INTRODUCTION

The reason why you don't put your hand in the fire is not
becauseoffear,ifsbecauseyouknowthatyou'llgetburned.
You don't need fear to avoid unnecessary danger — just a
minimum of intelligence and common sense. For such
practical matters,it is useful to apply the lessons learnedin
the past. Now if someone threatened you with fire or with
physicalviolence,youmightexperiencesomethinglikefear.
Thisisaninstinctiveshrinkingbackfromdanger,butnotthe
psychologicalconditionoffearthatwearetalkingabouthere.
The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any
concreteandtrueimmediatedanger.Itcomesinmanyforms:
unease,worry, anxiety, nervousness,tension,dread,phobia,
and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of
something that might happen, not of something that is
happening now. You are in the here and now, while your
mindisinthefuture.Thiscreatesananxietygap.Andifyou
are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the
power and simplicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be
your constant companion. You can always cope with the
presentmoment,but youcannotcopewithsomethingthatis
onlyamindprojection—youcannotcopewiththefuture.
Moreover,aslongasyouareidentifiedwithyourmind,
theegorunsyourlife,asIpointedoutearlier.Becauseofits
phantom nature, anddespite elaborate defense mechanisms,
the egois very vulnerableandinsecure, andit sees itself as
constantlyunderthreat.This,bytheway,isthecaseevenif
the egoisoutwardlyveryconfident.Nowremember that an
emotionisthebody'sreactiontoyourmind.Whatmessageis
the body receiving continuously from the ego, the false,
mind-madeself?Danger,Iamunderthreat.Andwhat isthe
emotion generated by this continuous message? Fear, of
course.
Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of
failure,fearofbeinghurt,andsoon,butultimatelyallfearis
the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is
always just around the corner. In this mind-identifiedstate,