fearlessness

A friend emailed me this this morning and is probably one of the best quotes I’ve come across:

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgement that something else is more important than fear

Reminded me of a random statement I came across in a book by Osho [whom a lot of people very erroneously label and dismiss as a “sex-guru”] in a bookshop – can’t remember the exact words… but as you might know Osho has written tons of books (none of them which I’ve read so far, I’ve only read a few articles here and there) but he says in this particular line“the essence of everything I teach – is fearlessness”.

We always like to remain in this secure zone of the known, within the box that we limit ourselves to. One will find this more and more difficult as one grows older – I see an increase in hesitation in myself in fact now that Im 30! It requires courage to step out of it, into the unknown – even one tiny step. In my opinion a truly courageous person would be not one who has no fear at all, but one who acknowledges, confronts and eventually overcomes it. Fear is not something bad thing that shouldn’t be there at all. It could even be useful – maybe at times protecting us from some potential danger.

But there is the famous analogy by Adi Sankaracharya – one panicks mistaking a rope in the dark to be a snake. My question was – ok fine, but what if it really was a snake? Wouldn’t we have been better off staying away from it – even if it was a rope, what would we have lost anyway by never finding that out? 🙂

Of course every person can come up with his own answer, but I had written a short (for once) essay answering this a couple of years ago, this post is just a placeholder to remind me to dig it up from wherever it was. Also I hope to rewrite it in Kannada [with my current updated (mis?;-))-understanding] as my first article to Sampada.