People have been trying to destroy fear, trying to destroy anger, trying to destroy sexuality, trying to destroy greed, this and that. The whole world has been working to destroy your energies, and what is the result? Man has become a mess. Nothing is destroyed, all is still there; only things have become confused. There is no need to destroy anything because nothing can be destroyed in the first place.
In Fear: Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of Life, Osho takes the reader step by step over the range of what makes human beings afraid, from the basic response “fight or flight” to the rational and irrational fears of the mind and its psychology. Only by bringing the light of understanding into fear’s dark corners, he says, airing out closets and opening windows, and looking under the bed to see if a monster is really living there, we can begin to explore outside the boundaries of our comfort zone and learn to live with, and even enjoy, the fundamental insecurity of being alive.
Live more, and live more intensely . Live dangerously. It is your life, don’t sacrifice it for any sort of foolishness that has been taught to you. It is your life, live it. Don’t sacrifice it for words, theories, countries, politics. Don’t sacrifice it for anybody. Rather than putting your energy into being special, put your whole energy into being yourself. Just find yourself, because in trying to be special you are running further and further away from yourself.
Fear ends with a series of meditation experiments designed to help readers experience a new relationship with fear and to begin to see fears not as stumbling blocks, but as stepping stones to greater self-awareness and trust. This book is set to remove fears by removing the very basic fear, the fear of death. I think Osho is probably one of the first person to talk and detail out about topics like sex and death, usually considered a taboo.
I don’t see the point in being afraid of death, because in the first place I don’t know what is going to be. And secondly, there are only two possibilities: Either I will survive, then there is no question of fear. Or I will not survive, then too there is no problem of fear. If I don’t survive there is no problem, when I am not, there cannot be any problem, and if I survive as I am here, if my consciousness survives, there is no problem because I am still there. Problems were there in life also, I solved them, so if I am there and there are problems I will solve them and it is always a joy to solve a problem, it gives a challenge.
I found the content of this book quite interesting and inspiring from certain point of view. I agree with the idea that some fears where injected in our minds by society or religion or education, by people that don’t really no anything about life and how it works. Some other contents are a bit redundant and too philosophical that I am not sure how really they were helpful or reliable in our daily lives. Is it really possible to remove all the fears? Fear sometimes is bad but can also be useful to improve develop…and isn’t it a sign that you care, about something? In the end fear is strictly connected with desire, the will to do anything and become anyone you want. Can it happen that you stop desire if you stop fear?
I leave you with these tricky questions, maybe you will be able to answer…Enjoy reading!