osho on fear

One can be hurt — that’s the fear — but that risk has to be taken

The new sannyasin says: I have been afraid of something... when people get near me
Osho – Yes, you are afraid. I can see it. That fear has to be dropped. That fear has to be consciously dropped. That’s what I am saying to you. I can see that you are afraid. You don’t allow anybody to enter your territory or, if you do allow them, you allow them very reluctantly, and then too you keep aloof.

Man has learned that too — how to allow somebody physically near and yet psychologically far away. Man has learned it, because in many situations…. In a train it is too crowded and people are sitting touching you and you cannot fight — there is no point — but you stand shrunken in deep down. The body may be touching, but you don’t allow psychological closeness.

So humanity has learned how to allow people physically close but not to allow them psychologically. But love is to allow people psychologically close to you. Love means dropping the territorial boundary. That invisible line has to disappear, hence fear arises, because it is our animal heritage. That’s why, once you are in a loving state of mind, you go beyond animal heritage. For the first time you become human, really human.

It is arduous, it is very subtle, but one has to watch and work on it. Just watch…. Whenever you see that you are becoming tense because somebody is entering your territory, relax. Remember that he is just like you. We live in people, we grow with people, our whole life is entangled with people. We exist through people. We cannot exist without them. People are like the ocean and we are like fish. If the fish is afraid of the ocean, there will be trouble. One has to trust the ocean. It is our very life… we are born in it.

If you were afraid of people then you would not have even been born. You entered a woman’s womb; you became part of two people’s love affair. You allowed two people to bring you to earth. You allowed two people to create a body for you. The very birth is in society; it is with people, in people. In fact people are the stuff we are made of. So the more people there are in your life, the more rich it will be; the less people, the less rich. It is simple arithmetic.

If you really want to live rich, fulfilled, tremendously vibrant, then there is no other way. The only way is to make more and more contact with people. Allow more and more people to trespass your being, allow more and more people to enter you. There are risks, because when you allow people too close to you, there is a possibility that they may hurt you. One becomes vulnerable, soft, tender. One opens one’s soft parts when somebody comes close.

So one can be hurt — that’s the fear — but that risk has to be taken. It is worth it. Even if you protect yourself for your whole life and nobody is allowed near you, what is the point of your being alive? You will be dead before you are dead. You would not have lived at all. It would be as if you had never existed, because there is no other life than relationship. So the risk has to be taken.

Sometimes people may hurt you. I’m not saying that they will not — but even that hurt will teach you something. You will learn something from it — about People, about yourself, about fear, about love. You will grow through it. So, pain can be used as growth; there is no problem in it. Even if you are hurt, you can use it as a lesson, as a deep understanding. It will make you more mature.

But all are not going to hurt you. A few may hurt you, a few may give you tremendous joy. And this is my understanding — that even if one person gives you tremendous joy and ninety-nine percent of people hurt you, then too it is worth it. Even if there is one roseflower on the bush and ninety-nine thorns, it is worth it. One has to take the risk and love the roseflower.

So, by and by allow. As you allow you will become more confident. You will see that no, everybody is not your enemy. They are people just like you, as much afraid as you are, as much trembling inside as you are, as much afraid of being hurt by you as you are afraid of being hurt by them. They are just people like you! All human beings are just like you. Essentially the human heart is the same.

So allow them to come close. If you allow them to come close to you, they will allow you to come close to them. When boundaries overlap, love happens. Overlapping boundaries create in your being ripples of joy, of new energy infusing in you… a new thrill of being. And one day, when not only peripheries overlap but centres overlap, then happens what has been called in the old books ‘perfect love’. ‘Perfect love casteth out fear.’ That is the meaning of perfect love.

When two persons are so available to each other, so open to each other to the very core of their being, then fear disappears. Love helps fear to disappear, and if you allow fear to drop, it will help love to grow. So love more, fear less.