the time they burned to death, they were only a few dozen feet away from the fire.
And when they calculated, they said that if they had dropped that fire extinguisher and ran, they could have saved themselves. So, letting go is not easy. And at that time, even if I’m letting go of a fire extinguisher, it may seem that it’s weakness, this will protect me.
But actually, that which can protect in one situation can actually hurt in another situation. So, when we say let go, that can, if I’m just letting go in the sense of being irresponsible or negligent, that’s different. But letting go can also be a strength.
When? When we let go to take hold of something else. So, when we get an extreme fear attack, the mind started showing us the horror movie. This may go wrong, that may go wrong, that may go wrong.
At that time, there are certain things which are not in our control. And if we just let go, I don’t know what will happen about this, but I’ll let go of it. What are we doing by this? When we’re letting go, we’re taking hold of our thoughts.
So, if I just focus on letting go of things, and that may seem to be a weakness. But if I understand that I’m taking hold of my thoughts, I will focus on that which is in my control. I’ll focus on fixing my consciousness and spiritual reality.
I’ll focus on doing that which is practical, which I can do. So, for all this, I have to let go. But if I focus on letting go, I’m not losing.
Because, as I said, there are certain things which are not in our control. And many times when I say, how can I let go? Actually, the only thing we’re letting go is the illusion that we had something to let go. Because the thing is anyway not in our control.
If I’m in a relationship and somebody is behaving in an odd way, now what can I do? That person is a different person. And I really don’t have control over them. Is this relationship going to work out? It will work out.
If it’s not going to work out, it’s okay. So, I’ll let go at that time. So, actually, many times when we let go, the only thing we let go is the illusion that we have something to let go.
We really have no control. But we’re acknowledging it. Let go.
We take hold of our thoughts. And we take hold of our thoughts and put them on something constructive. And focus them on that which we can do.
And we’ll find that our fears decrease substantially. Our fears decrease substantially. We start gaining, not just control, but we can start gaining confidence.
We can never have complete control. But what we can gain is enough control to have confidence to deal with the situation. It’s like when we’re driving, we can never control what is going to happen on the road.
But we can have enough confidence. I’ll be able to face whatever comes. That way, by letting go of the things that are not in our control, we can get ourselves to hold on to our thoughts and direct them constructively.
And by this, we’ll find that that which we were fearful of, gradually we start transcending that. The fear itself, in the sense of fearfulness, will decrease. And whatever is the real danger, we will be able to deal with it.
So I’ll summarise what I spoke. And then we will have a short thought exercise where you can write something down. So I spoke today about the topic of overcoming fear.
I talked about how fear is like a negative emotion. I spoke about how fear is like a negative emotion that corrupts the software of the mind. And even if we have good intentions, even if we have a healthy body, I think the user being there, the hardware being there, it can’t function.
And then I talked about the difference between fear and fearfulness. It’s like pain is a protector at the physical level, pointing to physical danger. Fear is a protector at the mental level, pointing to some danger.
But when we feel fear, even when there is no danger, that is fearfulness. And that is undesirable. And then I talked about fear as an acronym.
Does anyone remember? F-E-A-R, first one. No, that is the solution part. That’s correct.
First, something about how fear is false, evidence appearing real. And false evidence appearing real. What was the story we had discussed about that? Yeah, the lady who imagined there is a frog in her belly and then she said there is a baby frog.
So, fear, that means, even if there is some, once the mind has become fearful, that virus has corrupted, even if I remove the stimulus, actually there was no stimulus only, but whatever I thought of the stimulus was removed, still the mind found something else to be fearful of. So we need to deal with it at the level of the mind itself, not just at the level of the body. And then discussed the two unhealthy approaches to dealing with fear.
First, basically related to the fight and flight responses. First was what? F-E-A-R was? Forget everything and run. Yeah, forget everything and run.
And the second was? Fight everything and rule. Rule, yeah. So, this is, when I can’t say, I don’t get the answers to first three questions in my exam.
I can’t do it, I just run. Or, I feel I have to get these answers right. And in trying to get those three answers right, I can’t answer any other questions, also my time runs out.
So, in every situation that we are in, there is something in our control, something not in our control. So, dealing with fears means, firstly we need to separate the two. So, F-E-A-R, we discussed four strategies for dealing with fear.
First two, deal with what is in our control. First two, second two with what is not in our control. So, what were those four? You had mentioned that? Focus, engage, arise and release.
Yes, focus, engage, arise and release. So, in focus, what is the defining question? How does this affect me right now? Okay, I have got this tumour, I have got this swelling, it may be cancerous. How does this affect me right now? Say, I have got this swelling right now.
So, when the mind starts showing the horror movie, you have to press the pause button. So, things can go wrong in two ways, what happens to us and what we will do. So, both ways, you press the pause button through these two questions.
How does this affect me right now? That is first. The second question is, E is engage. What can I do about it right now? So, once I start controlling the things which I can control, then I start getting confidence about dealing with the rest of the things also.
So, what can I do right now about this? And when the mind is showing us this horror movie, it is not so easy to just deal with it at the level of the mind. We have to deal with it at that level. But first is, get to the physical level.
As I said, take some deep breaths. Start writing down, what can I do? When we start doing something tangible, we come out of the mind. And that helps us calm down.
So, breathing helps us to get out of the mind, and it helps us to slow down the mind through slow breathing. The third was, rise. So, we rise to the spiritual level of consciousness through knowledge and through experience.
So, it is like if I am caught in a building with a flood coming, I find out there is a higher level, and I get relief. So, our existence is not just physical. We have a spiritual indestructible core.
And when we rise to the staircase of spiritual knowledge and spiritual experience, go through the process of various processes, one process we will discuss is mantra meditation, then we experience relief. And the second spiritual insight is that we are not alone. Things that are not in our control are not out of control.
There is a higher control, which will be revealed in the course. Both of these can help us to, by raising our consciousness above the threatening stimuli, we can be concerned but not disturbed. The last point was, as we, F-E-A-R, R was release.
Releasing is not weakness, it can also be strength. Because by releasing that which we don’t have much control over, we can focus and gain better control over that which we do have control over. The things out there we don’t have much control.
But our thoughts inside, we can gain control. I talk about firefighters, who by hesitating to give up their fire extinguishers, they perished. And those who were ready to give it up, they were able to go out to safety.
So similarly, by focussing on, by letting go of the things that are not in our control, however they work out, I’ll deal with it. Let me focus on my thoughts right now. By this, we will be able to deal with our situations.
Whatever fearful situations they may be, we’ll be able to deal with them calmly and constructively. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So, I thought we could have some thought exercise now. Do you have time? So, most of you have your notebooks or your phones. So you can think of any one fear that is troubling you very much at this point.
And just ask, can you go back? Who’s operating that? Just go back to the first two questions. Ask yourself, how does this affect me right now? And what can I do about it right now? So, you can take around three minutes. And you can write this down for yourself.
Any fear that is worrying you right now, ask yourself, how does this affect me right now? And what can I do about it right now?