Vedanta - No Fear: Right Karma
B K ASHA
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Fear of death, it is said, is worse than death itself. One reason for this insecurity is that more and more innocent people are getting killed in humanmade situations, which may not be of the victims' making.While we do get reconciled to the death of innocents in natural calamities or accidents by telling ourselves that it was willed by fate or that it was beyond our control, acts of wanton killing often leave a deep scar within us because they shake our trust in our fellow human beings. It perhaps calls for a spiritual solution.
First, it requires an attitudinal change. Fear paralyses the mind, rendering it incapable of doing what it can easily do otherwise. By practising to take on any situation calmly and with courage, we will be able to change our tendency to get frightened by unexpected or adverse circumstances.
We need to change the way we look at adversity . All of life's tests make us stronger and equip us better to face similar tests in future. If we dodge these tests for fear of failure or loss, we will advance in life no more than a student who refuses to sit for examinations out of examination phobia. The illusion of mortality is the deep-rooted cause of fear. It stems from a wrong identification of the eternal Self with the perishable body .
It can be overcome by the realisation of a basic truth: that we are souls and the soul is immortal. What we call death is nothing but the soul's departure from the body after its role in the present body is over.
First, it requires an attitudinal change. Fear paralyses the mind, rendering it incapable of doing what it can easily do otherwise. By practising to take on any situation calmly and with courage, we will be able to change our tendency to get frightened by unexpected or adverse circumstances.
We need to change the way we look at adversity . All of life's tests make us stronger and equip us better to face similar tests in future. If we dodge these tests for fear of failure or loss, we will advance in life no more than a student who refuses to sit for examinations out of examination phobia. The illusion of mortality is the deep-rooted cause of fear. It stems from a wrong identification of the eternal Self with the perishable body .
It can be overcome by the realisation of a basic truth: that we are souls and the soul is immortal. What we call death is nothing but the soul's departure from the body after its role in the present body is over.
