Until we are free from fear
"Fear is one of the greatest problems in life. A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted and aggressive. It dare not move away from its own patterns of thinking, and this breeds hypocrisy. Until we are free from fear, climb the highest mountain, invent every kind of God, we will always remain in darkness."- Jiddhu Krishnamaruti
An innocent mind has no fear
"What brings freedom from fear, and I assure you the freedom is complete,is to be aware of fear without the word, without trying to deny or escape from fear, without wanting to be in some other state. If with complete attention you are aware of the fact that there is fear, then you will find that the observer and the observed are one: there is no division between them. There is no observer who says, 'I am afraid'; there is only fear, without the word which indicates that state. The mind is no longer escaping, no longer seeking to get rid of fear, no longer trying to find the cause, and therefore it is no longer a slave to words. There is only a movement of learning, which is the outcome of innocence, and an innocent mind has no fear."
- Jiddhu Krishnamaruti
Fear is not merely on the surface of the mind
"To understand this problem of fear, you have to go into it most profoundly, because fear is not merely on the surface of the mind. Fear is not just being afraid of your neighbour or of losing a job; it is much deeper than that, and to understand it requires deep penetration. To penetrate deeply you need a very sharp mind, and the mind is not made sharp by mere argumentation or avoidance. One has to go into the problem step by step, and that is why it is very important to comprehend this whole process of naming. When you name a whole group of people by calling them Muslims, or what you will, you have got rid of them; you don't have to look at them as individuals, so the name, the word, has prevented you from being a human being in relationship with other human beings. In the same way, when you name a feeling, you are not looking at the feeling, you are not totally with the fact."
How do we end fear?
"We are discussing something which needs your attention, not your agreement or disagreement. We are looking at life most rigorously, objectively, clearly -not according to your sentiment, your fancy, what you like or don't like. It's what we like and don't like that has created this misery. All that we are saying is this: 'How do we end fear?' That's one of our great problems, because if a human being can't end it he lives in darkness everlastingly, not everlastingly in the Christian sense but in the ordinary sense; one life is good enough. For me, as a human being, there must be a way out and not by creating a hope in some future. Can I as a human being end fear, totally; not little bits of it? Probably you've never put this question to yourself, and probably you've not put the question because you don't know how to get out of it. But if you did put that question most seriously, with the intention of finding out not how to end it, but with the intention of finding out the nature and the structure of fear, the moment you have found out, fear itself comes to an end; you don't have to do anything about it.
When we are aware of it and come into contact with it directly, the observer is the observed. There is no difference between the observer and the thing observed. When fear is observed without the observer, there is action, but not the action of the observer acting upon fear."
The Root of All Fear
"The craving to become causes fears; to be, to achieve, and so to depend engenders fear. The state of the nonfear is not negation, it is not the opposite of fear nor is it courage. In understanding the cause of fear, there is its cessation, not the becoming courageous, for in all becoming there is the seed of fear. Dependence on things, on people, or on ideas breeds fear; dependence arises from ignorance, from the lack of self-knowledge, from inward poverty; fear causes uncertainty of mind-heart, preventing communication and understanding. Through self-awareness we begin to discover and so comprehend the cause of fear, not only the superficial but the deep casual and accumulative fears. Fear is both inborn and acquired; it is related to the past, and to free thought-feeling from it, the past must be comprehended through the present. The past is ever wanting to give birth to the present which becomes the identifying memory of the "me" and the "mine" the "I". The self is the root of all fear."
Fear Makes Us Obey
"Why do we do all this:obey, follow, copy? Why? Because we are frightened inwardly to be uncertain. We want to be certain, we want to be certain financially, we want to be certain morally,we want to be approved, we want to be in a safe position, we want never to be confronted with trouble, pain, suffering, we want to be enclosed. So, fear, consciously or unconsciously, makes us obey the Master, the leader, the priest, the government. Fear also controls us from doing something which may be harmful to others, because we will be punished. So behind all these actions, greeds, pursuits, lurks this desire for certainty, this desire to be assured. So, without resolving fear, without being free from fear, merely to obey or to be obeyed has little significance; what has meaning is to understand this fear from day to day and how fear shows itself in different ways. It is only when there is freedom from fear that there is that inward quality of understanding, that aloneness in which there is no accumulation of knowledge or of experience, and it is that alone which gives extraordinary clarity in the pursuit of the real."
Freedom from Fear
"Is it possible for the mind to empty itself totally of fear? Fear of any kind breeds illusion; it makes the mind dull, shallow. Where there is fear there is obviously no freedom, and without freedom there is no love at all. And most of us have some form of fear; fear of darkness, fear of public opinion, fear of snakes, fear of physical pain, fear of old age, fear of death. We have literally dozens of fears. And is it possible to be completely free of fear?
We can see what fear does to each one of us. It makes one tell lies; it corrupts one in various ways; it makes the mind empty, shallow. There are dark corners in the mind which can never be investigated and exposed as long as one is afraid. Physical self-protection, the instinctive urge to keep away from the venomous snake, to draw back from the precipice, to avoid falling under the tramcar, and so on, is sane, normal, healthy. But I am asking about the psychological self-protectiveness which makes one afraid of disease, of death, of an enemy. When we seek fulfillment in any form, whether through painting, through music, through relationship, or what you will, there is always fear. So, what is important is to be aware of this whole process of oneself, to observe, to learn about it, and not ask how to get rid of fear. When you merely want to get rid of fear, you will find ways and means of escaping from it, and so there can never be freedom from fear."
Dealing with Fear
"One is afraid of public opinion, afraid of not achieving, not fulfilling, afraid of not having the opportunity; and through it all there is this extraordinary sense of guilt;one has done a thing that one should not have done; the sense of guilt in the very act of doing; one is healthy and others are poor and unhealthy; one has food and others have no food. The more the mind is inquiring, penetrating, asking, the greater the sense of guilt, anxiety. Fear is the urge that seeks a Master, a guru; fear is this coating of respectability, which every one loves so dearly;to be respectable. Do you determine to be courageous to face events in life, or merely rationalize fear away, or find explanations that will give satisfaction to the mind that is caught in fear? How do you deal with it? Turn on the radio, read a book, go to a temple, cling to some form of dogma, belief?
Fear is the destructive energy in man. It withers the mind, it distorts thought, it leads to all kinds of extraordinarily clever and subtle theories, absurd superstitions, dogmas, and beliefs. If you see that fear is destructive, then how do you proceed to wipe the mind clean? You say that by probing into the cause of fear you would be free of fear. Is that so? Trying to uncover the cause and knowing the cause of fear does not eliminate fear."
Fear is a psychological process
"Fear is not only a response of the adrenal glands but also a psychological process. To understand fear, not intellectually but actually to be free of it, one requires very keen observation, one has to look at it very closely. When the mind - which has been trained in a culture that accepts fear as part of life with all its violence - understands fear then perhaps we can be completely free not only consciously but also unconsciously. To go into this question of fear one has to be aware, that is one has to watch one's own fear, not the fear that one is told about or the fear of the unknown, but the actual fear that one has."
Fear can be ended totally
"The speaker is saying that fear can be totally ended. Don’t say, “It is for the illumined one” and all that nonsense. You can end it if you put your brain, your heart into it—completely, not partially. And then you will see for yourself what immense beauty there is in it; a sense of utter freedom—not freedom of a country or of some government, but the sense of the enormity of freedom, the greatness of freedom. Will you do it—today, now? From today, seeing the cause of fear, end it. As long as there is fear—biologically, physically, psychologically—it destroys us. So, if one may ask, after listening to this fact, not theory, what are you going to do? Time is the factor of fear and thought; so if you don’t change now, you won’t ever change. It is constant postponement."
Thought breeds fear
"How do these psychological fears arise? What is their origin? That is the issue. There is the fear of something that happened yesterday; the fear of something that might happen later on today or tomorrow. There is the fear of what we have known, and there is the fear of the unknown, which is tomorrow. One can see for oneself very clearly that fear arises through the structure of thought—through thinking about that which happened yesterday of which one is afraid, or through thinking about the future. Right? Thought breeds fear, doesn’t it? Please let us be quite sure; do not accept what the speaker is saying; be absolutely sure for yourself as to whether thought is the origin of fear."
Reference
1. Daily Quote from Jiddhu Krishnamaruti accessed from http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/daily-quote-archive.php
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