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XX. FREEDOM FROM FEAR
"I salute the great preceptors who, on their part, have bestowed upon all total freedom from fear."
The above salutation occurs in a paean to Indra in the Namaskar Sutra, Thc preceptors are revered because they offer protection to mankind by investing living beings with fearlessness. To be subject to fear or subjcct others to fear is a material process; both impede spiritual development.
We talk about rcligion, about spirituality, but we never experience the cssence of cither religion or spirituality. No man who is fearful cancvcrbc spiritual. Fcar and materialism arc synonymous terms. He who calls himself a spiritualist and is yet fearful is a spiritualist only in name, externally as it were; in actual fact, internally, he is a matcrialist. On the other hand, the man who is fearless, who is not afraid of anything, may call himself a materialist, and yet lie is a spiritualist in the true sense of the word.
Fcar is inevitably linked with body-perception which has two aspects--perception of body and perception of somcthing beyond the physical organism. He who perceives the body alone, creates fear; mere perception of body is the root of all fear. The man whose vision docs not go beyond the body, will never know true fearlessness.
All unconsciousness proceeds from the body, and unawareness of this fact is the root cause of fear. Fear can only exist in a state of unawareness. In a state of full consciousness fear cannot exist.
From the psychological point of view, emotional conduct and behaviour arise from the hypothalamus-a part of the brain which makes up the floor and part of the lateral walls of the third ventricle. There arc such centres in our body from where different kinds of inclinations flow. Passions flow from the body. All the emotions have their origin in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the centre of fcar.
The doctrine of Karma postulates unconsciousness. It is ignorance which gives rise to fear. Among the various states of unconsciousness, one is fear. It is because of fear that man cannot perceive the reality. Due to non-perception of the truth, he unwit. tingly passes into a state of fear. It seems to him that the body is everything, and if the body dissolves, everything else would come to an end. The beginning, the middle, and the end of his perception is
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