Choice: Fear vs Hope

I read a book written by Anita Moorjani, "Dying to be Me" a few years back. Anita Moorjani was suffering from Cancer and was at a very critical stage. She was getting treatment at a good hospital in Singapore and doctors declared that she had very limited time left. At that time, she miraculously connected to life and could overcome all her fears and her cancer was healed.

I feel that we have a choice to make all the time, between fear and hope. Both fear and hope are operating within us all the time. Our immunity operates on hope and the diseases operate on fear. It all depends upon our focus. the more we focus on diseases, the more we fall ill and the more we focus on hope, the better we feel. We could see many examples of hope and fear during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The same choice exists in each of our actions. Our actions may be motivated by the fear of survival or may be motivated by the hope of possibilities. This choice decides whether our mind is full of fear or we are mindful. Whatever we focus on, our life becomes full of that. The more we focus on fear, the more it increases. If we focus on the fear of financial security, it increases with every rupee we earn. The more we focus on death, the fear of death increases each day we live. The more we focus on the fear of losing a relationship, the it gets worse with each moment spent with such a person. The more we focus on the fear of missing out on some information, it grows with the acquisition of more information.

Krishna offered us an example with quite practical guidance on how to live life with a focus on hope rather than fear. Krishna was brought up by Nand and Yashoda and his friends often teased him with this fact.  He made a choice to focus on the possibilities as a Gwala rather than focusing on the injustice done to him and the resultant fears and insecurities. The entire Brij used to pray to Indra as a God due to the fear of irregular rains since Indra was the god of rain. Krishna persuaded them not to pray for fear. It started raining heavily and Krishna provided shelter to all of them under Govardhana parvata. With faith in Krishna, the Brijwasis could reconnect to hope. Similarly, he helped Draupadi and Arjuna reconnect to hope.

Each moment we exercise this choice and since we keep on exercising this choice in favor of fear, as we progress in life, we become so obsessed with fear. We don't see infants and young kids dying on the streets. They adapt to life situations very quickly. Even if they are with no money or security, they learn to live with hope. On the other hand, we see many adults committing suicide with the slightest of difficulties. The reason is quite simple the orphan on the road is focusing on hope and the wealthy adult committing suicide is focusing on fear. 

It's not possible to live with hope with a strong identification with the accumulations or aspirations. The accumulations and aspirations may be perfectly legal, valid, and socially approved, yet identification and fixation with them will naturally turn the focus from hope to fear. Had Rama had a strong identification with the comforts of the palace or his father or wife, he could not have made such a firm decision to go to the forest for 14 years. That requires such a strong connection to hope. Without hope, Krishna could not have taken a decision to participate in the battle of Mahabharata as a charioteer of Arjuna while all his family members fought with Kauravas. 

The irony is that we remember all our bank balances, properties, connections, positions and qualifications, and experiences but forget this choice we have all the time in our hands. Since we exercise this choice so rarely, we do not remember it when we need it the most.

Whatever I have read and experienced so far, I can not remember any single instance where fear has made our lives more meaningful. It has a functional utility to protect the body and not beyond that. Protection and preservation of this body can never be the meaning of life. Had it been so, we would have been single cellular life forms so far and would not have evolved into complex human beings. It was due to hope and faith different forms of life grew into more complex and capable life forms. 

Hope helps us grow and fear makes us limited. The choice is always available to us.