Fear

'Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 

Nor the furious winter’s rages'.

           William Shakespeare ( Cymbeline)

Fear is very simple, spontaneous thing occurring most of the time without provocation, takes an instant to emerge but stays on to affect only adversely all the good things which give joy. The why of fear is unknown. It is intuitive, a gut feeling we desparately want to be untrue, we sincerely wish it should not happen come what may. But while praying thus we keep clinging further to our worst fears.

Fear is the commonest of all maladies. It is an instant poison we involuntarily gulp in and the effects follow quite naturally marring our simplicity to believe, our ability to trust and our strength to surrender. Enveloped by fear our vision blurs, our reasoning takes the back seat and our vulnerability to mistrust and suspicion takes over. Hapless we become caged in fear, we grapple with our inherent capacity to believe and we let go the positive approach become conspicuous by absence when faced with our worst fears.

What makes us feel and nurture fear? What are we afraid of? Why is it so common? Who is not afraid? Does fear differentiate in gender, age, ability, position, status??

Fear is in itself a negative phenomenon and like all other negative things it has ample scope of spreading over its clutches without any discrimination. In itself fear is a dark force, thick dark cloud which covers all positive things life, the sun, light, hope, trust, belief. In all the years that I have lived, I have not come across a single person who is not afraid, who does not have any fear whatsoever. 

Fear is like a hunch, sometimes an intuition, too depending on our own value assignment to things, persons and whatever ...w h a t e v e r we deem as dear and cherishable. The more we deem a thing precious, the more we cling to it and become afraid of 'losing'.The more we possess and value- health, relationships, kith and kin, status and prestige, wealth and prosperity, the more fear we tend to have of losing them. Actually anything that we value the most makes us afraid of its probable loss. The biggest fear is fear of a loss- loss of dear one-despite the certainty of imminent death we are never ever able to accept it as the reality of life. The very thought of losing a dear one is enough to cast a spell of gloom and grief. We are never prepared to overcome this fear because death symbolises the end, it shuts, makes no return possible, causes pain and uncertainity, enigma associated with it is scary, it un -nerves. But there are people who cannot afford to be afraid. Can the soldiers be afraid of dying or else would they be able to save us, our contrymen? 

Besides, we 'know and do not know' that this world is 'maya', not real, just a facade. Afterall it is not easy to believe everything we live with our five senses to be untrue !! The bigger the fears which - if they come true, lead us to point of no return. 

It is very important to remember that 'the mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.' (John Milton). We can also create our own destiny by affirmations we give to our thoughts- nrgatively if our thoughts run in that direction and vice versa. We cannot afford and should not close our eyes(like a pigeon) to fear (the cat) by posing it does not exist. If and when it does, fear must be encoutered head on and rationally thought of, analysed, discussed with mentors and done away with. It has to be managed or else fear can become unimaginably unmanageable! It is like a phantom who can become real and swallow us unawares. 

Srimad Bhagwad Gita's biggest exhortation is 'ma shuchah- dont be afraid' ( ch.18) but then the Arjuna in us need Lord Krsna who could convince us with why and how of it. It is important to cultivate the desire to 'let go' and also to look upto persons, scriptures, Mentors, friends who we feel may offer us guidance or advice, 'satsang' and wisdom, answers and solutions. Above all it is the most important thing to realise that fear exists and affects our thoughts, perspective, vision and attitude. Just imagine if all the philosophers, statesmen, freedom fighters had been afraid , full of fear of the consequences, would we be breathing today the free air with our 'minds without fear and head held high' ? Definitely, the answer is NO.

It is our own responsibility towards- first and foremost- to our own selves to be vigilant actually against all things negative( including fear) that tend to beseige us. We need to cultivate gratitude and prayer more for 'we are blest by everything/ everything we look upon is blest' (WBYeats)

Pyar Ka Din Mubarak Ho...

Come February and 'Love is in the air', they say as the freezing, biting, cruel, cold foggy days are over and the gentle sun spreads sheen of its healing warmth, the very air becomes fragrant when flowers

bloom- the gladulii on the wane but the lilies, the marigold and roses present awesome sight. Nature marks sprouting of joy which is the most basic ingredient of love, isn't it? The most primal of all needs and our very basic nature is to be happy happy and this is what we all crave for, yearn to get from stocks and stones, skies and deep waters, mountains and rivers and above all from the people we care for, persons we love. They give us the meaning, they make us see our own value through their eyes, they make this life worth all this and all that, they make us dream and enable us give direction to our dreams and aspirations.

And it is not just the people that love is connected with, it also can be a dream, a profession, our own work, an agenda we pursue with passion, anything that stands apart as meaning of our own life and being, something that we may die for and would like to live for can be our love of life. For some it can be money, fame, name, celebrityhood and for some it can be just the passion for sake of doing things because they can, for love provides 'the purpose' and 'meaningfulness'. Anything that makes us feel that this is what we are sent in the world for can be nothing but only 'the love' of our life.

Love is very complex emotion though it emerges in the simplest kind of way-naturally, genuinely, spontaneously. Since this feeling has the ability to immerse our whole being, hence it can give us pain or pleasure, trauma or treasure, rapturous blissfulness or unenviable sinking- and they would say- its part of the game, isn't it? And we detest to attach the world 'game' to it because it is breathed, its the essence our life stands for, it is the life itself !!! I donot think anything else.....n o t h i n g.. absolutely nothing else in this our human universe has the capacity to impart counter and contradictory impact as love.

As Shelly says: 'we look before and after and pine for what is not/ our sincerest laughter is with some pain wrought/our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought', love is like a song to the tune of which we sing-mostly happily but yes, sometimes sadly too. The ability to make or mar is with us only but often we fail to value love as a blessing God endows us with and we mortals fail to protect it, guard it from taxing expectations (dil maange more..). It IS hard, you know, very hard to just let it be per se (jaisa bhee). Afterall why should we be content with just this much and why not that much more which we deem as our legitimate right as a matter ofcourse? We strive, we struggle with ourselves, the fight often is more in the mind whether we should or should not give vent to what our heart craves to express and burst out with but is this desirable to put on love the wearisome burden of naturally felt expectations? Is it welcome? Is it acceptable? Is it not avoidable? Incidentally, its only the voice within and not the voice outside that holds the answer to such simpleton queries of the heart. To me this can leave more questions in front of us and behind us than we can ever have the answers for.

Nogainsaying the truth that without this beautiful feeling of affinity and attachment, affection and affirmation life is incomplete. Though the void it has the capacity to cause and deep it has the ability to throw us in is equally or more true of this Dame Sans Merci. Then what is the choice that proverbially we all humans are blessed with- go for joy it abounds in or cage ourselves with pain it has ample potential to bring? Is there a thing called unconditional love and is it possible? The answers to these heavy questions are simple and around us, can be seen, felt, touched, smelled, breathed, too. Nature itself abounds in answers as Sun, the biggest giver of life energies, shine, warmth, health, positivity would shine come what may even if the night envelops it in dark; the beautous forms of nature the earth, air, sky, trees, light and fire - all give us so abundantly and what do they expect in return except small, little cares and concern with sensitivity. I am fond of dogs and I feel they are the best example in unconditional love. They ask for it, love to be fondled, hate to be abhored and shunned but they forgive so easily - really unconditionally and show gratutude for the smallest of our gestures of affection. I feel the key lies in this-gratitude and forgivenss to be Ble to fully grasp the bliss of love and affection.

Are we prepared to give before or after we recieve? Are we ready to live with it or we want to let go to see if it comes back and is ours only? Are we in love or we are love? Is it not our second nature just as it is, as said earlier, our nature to be happy and elated, joyous and cheerful. Let us think of the rosy side of love and breathe it ciz love is in the air today. Pyar ka din mubarak ho.