November 17

I Don’t Need to Be Afraid of Anyone in This World

Question: Would you please say something about fear? Sometimes I wake up at night and don’t know who or where I am, except that my heart is pounding because I am so frightened.

Sri Gurudev: The part that sleeps in a sleeping state is the conscious mind. The subconscious mind can still function. When the conscious mind sleeps and the subconscious mind functions, you call it a dream. If the subconscious mind also sleeps, that’s what you call sleep. When the conscious mind sleeps, the fear that is in the subconscious mind takes the opportunity to come to the surface. Probing into that fear is almost like analyzing the garbage before throwing it out.

Instead of worrying about what caused the fear, replace it with something positive. Say, “Whatever it is, it’s something that happened before. I’m not going to worry about it. It’s not going to affect me anymore. I am bold, I am strong. I am consciously doing the right things. I am practicing Yoga. I am doing a lot of prayer and meditation. I trust in God. I love everybody. I don’t need to be afraid of anyone in this world because all people are my brothers and sisters. Everyone is my own Self.” See? Din the positive thoughts into the subconscious mind with the conscious mind. Consciously work at it. When the positive thoughts go in, they will squeeze the undesirable thoughts out of the subconscious. Modern psychology seems to be interested in probing into it, “What caused it? Is it your father, mother?” Yoga doesn’t worry about that. Ignore it. The more you think about it, the more you are encouraging it. The more you think about a thought, the more it gets strengthened. Any thought. If you ignore it, you are starving it. By putting in positive thoughts, the fear will go away.