Fear Is Not Outside; It Is in the Gaze

3 weeks ago By Yogi Anoop

Fear Is Not Outside; It Is in the Gaze

One of humanity’s greatest misconceptions about this world is that it searches for the causes of its experiences in external circumstances. One assumes that fear is outside, negativity is outside, danger is outside. But if one looks a little more deeply, it becomes clear that outside there are objects, there are events—but there is no fear. Fear exists in the gaze of the one who sees. The world contains everything—joy as well as sorrow, light as well as darkness. But what among these will affect you depends entirely on where your gaze is centered. Wherever you place your focus, that alone becomes your experience.

I say that in reality there is nothing outside; everything is taking place within thought. Nature, in itself, is neutral. It has neither fault nor virtue. Fault exists only in the gaze. Negative and positive—both these terms do not belong to reality; they belong to the mind. If you keep staring continuously at an empty wall, after some time you may begin to see God there, and you may also see ghosts. Whereas the truth is that you have never directly seen either God or a ghost. In reality, there is nothing in the wall. Whatever appears is merely an image from within you, a product of your gaze. The realization of this very fact is what is called knowledge.

Once, I was staying at a friend’s house abroad. Pointing toward a closed room, they told me that no one had entered that room for many years, because their husband had died in that very room. They believed that even now his presence remained there and that voices could still be heard at night. I said to them, “I will sleep in that room tonight.” As I already knew, nothing happened during the night. In the morning, I saw the family standing silently outside, as if waiting to see whether I was alive or had departed for the next world. I deliberately said that now he would not return, that he had been liberated. The entire family became happy.

Here, the problem of fear came to an end, but a new disease was born—the disease of glorification. Now the talk began about how great my Guruji was. This kind of promotion is even more dangerous than the promotion of fear, because in fear, suffering is clearly visible, but in glorification, illusion remains hidden. Everything appears green and flourishing, good hormones keep getting produced, and the illusion becomes even deeper.

After many years, they themselves realized that it is the weak mind that creates both fear and goodness. The weaker the mind becomes, the more fear it creates, and the more it also weaves networks of ideals, gods, and glorification. This is maya. This world is not maya—maya exists in the gaze of the seer.

Note—If one evaluates the human gaze even more seriously, a deep irony emerges. When the husband was alive, they did not want to let him die, and now, after his death, they do not even want to keep his ghostly presence in his own room. In life, we want to hold on to that very thing from which we run away in death. Then the question arises—what is it that we really want? Not the person, but the preservation of our own imaginations. This is the real illusion, and this is the fundamental source of fear as well.

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