7. Fear
The resistance; energy and attention
Paris, April 13, 1969
Most of us are trapped in physical and psychological habits. Some of us are aware of them and others are not. If we realize those habits, is it possible then to end a particular habit instantly and not drag it for many months and years? If we realize a certain habit, is it possible that we end it without any struggle and that the smoking habit, the unique shaking of the head, the habitual smile or any of the different peculiar habits we have cease instantly? Is it possible to realize the endless chatter about swimmers, the restlessness of the mind; can one do it without resistance or any control, so that it ceases easily without effort, immediately? In that there are several things involved: first, the understanding that fighting something as a particular habit develops a form of resistance against that habit; and one learns that resistance, in any form, breeds more conflict. If we resist a habit, we try to repress it and fight it, we waste in the struggle to control it the same energy needed to understand it. In that a second thing is involved: we assume that time is necessary and that any particular habit has to end slowly, it has to be suppressed little by little.
We are accustomed on the one hand to the idea that the only way to get rid of a habit is through resistance and the development of an opposite habit and, on the other hand, to the idea that we can only do it gradually over a period of weather. But if we examine the matter, we see that any form of resistance breeds more conflict, and also that time, taking many days, weeks, years, does not really end the habit. And we ask if it is possible to end a habit without resistance and without time, immediately.
To free ourselves from fear what is required is not resistance for a period of time but the energy that can cope with this habit and dissolve it immediately: that is attention. Attention is the same essence of all energy. Paying attention means giving our mind, our heart and our total physical energy to the act of caring, and with that energy to cope with or realize the particular habit; Then you will see that the habit has lost its support and disappears instantly.
One may think that their various habits lack special importance; if one has them, what does it matter! Or find excuses for your habits. But if one could establish the quality of attention in the mind, once the mind grasped the fact - the truth that energy is attention and that attention is necessary to dissolve any particular habit - then realizing a habit or tradition in particular, one would see that it ceases completely.
We have a habitual way of speaking, or we are pleased chatting endlessly about swimming, but if we become sensitively alert, attentive, then we have an extraordinary energy, energy that is not generated by resistance, as most of the energies are. This energy of attention is freedom. If we understand this real and deeply, not as a theory but as a true fact that we have experienced, a fact that we have seen and which we have fully realized, then we can proceed to inquire into the total nature and structure of fear. And we must keep in mind when we talk about this rather complicated issue, that verbal communication between you and the speaker speaks to you quite difficult; and that if one does not listen with sufficient care and attention, communication is not possible. If you think of one thing and the speaker talks about something different, then it is obvious that the communication ceases. If you are worried about any particular fear and all your attention is focused on that fear, then the verbal communication between you and the speaker also ends. To communicate verbally there must be a quality of care in which there is interest in which there is intensity, urgency to understand this issue of fear.
More important than communication is communion. Communication is verbal, and communion is not. Two people who know each other very well can, without saying a word, fully understand, immediately, because they have established some form of communication between them. When we face such a complicated issue as fear there must be communion as much as verbal communication, both of them have to go together all the time or else we will not be working together. Having said all this - it was necessary to do so - consider the question of fear.
It is not that we have to be free from fear. As soon as we try to free ourselves from fear, we create resistance against it. The resistance, in any form, does not end with fear will always be there, even when we try to escape it, resist it, control it, and so on. Controlling it, running away, repressing it, are all forms of resistance, and fear continues even when we develop greater strength to resist it. We are not talking about being free from fear. Being free of something is not freedom. Understand this, please, because in examining this problem, if you have paid full attention to what has been said, you should leave this room without any fear. That is the only thing that matters, and not what the one who speaks to you says or does not say, or whether or not you agree; what matters is to end psychologically with fear, absolutely, in the most intimate of our being.
Therefore, it is not that one has to be free from fear or have to resist it, but one must understand all the nature and structure of fear, understand it. That implies learning about him, observing him, and coming into direct contact with him. We have to learn about fear, not how to escape it, or how to resist it through courage, etc. We have to learn. What does that word "learn" mean? Surely it is not accumulating knowledge about fear. It would be rather useless to examine the matter unless we fully understand this. We think that learning implies the accumulation of knowledge about something. If we want to learn Italian, it is necessary to accumulate words and their meaning, grammar and how to combine sentences, etc., and having accumulated knowledge, then one can speak that particular language. That is, there is accumulation of knowledge and then action; Time is involved in it. Now, that accumulation is not learning. True learning is always in the present asset, and is not the result of having accumulated knowledge; Learning is an action that is always in the present. Most of us are used to the idea of accumulating, above all, knowledge, information, experience, and acting from there. We are saying something entirely different. Knowledge is always in the past, and when we act, the past determines that action. We say that learning is in the action itself, and that, therefore, there is never accumulation of knowledge.
Learning about fear is in the present and is something fresh. If I face fear with the knowledge of the past, with memories and associations of the past, I am not face to face with fear and, therefore, I do not learn about it. I can do that only if my mind is fresh, new. And that is our difficulty because we always approach fear with all the associations, memories, incidents and experiences that prevent us from looking at it and learning about it in a new way.
There are many fears - fear of death, darkness, loss of employment, husband or wife, fear of insecurity, loneliness, not achieving something, not being loved, not being a success . Are not these various fears the expression of a basic fear? Then one wonders: Are we going to deal with a particular fear, or are we dealing with the fact of the fear itself?
We want to understand the nature of fear, and not how it is expressed in a certain direction. If we can face the basic fact of fear, then we can solve or do something about a particular fear. Therefore, do not take your particular fear to say: I have to solve this, but understand the nature and structure of fear; Then they will know what to do with that particular fear.
See the importance of the mind being in a state in which there is no fear, because where there is fear there is darkness, and the mind becomes dull; Then he looks for several escapes, stimulation through entertainment - it doesn't matter if he entertains himself in the church or in the soccer field or with the radio. Such a mind is afraid, unable to see clearly and does not know what it means to love; I may know pleasure, but surely you don't know what it means to love. Fear destroys and shaves the mind.
There is physical fear and psychological fear. There is physical fear of danger, such as encountering a snake or facing a precipice. That fear, the physical fear of facing danger, is it not intelligence? There is a precipice there; I see it and react immediately, I do not approach. Well, isn't that fear, the intelligence that tells me: be careful, is there danger? That intelligence has accumulated over time, others have fallen, or my mother or my friend has told me: Be careful with that precipice. So in that physical expression of fear are memory and intelligence working simultaneously. There is also the psychological fear of physical fear we have experienced, that of having suffered a disease that caused us a lot of pain. Having experienced pain, which is a purely physical phenomenon, we do not wish it to be repeated, and we have the psychological fear of that pain even though it has ceased to be real. Well, can that psychological fear be understood so that it doesn't come back at all? I have had pain - most of us have suffered it - I had it last week or a year ago. The pain was desperate, and I don't want it to repeat itself and I fear it may come back. What has happened? Listen to this carefully, please. There is the memory of that pain, and the thought says: `` Do not let it be repeated, be careful. '' Thinking about past pain causes fear of recurrence, and thought attracts fear about itself. That is a particular form of fear, that is, the fear that the disease will recur with its pain.
There are all the different psychological fears that arise from thinking: the fear of what the neighbor may say fear of not being highly distinguished and respectable, fear of not complying with social morality - which is immorality -, fear of losing the employment, fear of loneliness, fear of anxiety (which is fear in itself), etc., being all the product of a life based on thought.
There are not only conscious fears, but also deep and hidden fears in the psyche, in the deepest layers of the mind. We can face conscious fears, but it is much harder to do it with secret and deep fears. How can one make those deep, unconscious, hidden fears come to the surface and be exposed? Can the conscious mind do it? Can the conscious mind, with its active thinking, discover the unconscious, the hidden? (We are not using the word "unconscious" in a technical way; only in the sense of not being aware or not knowing the hidden levels, that is all). Can the conscious mind, the one that is trained in order to adjust itself to survive, to continue things as they are - you know how tricky this conscious mind is - can that conscious mind discover the entire contents of the unconscious? I don't think I can do it. You may discover a layer and interpret it according to its conditioning. But that interpretation itself in accordance with its conditioning will harm the conscious mind later, so that it will be even less able to fully examine the subsequent layer.
We see that the mere conscious effort to examine the deepest content of the psyche becomes extremely difficult unless the superficial mind is completely free of all conditioning, of all prejudice, of all fear - otherwise, she is incapable of watch. One sees that this is extremely difficult and perhaps totally impossible. Therefore, one wonders: is there any other way that is entirely different?
Can the mind free itself from fear through analysis, self-analysis or professional analysis? In that there is something else involved. When I analyze and look at myself, layer after layer, examine, judge, evaluate; I say: "This is correct, " "This is incorrect, " "I will keep this, " "I will discard this." When I analyze myself, am I different from the thing I analyze? I have to answer this for myself and see the truth about it. Is the analyzer different from the thing it analyzes, say jealousy? It is no different, he is those jealousy, and tries to separate himself from jealousy as the entity that says: "I will observe jealousy, get rid of them, or be in contact with them." But jealousy and the analyzer are part of each other.
Time is involved in the analysis process, that is, I need many days or many years to analyze myself. At the end of many years I am still afraid. Therefore, analysis is not the way. The analysis takes a long time and when the house is burning, one does not sit down to analyze, or visit a professional to say: "Tell me something about myself, please." One has to act. Analysis is a form of escape, laziness and inefficiency. (It may be fine for a neurotic to go to an analyst, but even then it will not completely end the neurosis. But, that is another matter.)
The solution is not the analysis of the unconscious by the conscious. The mind has seen that and says: "I will not analyze more because I see the futility of doing so"; "I will not resist fear anymore." Do you realize what has happened to the mind? When you have discarded the traditional method of analysis, resistance, time, what has happened to the mind itself? She has become extraordinarily sharp. Because of the need to observe oneself, he has become extraordinarily intense, sharp, alive. The mind wonders if there is any other way to address this problem of discovering all its content: the past, racial heritage, family, the weight of cultural and religious tradition, the product of two thousand or ten thousand years. Can the mind be free of all that, can it completely discard it and, therefore, get rid of all fear?
We have this problem, a problem that an acute mind - the mind that has rejected all forms of analysis that necessarily takes time and for which tomorrow does not exist - has to be completely and now solved. Therefore there is no ideal; It is not a question of a future that says: "I will be free of it." So the mind is now in a state of complete attention. He has stopped escaping and no longer invents time as a way to solve the problem; has stopped analyzing or resisting. The mind itself then has an entirely new quality.
Psychologists say we should dream or else we will go crazy. I wonder: "why should I dream in any way?" Is there a way of life that does not require dreaming at all? Because if one does not dream at all then the mind really rests. The mind has been active all day, watching, listening, inquiring, looking at the beauty of a cloud, the face of an attractive person, the water, the movement of life, everything. He has been watching and watching, and when he sleeps he must have complete rest; otherwise, upon waking up the next morning she is tired and is still old.
One wonders then if there is any way of not dreaming at all, so that during sleep the mind enjoys complete rest and comes up with qualities that cannot appear during waking hours. It is a fact, and not an assumption, theory, invention or hope, that this is possible only when one is fully awake during the day, observing all activity of thought, of feeling; awake to every motivation, to every suggestion, to every hint of what is deep inside, deeply; awake when he talks, when he walks, when he hears someone, when he observes his ambition, his jealousy, when he observes his response to the "glory of France", when he reads a book that says: "his religious beliefs are nonsense"; when you look to see what is involved in the belief.
Be fully awake during waking hours, when you are sitting in a bus, when you talk to your wife, your children, your friend, when you smoke - why do you smoke - when you read a police novel - why do you read that? when they go to the movies - why - for the excitement, for the sex? When you see a beautiful tree or the movement of a cloud in the sky, be completely attentive to what happens inside and outside of yourself, and then you will see that when you sleep you do not dream, and that when you wake up the next morning, the mind is Fresh, intense and alive.
