Why do we experience Fear?

We fear nothing but loss. We eat well because we fear the loss of our health. We work hard because we fear the loss of our wealth. We are nice to others because we fear the loss of our reputation. We fear the loss of our life, loss of our loved ones ... We even fear God! Why is it that we live our entire life on the energy of fear? The answer is that we are conditioned that way. If everything is going well, we are told not to laugh too much for we could end up crying tomorrow. Why is this fear so much a part of the fabric of our lives? Can we not just be normal and happy?

We don’t fear ‘fear’; rather, we fear consequences. Religion has made us fear the consequences of our acts. The priests tell us that if we do this, we will go to hell and if we don’t do this, we will go to heaven. Fear is given to us as a survival instinct. But that simply indicates that we do not have faith. Because if we have faith, then what’s to fear! Thus, fear is actually an admission to lack of faith.

So what is the antidote to fear? There is an energy that is equally strong, equally powerful, equally and easily accessible, and is very positive: the energy of the ego. Most religions and philosophers tell us that the ego is bad; that we should demolish it. But we are children of the Universe. The Divine is our parent. So what have we to fear? Take, for example, a young girl entering a big school for the first time. She looks at all the older students and is afraid of them. But if her parent is the headmaster of the school, she will have no fear and will walk in to the school boldly because her parent is the boss of the school. So when our parent is the boss of the Universe, what’s to fear! All we have to do is to allow our ego to become so big that it engulfs the whole Universe and thereby ceases to exist.

There is another antidote to fear: courage born of faith. When we have courage which comes from faith, we can overcome fear. Because when we have faith, we know that everything is perfect anyway!