If there is no love, fear of death will be more. If there is love, less fear of death. If total love, death disappears. These are all connected inside. Even very simple things are deeply rooted in greater patterns.
A rich man is nervous. What is his nervousness, the fear? Why he is so scared? Because every desire fulfilled, and still the frustration remains. Now he cannot even dream, because all dreams he has passed through; they lead nowhere. He cannot dream and he cannot gather courage to open the eyes also, because there are involvements. He has promised many things in his sleep.
The first thing: fear is the other side of love. If you are in love, fear disappears. If you are not in love, fear arises, tremendous fear. Only lovers are fearless. Only in a deep moment of love there is no fear. In a deep moment of love, existence becomes a home — you are not a stranger, you are not an outsider, you are accepted. Even by a single human being you are accepted, something in the depth opens — a flower-like phenomenon in the innermost being. You are accepted by someone, you are valued; you are not futile. You have a significance, a meaning. If in your life there is no love, then you will become afraid. Then there will be fear everywhere because everywhere there are enemies, no friends, and the whole existence seems to be alien; you seem to be accidental, not rooted, not at home. Even a single human being can give you such deep at-homeness in love, what to think about when a person achieves to prayer?
Fear in fact is the absence of love. And if fear is a problem for you, that shows to me that you are looking at the wrong side. Love should be the problem, not fear. If fear is the problem, that means you should seek love. If fear is the problem, the problem in fact is you should be more loving so somebody can be more loving to you. You should be more open towards love.
If fear is felt, then love is the problem. Become more loving. Take few steps towards the other. Because everybody is in fear, not only you. You wait somebody should come to you and love you. You can wait forever because the other is also afraid. And people who are afraid they become afraid of one thing absolutely, and that is the fear of being rejected.
People sitting, people walking — you watch. There are people who simply put off anybody; anybody who comes closer, they become afraid. And fear is energy just like love, a negative energy. A man who is feeling love bubbles up with a positive energy. When you come closer, as if a magnet is attracting you, you would like to be with this person. If fear is your problem, then think about your personality, watch it. You must have closed your doors for love, that’s all. Open those doors. Of course there is the possibility of being rejected. But why be afraid? The other can only say no. Fifty percent possibility of no is there, but just because of fifty percent possibility of no, you choose a hundred percent life of no love.
Don’t be afraid of love. There is only one thing one should be afraid, and that is fear. Be afraid of fear and never be afraid of anything else, because fear cripples. It is poisonous, it is suicidal. Move! Jump out of it! Do whatsoever you would like, but don’t get settled with the fear because that is a negative situation.
Please don’t get obsessed with fear. Just jump out of it and take a move towards love.
Don’t pay much attention to fear, because that is dangerous. If you pay much attention to fear you are feeding it, and it will grow. Turn your back to the fear and move towards love.
If you go deeper into your love… because there are difficulties to go deeper in love, because the more you go deeper, the more you lose yourself, a fear arises, a trembling grips you. You start avoiding the depth of love because the depth of love is just like death. You create barriers between you and your beloved, because the woman seems like an abyss — and can be absorbed into it — and she is. You come out of a woman; she can absorb you: that is the fear. She is the womb, the abyss, and when she can give birth to you, why not death? In fact, only that which gives you birth can give you death, so the fear is there.
Life is carrying itself. Why don’t you leave your burdens to life? But you cling. And when you cling to life, the fear of death arises. There is no death and there is no fear of death. Clinging to life creates the fear of death, and the fear of death creates death. Otherwise, there is no death and no fear.
Just allow life to take you wheresoever it leads you and don’t be afraid. Fear is the only thing one should be afraid of, nothing else. Move! Be courageous and daring.
From where does this fear of death come? Have you known death before? If you have not known death before, why are you afraid of it, of something which you don’t know? If you ask the psychologists, they will say, ‘Fear is relevant if you know what death is. If you have died before, fear seems relevant.’ But you don’t know death. You don’t know whether it is going to be painful or whether it is going to be ecstatic. Then why are you afraid? No, the fear of death is not really a fear of death, because how can you be afraid of something which is unknown, which is not known at all? How can you be afraid of something which is absolutely unknown to you? Fear of death is not really fear of death. Fear of death is really clinging to life.
Life is there and you know well that you are not living it, it is bypassing you. The river is bypassing you, you are standing on the bank, and it is going continuously out of your hands. The fear of death, basically, is the fear that you are incapable of living and life is going. Soon, there will be no time left, and you have been waiting and you have always been preparing. You are obsessed with preparations.
It is not fear of a death somewhere in the future coming and destroying you. It is happening every moment. Life is moving and you are absolutely incapable and closed. You are already dying. The day you were born you started dying. Every moment of life is also a moment of death. The fear is not of some unknown death which is waiting in the future, the fear is right now. Life is flowing out of the hands and you seem to be incapable, you cannot do anything. Fear of death is basically a fear of life which is flowing out of your hands.
Be an emperor, be a sovereign. Live life but don’t cling to it, don’t cling to anything. Clinging makes you ugly and violent. Clinging makes you a beggar and life is for those who are emperors, not for those who are beggars. If you beg you will not get anything. Life gives much to those who never beg. Life be comes a constant blessing for those who remain unclinging to it. Live it, enjoy it, celebrate it, but don’t be miserly, don’t cling to it. This clinging to life gives you the fear of death because the more you cling, the more you see that the life is not there — it is going, it is going, it is going. Then the fear of death arises.
The fear of death is basically fear of life, because only life can die. If you are afraid of death, you will be afraid of life. If you are afraid of falling down, you will be afraid of rising up, because only a wave that rises falls back. If you are afraid of being rejected you will become afraid, afraid to approach any body. If you are afraid of being rejected, you will become incapable of love. Afraid of death, you become incapable of life. Then you live just for the name’s sake, and only miseries, darkness, and night surround you.
