Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle, Bentinho Massaro, Genpo Roshi and many more masters, teach falsely, that we can be totally free of fear
Here’s a little story I heard about fear. There was a monastery in the mountains in China. Wild deer would come onto the monastery’s beautiful grounds. The monks loved the deer and enjoyed feeding them. When the abbot heard about it, he came out shouting and waving his arms and attacking the deer with his staff. The deer became alarmed and ran away. The abbot put up a notice saying there must be no more feeding the deer and any deer seen on the property were to be chased off. The monks protested, saying, “We came here to learn kindness and compassion. What sort of example are you, getting so mad at these gentle animals? This can’t be right.” The abbot addressed the community: “Look, there are hunters in these mountains. The only defense these animals have is their fear. If you take that away from them, they will all be killed very soon. If we did not have fear—if we were truly fearless—we, like the deer, would be in terrible danger without knowing it. We have awareness in order to be wary. The most primitive animal will shrink away from noxious contact. Consciousness itself is closely related to fear, and to grasping as well. If we did not need to get things, or to run away from things that want to get us, then we would probably not have developed consciousness at all. We would not need it. Rocks do not need to be conscious. They are all-accepting. Acceptance is also one kind of Buddhist ideal, but it would be a mistake to take it to an extreme. We are not aiming to be rocks. Fear and love are closely related. To cut ourselves off from one is to cut ourselves off from the other. Suppressing awareness of our own vulnerability, we inevitably and correspondingly lose sensitivity for those around us. I find that the most wrenching fear that one experiences is the fear one feels for others. Love is like that. When one loves, one fears for the other. When one fears for them, one watches out for them. I have been much more afraid when my children were in danger than when I myself was in a life-threatening situation. This is true not only for regular people. Just as a mother is fearful for her child, the Buddhas, ever watchful, are fearful about what shall become of us. Dharmavidya David Brazier
If you have no fear (of death), you are most likely stuck in emptiness or maybe a psychopath. If fear is controlling your life, you are probably feeding it by fighting it with resistance and ignorance. Most of our current world leaders, including spiritual masters and teachers, are sociopathic or psychopathic, or narcissistic personalities (with or without spiritual background) and therefore are born without the perception of fear or ignoring it or are not aware of the more subtle energetic level of fear.The reason is, that the leaders are the ones, who are chosen by the people and the people are the ones, who dream about being free of fear and suffering and therefore buy into the ones, who sell them their dream.
Fear is not a bad thing perse. Fear has a function to protect us and to motivate us to go beyond our small selves. In Zen, once we awaken to our true nature, we realize, that we are not the fear, not the body, not the mind and yet, it is our current home and it is part of who we are at the same time. Without awareness of fear, compassion with other beings can not arise. We need to learn to distinguish between compassion (coming from unity with all, including fear) and pity (coming from separation to all through resisting what is), equanimity (allowing things to flow as they are, but still be connected with all and if help is needed act accordingly, but without pity or resistance to what is) and indifference (being stuck in emptiness, feeling nothing, being disconnected from everything). To be clear, a fearful, sensitive person, will not change through awakening into being free of fear and sensitivity.
It is true, that there is a phase within the process of awakening, where we are so ecstatic, after the experience of unity or so empty after surrender, that we can not perceive any fear, but this is not the end of the journey, but only the beginning. We have to painfully let even go of those librating states, if we want to deepen our understanding. Only then we will realize, that fear is just an energy, which can help us to surrender, empowers and protects us, so we do not need to fight or resist fear anymore, but can embrace it and celebrate it. It does not control us anymore, but we still have it inside us. We can feel it, but dont react to it but act with it, use it as a catalyst. When we start teaching or helping others from the beginning states, where we believe to be “free of fear“, we actually poisoning people, by selling the ultimate fix, which is delusion and separateness and therefore a subtle kind of suffering and ego. In Tibetan tradition it is called “†he hell of the heavenly beings“, because it is so hard to come out of it or recognize, that it is actually a realm of hell.
Therefore the accurate and less populistic way of explanation is, that we can not be free of fear, but we can be free of the fear of fear itself. There are only a few known teachers, who are an example of this, because it is the “mountain” majority of people, who want to buy into the dream, which decides, whose voice becomes more heard and who shouts into a forest without any echo.
If you still believe, that compleat fearlessness is possible, look into all the spiritual masters and other form of leaders and bankster, who commit abuse and destruction, without remorse. Those are usually the ones who teach us to be free of fear, full of love (including love for their crimes) and free of judgment.
That is why the Buddha taught, that nothing in this world is absolute. So whenever someone speaks about being free of suffering or fear or judgment or full of love and beyond life and death, have a little bit of healthy doubt.
Jion M.Blonstein
