Q: How do I leave behind the many fears and insecurities I have within me and move ahead?

Sadhguru: You don’t have to leave your fears and insecurities because they don’t really exist. You keep creating them unconsciously. If you don’t create them, they don’t really exist. So your question is essentially about why you create them and how to stop creating them. The fundamental reason why fear has arisen in you is – one way of looking at it is – in this vast existence of which you don’t know the beginning or the end, you are just a little human being. Being the small entity that you are right now, naturally there is fear and insecurity about what will happen to you.

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Only when a person begins to experience himself beyond the limitations of his physical body and mind, then this person can become free from insecurity and fear.

As long as you are identified as a physical body, as long as your experience of life is limited to your physical and mental faculties, fear and insecurity are inevitable. Different people may be at different levels of fear and insecurity. Today, if your life is happening well, you might have forgotten your insecurity. Tomorrow, if your life is turned upside down, you will be reminded because it is always within you. Only when a person begins to experience himself beyond the limitations of his physical body and mind, then this person can become free from insecurity and fear.

Experiencing yourself beyond the physical is what we are referring to as spiritual. When I say spiritual, don’t think it is about going to a temple. If you look at your prayers, 95% of them are either about asking for protection or to be taken care of. There is nothing spiritual about it. It is plain, basic survival. In most people, the very basis of prayer is fear and insecurity. If prayer exists in your life as an act only, it is obscene. If you become prayerful, that’s wonderful, and if you are using an act of prayer towards becoming that quality, that’s fine. But if you are routing your survival through the heavens, that’s very stupid. Even worms and insects take care of their own survival.

When I say spiritual, I am talking about you beginning to experience that which is not physical. Once this spiritual dimension is alive, once you start experiencing yourself beyond the limitations of the physical and the mental, only then there is no such thing as fear. Fear is just the creation of an overactive and out-of-control mind.


 

Q: But Sadhguru, isn’t it very natural and human to become anxious when things don’t go the way we expect them to?

Sadhguru: Why are you making all your incapabilities natural and human? If a few things aren’t going smoothly in my life and if I don’t become anxious about them, if I retain my sense of balance and continue to do what I have to do, would you call me inhuman? When things aren’t going the way you want them to go, that is when your capability is most needed. When you become anxious, do you become more capable or less capable? Less capable, isn’t it? When you most need your capability, you are forsaking it. Would you call that an intelligent way to act? What you are saying is that to live unintelligently is human. That’s a very wrong idea. To live intelligently is what being human is all about.

Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Mystic’s Musings. Not for the faint-hearted, this book deftly guides us with answers about reality that transcend our fears, angers, hopes, and struggles. Sadhguru keeps us teetering on the edge of logic and captivates us with his answers to questions relating to life, death, rebirth, suffering, karma, and the journey of the Self. Download the sample pdf or purchase the ebook.