The Root of Fear
“So we are enquiring what is the root of fear, not a particular fear but the root of all fear. The root of fear is time: what I will be, what I have been, what I might not be. Time is the past, the present, and the future. The past modifying itself in the present and continuing in the future. Fear of something that has happened psychologically, or physically, last week, or last year, and hoping that it will not continue in the future. So time is a factor of fear. The poor man, fear of not being able to find the next meal. You don’t know all that. The fear of having no home, no shelter, no food. And the effect of fear, both on the physical organism, and on the psychological, on the psyche, and the very psyche may be made up of fear. Please understand that.
The psyche, what you are, may be the result of fear. And probably is. So it is important to understand the depth and the meaning of fear. And that is time and thought. Time as the future, I might die, I might lose, I might be nobody, I am somebody now – which I doubt – but I want to be somebody in the future, the next day, and so on. So time and thought are the root of fear. And therefore one must ask a much more serious question: whether time and thought has a stop.”
J. Krishnamurti
Talk 2, New York, 1983
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The Immeasurable is dedicated to exploring the essential questions of our existence: who we are and where we are going. The intent is to inspire readers to question assumptions of the mind, offering opportunities to ask deep questions about common life themes which are superficially accepted.
We encourage an investigation into the fabric of reality and our physical and cultural conditioning. In this exploration, we might find a new understanding of time and its relation to our thinking processes. A perception of the interconnectedness within the totality of life might arise in us as our perception expands through these explorations.
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Krishnamurti asks about the root of fear. He doesn’t ask what fear is. If you ask about the root of something, then it is already assumed that you know this something. And you accept this something as you know it and then ask where it comes from. As a result, one makes a distinction between the root and what comes out of the root, that is, what comes from it to blossom.
He now locates the root of fear in thinking, which he identifies with time. He sees thinking as a movement of the past towards the future, as a movement in which the past modifies itself in the present and thereby continues, that is, takes on a direction that we call the future. From this point of view, the insecurity inherent in this movement is a necessary condition for fear. And fear always appears in this context as being related to something. It’s fear of something that might come your way in the future.
This approach to fear is based on an external view of fear and therefore “time”, “thinking”, are a necessary condition, to indicate the external context in which fear occurs. In this respect, the consideration does not differ from understanding fear in the context of danger and safe place, where fear is understood as a link in the transmission from the dangerous situation to the safe place. And according to this externality, Krishnamurti asks whether time and thought can end, as on the other hand in the other external concept regarding fear one asks whether one can manage to eliminate dangerous situations. And just as one has the belief that life is always dangerous, or that thought is always dangerousl, so one has no choice but to cling to the continuity of fear unless one possesses supernatural abilities to withstand all danger or, in the other case, to be able to switch off thinking. And here you lose yourself in the realm of paradoxes.
And this is where the big problem in Krishnamurti’s approach to the essence of fear lies, that he does not create an immediate inner, direct connection between the movement of thinking and the fear in the reflection. He therefore understands the present merely as a place of transmission of the past, its continuation into the future. And with that he leaves us standing like the ox stands in front of the mountain.
Our need is to perceive whether fear is illusive or real. Not just the fear; its dual too, viz. security.
We are in the waters and there is crocodile floating but we mistake it to be log of wood and feel very much secure that we will be saved afterall. That security is illusive, unreal.
Or, there is rope in our room but we mistake it to be a poisonous snake. The fear that rises in us is illusive, unreal.
How much content of our lives is thus purely mistaking true as false and false as true (crocodile/wood and snake/rope are merely metaphors)? There is no escape from what is really true and imperative. But, we don’t have to live in what is really false. And, our difficulty is the inability to see false as false – and, that seeing is indeed rooted in ‘thought’ and ‘time’, the words JK uses in peculiar way.
When you ask whether fear is real or illusive, you don’t see fear as directly related to the movement of thought, but rather you understand fear as related to what you think about what you encounter. Therefore, in your example, you make fear dependent on whether you think having a rope or a snake in front of you. It is this understanding of fear in a purely external context. The fear is real in this understanding, when one can recognize something as a real threat. And it is then ultimately the knowledge of things from which one distinguishes the reality or illusion of fear, which then boils down to the problem of finding the right interpretation, which then tends towards the need to accumulate knowledge. In this context, perception serves as a transmission between the things one encounters and what is known about things.
Don’t you know what fear is? We all know it pretty well and knowing it does not solve the problem of fear. Seeing the root-cause does.
It appears time is the psychological root of fear. Introducing time into the equation can lead to a trojan horse situation. Opening the doors the same pain from time immeasurable.
Your definition of the word “ root” leads you to interpretation as opposed to perception without interpretation . It is not the words that are important , one must observe the movement of thought and what k describes or explores as he is doing it. Then something entirely different takes place .
When there is perception of fear without interpretation, has the question about its root really a place? I think we have to differentiate: There is fear as a reality. And there is the thinking about fear. So I think that we have to find out how the way of thinking about fear makes the reality of fear to continue as well as to find out how it comes that the movement of thought gives fear a reality at all. Maybe the words are not important but by thinking and speaking there is expression how the relation between consciousness and reality is seen. Therefore, the spoken or thought “word” represents a mirror for the way in which this relationship is seen.
Truth is a pathless land.
there is something else: you cannot be an other person. whoever thinks is another person needs a psychiatrist.
So one ‘stops’ time…then what? Fear ends, for a second? Minute? Hour? Day?
I rather like the way JK handled fear in one of his other talks…to take hold of it, cradle it, get to know it. Live with it like an old friend, (or something like that).
All this ‘time’ talk hurts my brain.
Awesome
The root of fear is not knowing who we are.
Fear can be an opportunity to be Wake and Aware and switch on the Observer.
But only when when we know how Reality is taking place, have we the possibility to choose.
Well put.
I love the fact that he asked us to observe the impact of fear. Observing the feelings, the aversion, the desire to be free of fear can come as quite a surprise during the early years. I had no idea that so much went on in my body till he asked us to observe. Suddenly the fact that the body was at the mercy of my thoughts became a fascinating quandary. I could randomly think of a snake and shy away from the idea of being bitten by it. It seemed rather fun to be at the mercy of my own imagination. I had no idea at the time that these reactions could become so automated that I would lose sight of the root of fear for several years!
Thank you for another great video!
Fear seems to be grounded in several things. The one area is the word itself and whether fear exists apart from the word. Another area is the depth of it as one explores that. I am amazed that in my inward journey to discover one
Finds it hiding in places one is unaware of. It seems to be at the very beginning of one’s conditioning. One senses that there is no freedom as long as fear is not resolved. Learning that has no motive is essential for any understanding of fear.
Awesome share. Keep sending
Good day all
Live in the present moment means that “time” as K defines it does not exist. The past does not exist in the present moment, nor does the future.
It is a bit of a non-sequitur to think otherwise. Try to live as mindfully as you can, and you will be grateful for doing so. When I am thankful I can’t help but to be happy. Gratitude for living in the present moment severs the past and future roots of fear, by definition as it were.
I sense that fear is from a cold dark spot in someone’s psyche. It a very deep place, that is too deep for the warmth of the sun or the flash of current that flows through the river of life. It is the memory of loss, of failure, or loneliness that it renders someone frozen in their place. It can block the ability to act or make us move much more quickly than we can imagine so it can go both ways, One can benefit or have loss from fear.
EXCELLENT
When one is 8n darkness, there us fear. Light removed darkness and fear. In short, ignorance is the cause of fear and knowledge removed it.
“Time and Thought” can that be stopped ?. Yes, then your very existence is no more . If not any other level of existence which you only can experiance rather not explained .
“Can time and thought ever truly come to a stop?”
Yes, time and thought can end, but only by “undoing” which is the reason it is so difficult for us, if we do not let go of “doing.”
It seems to me that the cause of fear is INSECURITY. When a child is born, being totally dependent of his mother for food, love, care and warmth, he is not conscious of time whether chronologically or psychologically. Time comes later, when wanting security permanently which of course is not possible. Then fear fills the psyche and one has to deal with it until he accepts the impermanance of life. Whatever is born dies whether humans, animals, plants, stars and gallaxys.
L’Instant présent est VIE
Every time I encounter fear as displayed by other humans I find that most often it finds its beginnings in a lack of knowledge about whatever it is. When one becomes knowledgeable on any given subject, in any given time and space, and under any circumstances, whatever the fear was usually is removed. Agreement may not happen, but the ability of one person to force their fear on another is greatly reduced or eliminated. And time, it is a factor. The longer one holds to a falsehood or a lack of knowledge then what ever the fear is will continue. I see it as a generational thing, passed down from one generation to another. But some people revel in their fear. They are comfortable with it, it even may give them a reason for being. Becoming knowledgable can take time and will force one to confront the truth and then be forced to either ignore the truth and/or knowledge and live with the consequences.
Whether time and thought have a stop?- this is the question asked here. So that the fear can end, which is the basis of our very psyche. Only in deep sleep can anyone feel such an ending of thought and time. Can one consciously see the ending of time and thought? May be possible, but never happens that easily.
When I am talking, thinking, there is time and thought. Is it fear? Does my impulse exist in fear ? I can observe my talking and thinking. Am I acting in the present due to a latent fear? Probably, considering the nature of the society, the individual having to fend for themselves in competitive world, I am. I live in fear. The nature of my talking and thinking is of fear, but I see it as normal, and work with it. Usually I continue with time and thought. Isn’t it clear? There is this mechanism, unsettled, inattentive, not composed, and this how we live.
IAM the root of fear, so am stay with it…
Is fear not inevitable in a mind that is organized by psychological time? Such a mind gives rise to the concept of a self that it separate. This is the root of conflict. This psychological duality does not exist in perception. The challenge is to act from perception, which is in the present, and not from the limitations of past experience.
i don’t think that i like the music in the background. not quite sure bec the music is kind of pretty and actually seems to fit the words. on the other hand it gives too much “direction” about how one should feel about the spoken words. not sure
maybe it is more productive to phrase it as: look at your fear rather than to find the root which sends us into more conceptualization
How to look at your fear
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Do please listen to this, it is not complicated. It demands attention, and attention has its own discipline; you don’t have to introduce a system of discipline. You know, sirs, what this world needs is not politicians or more engineers, but free human beings. Engineers and scientists may be necessary, but it seems to me that what the world needs is human beings who are free, who are creative, who have no fear. And most of us are ridden with fear. If you can go profoundly into fear and really understand it, you will come out with innocency, so that your mind is clear. That is what we need, and that is why it is very important to understand how to look at a fact, how to look at your fear. That is the whole problem, not how to get rid of fear, not how to be courageous, not what to do about fear, but to be fully with the fact. – Krishnamurti, The Collected Works, Vol. XI”,349,Choiceless Awareness
I have learnt, thru “K”, that time/thought doesnt stop perse until you become aware of it.. in that moment, it has stopped! When the you, thru humility acknowledges this, the thinking mind seems to automatically put itself into its rightful place and allows that that is far more accurate and beyond fast or slow, to lead the way..Boy, existing becomes stress free bcoz the you is able to enjoy the ride..😌🙏…
There is a state of mind that exists for me where fear is not. I have visited it. I wish I could maintain it. I’m not there yet, nor do I think, sadly, that I will ever be there continually. As a scientist and thinking from a scientific perspective, one can only be in this mental state when one is alive. I wish it were not so. I wish this state would last through death. But with that kind of wishing, I wouldn’t be in that ideal state Krishnamurti (K) suggests. K was certainly ahead of his time. And it is possible for us to meditate on his words until we find that ideal state of mind for ourselves.
the basis of fear is thought and time, JK says. for example I might die, I might loose etc.
these are only thoughts.whether it belongs to the past or future it is only a thought of past or future.
We are born in duality and posses both the light and darkness internally.
Fear from a healthy physical preservation, has escaped or infected our psyche
as consequence of social, parental, and other interactions. We interpreted situations
as fear prone, and we memorized the vibrations of fear (which are very different from
the vibrations of light or self-love). When fear is in our psyche and has infected our
perception of the world – there sonly one action of healing we can take – we can shift
our perception, see situations in new light, recognize that our fear is oversized.
But how you may ask is this shift of perception, when healing happens, how is it done?
After all we are trapped by fear. There is one free source for all, one constant for all
regardless of nation, location, etc – and that’s the sun. The sun shines its warm light
on all people, sick and healthy, good or bad, the sun lovingly sends life energy.
How you may ask the sun and sunlight are related to our perception shift?
Let me explain – any time we recognize that a concept or rule are wrong,
we have an internal burst or glow of light, often illustrated with a bulb
shining light. Indeed when we recognize misperceived things for what
it is – there is internal illumination in the mind.
Same inner glow happens when we gradually heal from trauma,
and realize that we don’t have to fear anymore, and that we can
forgive – then again we are internally illuminated.
Now remember – light and fear/darkness are our duality we are born with.
Therefore, when we recognize and realize new truthful things, we shine
with more light and dissipate our inner darkness or fear.
The only medium that can keep in check human fear is inner light.
Now the connection of our inner light and sunlight – they are of
the same character, light is the language of supreme intelligence.
Sunlight can talk to our inner light that is waiting and glowing feebly
in the dark. Sunlight can spark and awake our inner light. How?
By facing the sun with closed eyes, asking the sun to send its
light to the mind and heart, asking the sun to flood and cleanse
our body with healing light. I have done it, and experienced it.
Light (and its subliminal information) is the only tool that we
humans have to correct the error of fear in our psyche.
Light from within dissipates fear, done it, works.