the root of fear

Today I feel to talk a little more about fear. Death and fear are closely associated for most people, and the fear of death is a root fear. Almost all our other fears depend on this fear of death. For example, the fear of not having any money, or not having enough money, cannot really exist unless we also fear death. Death is so much more significant than our other concerns and worries in life, and the strongest of those concerns and worries relate to our ongoing life: our survival. That is, they relate to avoiding death.

So if our fear of death should disappear, then many other fears would drop away with it. Indeed, we could say that death is the root fear, and going beyond the fear of death means that all fears drop away, and we come to live in a state of fearlessness. And remember also, by fear we mean worries and anxieties. So going beyond the fear of death we come to a space, a way of living which is free of anxiety, free of worry. And of course this allows life to be enjoyed, for almost all our misery relates to fear, worry, anxiety, in one form or another. This is why facing death, looking into it, especially the fear of death, is so important on the spiritual journey.

Enlightenment is a state of fearlessness. We do not have the same psychological fears about anything. We are relaxed about whatever is happening in life, and we are relaxed about the prospect of death. But to open up the space for such fearlessness, we have to look into fear, the whole mechanism of fear, and sooner or later that means looking into the fear of death. It is really the fear of no longer existing psychologically, a fear that this stream of consciousness will cease to exist. And it is rather a strange fear is it not, because every night when you enter into the deepest state of sleep, your stream of consciousness stops. Perhaps for three or four hours you do not exist in that way. And if you were never to wake up from that deep sleep, you would be none the wiser. There would be no problem at all, for you at least – for other people, perhaps: those that have an attachment to you, or dependence upon you. But for you there would be no problem. No problem at all.

And so this cessation of the self as an individual consciousness is not really something to be afraid of. And the other great irony in the fear of death is that this self, this separate self that is going to come to an end, is really an illusion. We are not separate. And of course meditation and the spiritual journey is largely about feeling this for ourself, our deep interconnectedness with all that is, our divinity, our non-separation. And of course, enlightenment is partly about recognising that the self does not exist as a separate being. There is no separation.

So with enlightenment, that illusion of separation disappears, and the same is true at death. If we have not become enlightened before death, then effectively it happens at the moment of death: there is no longer the illusion of the separate self. So again, our fear is rather unfounded. We are afraid of the ending of the separate self when that separate self is but an illusion. Another way of putting it is that we are afraid of the truth: the simple truth that we are all part of one.

Enough for now.