THERE ARE THE fears that are deeply hidden, of which you are not conscious, and the obvious psychological and physical fears.
There is fear of insecurity, of not having jobs, or having jobs, being frightened to lose them, of the various forms of strikes that are going on, and so on and so on. So most of us are rather nervous, frightened of not being completely physically secure. Obviously, but why? Is it because we are always isolating ourselves as a nation, as a family, as a group? Is this slow process of isolation—the French isolating themselves, also the Germans, and so on—gradually bringing about insecurity for all of us? Can we observe this, not only outwardly? By observing what is happening outwardly, knowing exactly what is going on, from there we can begin to investigate in ourselves. Otherwise we have no criteria; otherwise we deceive ourselves. So we must begin from the outer and work towards the inner. It is like a tide that is going out and coming in. It is not a fixed tide, it is moving out and in all the time.
This isolation, which has been the tribal expression of every human being, is bringing about physical lack of security. If one sees the truth of it as a fact, and not the verbal explanation or the intellectual acceptance of an idea, then one doesn’t belong to any group, to any nation, to any culture, to any organized religion, because they are all so separative—the Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, and so on. Will you do that, as we are discussing together? Will you drop the things that are false, that are not factual, that have no value whatsoever? Though we think they have value, when you observe, nationality actually breeds wars. So can we drop that so that physically we can bring about a unity of man? And this unity can come about only through religion, not the phoney religions that we have. I hope I am not offending anybody. The Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, the Muslim religions are based on thought, put together by thought. And that which thought has created is not sacred, it is just thought, it is just an idea. And you project an idea, symbolize it, then worship it. In that symbol, or in that image, or in that ritual, there is absolutely nothing sacred. And if one actually observes this, then one is free from it to find out what true religion is, because that may bring us together.
So, we can go into much deeper levels of fear, which are psychological fears. Psychological fears in our relationships, psychological fears with regard to the future, fears of the past—that is, fears of time. Please, I am not a professor, a scholar delivering a sermon and then going back to his rotten life. This is something that is very, very serious, which affects all our lives, so please give it your attention and care. There are fears in relationship, fears of uncertainty, fears of the past and the future, fears of not knowing, fears of death, fears of loneliness, the agonizing sense of solitude: You may be related to others, you may have a great many friends, you may be married, you may have children, but there is this sense of deep isolation, this sense of loneliness. That is one of the factors of fear.
There is also the fear of not being able to fulfil. And the desire to fulfil brings with it the sense of frustration, and in that there is fear. There is fear of not being able to be absolutely clear about everything. So there are many, many forms of fear. You can observe your own particular fear, if you are interested, if you are serious. Because a mind that is frightened, knowingly or unknowingly, can try to meditate, but that meditation only leads to further misery, further corruption, because a mind that is frightened can never see what truth is. We are going to find out if it is possible to be totally, completely, free of fear in all its depth.
You know we are undertaking a job that demands a very careful observation: to observe one’s own fear. And how you observe that fear is all important. How do you observe it? Is it a fear that you have remembered, and so recall and then look at? Or is it a fear that you have had no time to observe and is therefore still present? Or is the mind unwilling to look at fear? Which is it that is actually happening? Are we unwilling to look, to observe our own fears because most of us do not know how to resolve them? Either we escape, run away, or analyse, thinking thereby we will get rid of a fear, but the fear is still there. So it is important to find out how we look at that fear.
How do we observe fear? This is not a silly question because either you observe it after it has happened or you observe it as it is happening. For most of us, the observation takes place after it has happened. Now, we are asking whether it is possible to observe fear as it arises. That is, you are threatened by another belief. You hold a belief very strongly, so you are frightened about this. You have certain beliefs, certain experiences, certain opinions, judgements, and evaluations. When someone is challenging these there is either resistance, building a wall against it, or you are afraid that you are going to be attacked. Now, can you observe that fear as it arises? Are you doing it? How do you observe that fear? There is the recognition of the response that you call fear—because you had that fear previously, the memory of it is stored up, and when the fear arises you recognize it, right? So you are not observing but recognizing.
Recognition doesn’t free the mind from fear. It only strengthens the fear. There are two factors in operation. You feel you are different from that fear, and so you can operate on that fear, control it, chase it away, rationalize it, and so on. That is you doing something about that fear, but in that there is a division—the me and the fear—so there is conflict in that division. Whereas, if you observe, that fear is you. You are not different from that fear. If you once grasp the principle that the observer is the observed, that the fact is that the observer is that fear, then there is no division between the observer and the fear.
Then what takes place? Let’s first hold it for a minute. As we asked, are we observing fear through the process of memory, which is recognition, naming? From that, the tradition says control it; the tradition says run away from it; the tradition says do something about it so that you are not frightened. So tradition has educated us to say that the ‘me’ is different from fear. Can you be free of that tradition and observe that fear? Can you observe without the thought that has remembered the reaction that has been called fear in the past? It requires great attention and skill in observation. In observing there is only pure perception, not the interpretation of that perception by thought. Then what is fear? Now I have observed someone threatening the belief that I hold, the experience that I cling to, my saying that I have achieved, and therefore the fear arises. In observing that fear, we have come to the point when you observe without the division.
Now, the next question is: What is fear? Fear of the dark; fear of husband, wife, girl, or whatever; fear, artificial and actual, and so on? What is fear, apart from the word? The word is not the thing. One must recognize this very deeply. The word is not the thing.
So without the word, what is that which we call fear? Or does the word create the fear? The word creates the fear, the word being the recognition of something that has happened before, which we have called fear. The word becomes important. Like the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Russian, the word is tremendously important for most of us. But the word is not the thing. So what is fear apart from its various expressions? What is the root of it? If we can find the root of it then unconscious and conscious fears can be understood. The moment you have a perception of the root, the conscious mind and the unconscious mind have no importance. There is just the perception of it. What is the root of fear? Fear of yesterday, of a thousand yesterdays, fear of tomorrow, and of death. Or the fear of something that has happened in the past. There is no actual fear now. Please understand this carefully. If suddenly death strikes one, it is finished. It is over. You have a heart attack and it is finished. But the idea that a heart attack might happen in the future is fear. Is the root of fear time, time being a movement of the past, modified in the present, and going on in the future? Is this whole movement the cause of fear, the root of it?
We are asking if thought, which is time, is the root of fear. Thought is movement. Any movement is time. Is the root of fear time? Thought? And can we understand the whole movement of time, psychologically as well as physically? Psychological time is the tomorrow, and so is tomorrow the root of fear? Which means we are talking about daily living not just theories. Can one live without tomorrow? Do it. That is, if you had a physical pain yesterday, to finish with that pain yesterday, and not carry it over to today and into tomorrow. It is the carrying over which is the time that brings fear.
It is totally possible that psychological fear can end if you apply what is being said. The cook can make a marvellous dish but if you are not hungry, if you don’t eat it, then it merely remains on the menu and is of no value. But if you eat it, apply it, go into it for yourself, you will see that psychological fear can absolutely come to an end, so that the mind is free from this terrible burden man has carried.