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Fear Is Only an Imagined Sorrow
“But have you ever considered: the situation or the thing that gives fear its birth — is that truly where the pain comes from?”
About this teaching
In the human heart the empire of fear reigns forever — now the fear of losing wealth, now the fear of dishonor, now the fear of being parted from those we love. And so the presence of fear seems natural to everyone. But have you ever considered: the situation or the thing that gives fear its birth — is that truly where the pain comes from?
Chapter 4 — Fear
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Fear — the emotion the Gita is spoken to answer.
The Bhagavad Gita begins because Arjuna is afraid. Not of dying; he is the finest archer alive. He is afraid of what winning will cost — of killing his teacher, his grandfather, his cousins, and of what he will be afterwards. He puts down his bow in the middle of the field.
Krishna's response takes the whole of the Gita. It moves through several arguments: the self is not what dies; a duty abandoned out of fear is not thereby avoided, only deferred and worsened; and a mind steadied on something larger than its own outcome is not easily frightened.
The epic is honest that fear does not simply vanish. Arjuna asks again, and again, and Krishna answers each time.
