Here is a interesting writing on Fear....or perhaps what fear stands in front of, by J.Krishnamurti in his book, "Commentaries on Living, 2nd Series"
"Why do you engage in welfare or in any other kind of work?"
"I suppose it is just to carry on. One must live and act, and my conditioning has been to act as decently as possible. I have never before questioned why I do these things, and now I must find out. But, before we go any further, let me say that I am a solitary person, though I see many people, I am alone and I like it. There is something exhilerating in being alone."
"To be alone, in the highest sense, is essential; but the aloneness of withdrawal gives a sense of power, a strength, of invulnerability. Such aloneness is isolation, it is an escape, a refuge. But isn't it important to find out why you have never asked yourself the reason for all your supposedly good activities? Shouldn't you inquire into that?"
"Yes, let us do so. I think it is fear of inner solitude that has made me do all these things."
"Why do you use the word 'fear' with regard to inner solitude? Outwardly you don't mind being alone, but from inner solitude you turn away. Why? Fear is not an abstraction, it exits only in relationship to something. Fear does not exist by itself; it exists as a word, but it is felt only in contact with something else. What is it that you are afraid of?"
"Of this inner solitude."
"There is fear of inner solitude only in relationship to something else. You cannot be afraid of inner solitude, because you have never looked at it; you are measuring it now with whay you already know. You know your worth, if one may put it that way, as a social worker, as a mother, as a capable and efficient person, and so on; you know the worth of your outer solitude. So it is in relation to all this that you measure your outer solitude. So it is in relation to all this that you measure or approach inner solitude; you know what has been, but you don't know what is. The known looking at the unknown brings about fear; it is this activity that causes fear."
"Yes, that is perfectly true. I am comparing the inner solitude with the things I know through experience. It is these experiences that are causing fear of something I have really not experienced at all."
"So your fear is really not of the inner solitude, but the past is afraid of something it does not know, has not experienced. The past wants to absorb the new, make of it an experience. But can the past, which is you, experience the new, the unknown? The know can experience only that which is of itself, it can never experience the new, the unknown. By giving the unknown a name, by calling it inner solitude, you have only recognized it verbally, and the word is taking the place of experiencing; for the word is the screen of fear. The term 'inner solitude' is covering the fact, the what is, and the very word is creating fear."
"But somehow I don't seem to be able to look at it."
"Let us first understand why we are not capable of looking at the fact, and what is preventing our being passively watchful of it. Don't attempt to look at it now, but please listen quietly to what is being said."
"The known, past experience, is trying to absorb what it calls the inner solitude; but it cannot experience it, for it does not know what it is; it knows the term, but not what is behind the term. The unknown cannot be experienced. You may think or speculate about the unknown, or be afraid of it; but thought cannot comprehend it, for thought is the outcome of the known, of experience. As thought cannot know the unknown, it is afraid of it. There will be fear as long as thought desires to experience, to understand the unknown."
"Then what...?"
"Please listen. If you listen rightly, the truth of all this will be seen, and then truth will be the only action. Whatever thought does with the regard to inner solitude is an escape, an avoidance of what is. In avoiding what is, thought creates its own conditioning which prevents the experiencing of new, the unknown. Fear is the only response of thought to the unknown; though you may call it by different terms, but still it is fear. Just see that thought cannot operate upon the unknown, upon what is behind the erm 'inner solitude'. Only then does what is unfold itself, and it is inexhaustible."
"Now, if one may suggest, leave it alone; you have heard, and let that work as it will. To be still after tilling and sowing is to give birth to creation." J.Krishnamurti
My knowing knows this is right. That somehow we have used fear to stop doing what we can't know before hand, what we can't fully understand, we place fear before it.
If you instead use the word Unknown, about something and wait to experience it, I am sure we would do much more.
Imagine, Fear is a thought that steps in when it can't know.
It, the mind, seems to be standing in the way of many unknown thrilling experiences...instead of letting us experience many different unknowns, it and our past, because it has no experiences of what would be new experiences for us, put the word fear to cover up the unknown.
What I have found is to become friendly with the unknown....to dare to step into the unknown, regardless of the thoughts in my mind. Now, I know...when the mind doesn't know the unknown, it injects the word fear.
