The base of all fear

Beloved Master, what is fear?

Osho: "There are fears and fears; I am not talking about them. I am talking about the most fundamental fear - all other fears are faraway echoes of the basic fear - and that fear is of death. Life is surrounded by death. You see every day somebody dying - something dying; something that was alive a moment before is dead.

Each death reminds you of your own death.

It is impossible to forget your own death; every moment there is a reminder. So the first thing to be understood is that the only possibility of getting rid of fear is to get rid of death. And you can get rid of death, because death is only an idea, not a reality.

You have only seen other people dying; have you ever seen yourself dying? And when you see somebody else dying, you are an outsider, not a participant in the experience. The experience is happening inside the person. All that you know is that he is no longer breathing, that his body has become old, that his heart is no longer beating. But do you think all these things put together are equivalent to life? Is life only breathing? Is life only the heartbeat, the blood circulating and keeping the body warm? If this is life, it is not worth the game. If only my breathing is my life, what is the point of going on breathing?

Life must be something more. To be of any value life must have something of eternity in it; it must be something beyond death. And you can know it, because it exists within you. Life exists within you - death is only an experience of others, outside observers.

It is simply like love. Can you understand love by seeing a person being loving to someone? What will you see? They are hugging each other, but is hugging love? You may see they are holding hands together, but is holding hands love? From the outside, what else can you discover about love? Anything that you discover will be absolutely futile. These ware expressions of love, but not love itself. Love is something one knows only when one is in it.

One of the greatest poets of India, Rabindranath Tagore, was very much embarrassed by an old man who was his grandfather's friend. The old man often used to come because he lived in the neighborhood, and he would never leave the house without creating trouble for Rabindranath. He would certainly knock on his doors and ask: "How is your poetry going? Do you really know God? Do you really know love? Tell me, do you know all these things that you talk about in your poetry? Or are you just articulate with words? Any idiot can talk about love, about God, about the soul. but I don't see in your eyes that you have experienced anything."

And Rabindranath could not answer him. In fact he was right. The old man would meet him in the marketplace and hold him and ask him: "What about your God, have you found him? Or are you still writing poetry about him? Remember, talking about God is not knowing God."

He was a very embarrassing person. In poets' gatherings, where Rabindranath was very much respected - he was a Nobel prize winner - that old man was bound to reach. On the stage, before all the poets and worshippers of Rabindranath, he would hold him by his collar and would say: "Still it has not happened. Why are you deceiving these idiots? They are smaller idiots, you are a bigger idiot; they are not known outside the land, you are known all over the world - but that does not mean that you know God."

Rabindranath has written in his diary: "I was so much harassed by him, and he had such penetrating eyes that it was impossible to tell a lie to him. His very presence was such that either you had to say the truth, or you had to remain silent." But one day it happened. Rabindranath had gone for a morning walk. In the night it had rained; it was very early morning and the sun was rising. In the ocean it was all gold, and by the side of the streets water had gathered in small pools. In those small pools also the sun was rising with the same glory, with the same color, with the same joy. And just this experience - that in existence there is nothing superior and nothing inferior, that all is one whole - suddenly triggered something in him. For the first time in his life he went to the old man's house, knocked on the door, looked into the eyes of the old man and said: "Now, what do you say?"

He said: "Now there is nothing to say. It has happened. I bless you."

The experience of your immortality, of your eternity, of your wholeness, of your oneness with existence is always possible. It only needs some triggering experience.

So the first thing is to get rid of death. All fears will disappear. You don't habve to work on each single fear; otherwise it will take lives and still you will not be able to get rid of them.

Fear is natural, because death is known by everybody around. Guilt is not natural; it is created by religions. They have made every man guilty - guilty of a thousand and one things, so burdened with guilt that they cannot sing, they cannot dance, they cannot enjoy anything. The guilt poisons everything. All the religions have conspired against innocent human beings to make them guilty, because without making them guilty they cannot be made into slaves. And slaves are needed. For a few people's lust for power, millions of people are needed to be enslaved. For a few people to become Alexander the Great, millions have to be reduced to a sub-human status.

But all these are simply conditionings in the mind, which you can erase as easily as writing in the sands on a beach. Just don't be afraid, because those writings you have accepted as holy, you have accepted as coming from very respectable sources, from great founders of religions. It does not matter. Only one thing matters: that your mind should be completely cleaned, utterly empty and silent.

There is no need of Moses or Jesus or Buddha to reside inside you. You need a totally silent, clean space. And only that space can bring you not only to me, but to yourself, to existence itself.

The religions of the world have given so many diseases to man that they are uncountable. One of the diseases is that they have made every man ambitious for reward - if not in this world then in the other world. They have made man so greedy, and at the same time they are all talking against greed. But their whole religion is based on greed.

Religions have done such harm that they cannot be forgiven. They have taken away all dignity of man - his joy of longing, of love, his pleasure in waiting, his trust that the spring will come. They have taken everything away from you. You will be rewarded only if you do certain rituals which have no relationship, no relevance.

A simple and innocent religion would have changed the whole earth. But the cunning priests would not allow a pure and innocent and childlike religion, with wondering eyes, with joy, not bothering about stupid ideas about heaven and hell but living each moment with great love. And waiting for more - not desiring, but by waiting, deserving, creating more and more space, silence, so that the spring comes. And not only a few flowers, but so many flowers...

One of the Sufi mystics has a small poem about it: "I had waited long for the spring - it came. And it came so abundantly, with so many flowers, that there was not a place left where I could make a nest for myself."

Life gives abundantly; you just have to be a recipient. But never wait for any reward.

I want you to be absolutely innocent of all religious corruption and pollution. Have a silent, loving mind, waiting for more to happen. Life is so much that we go on exploring it - but we cannot exhaust it. The mystery is timeless."

Osho, The Golden Future # 12