In modern life we are taught to respect fear as an essential contributor to our survival, a biological signal that alerts mind and body to approaching danger. But the ancient sages of India taught that fear was born of duality; when human beings realized that they were no longer part of God, they immediately became afraid of what might happen to them. In the 20th century, after two devastating world wars and the advent of the atomic bomb, this haunting insecurity was promoted into an inescapable fact of life, which came to be known as existential anxiety. You and I are children of an era when simply to be alive seemed to be taking the ultimate risk.

As a result, we fall prey to anxiety about who we are and where we belong.

On the spiritual path you can completely recover from such anxiety. By rejecting fear a little at a time, you come to realize that life isn’t constantly at risk. You are safe, you are seen, and you are cared for. Moving from fear to fearlessness requires a shift in orientation because we live in a climate of fear, where it’s all too easy to succumb to a constant barrage of potential threats. The morning news pulls us into a dark world of constant disasters, which is reinforced by the evening news. To counter this, you must look to your own inner guidance. Realize that what makes you safe is a higher intelligence that resides within you. Potential dangers are illusions. Only what lies at hand is real.

I’m not saying that existence can be sanitized of all its discomforts and sudden reversals of fortune. I’m offering the possibility of approaching existence from a different perspective. You will be secure once you realize that God has provided you with everything you need to meet the challenges of life, whatever they may be. You are standing center stage in your own personal drama. Surrounding you is a much larger stage, and if you find yourself in dangerous times on that larger stage, danger will be present. However, this situation is very different from seeing yourself living inside a swirling chaos of impending doom. The point is to take your place inside the drama with confidence. Everything is as it should be.

The role assigned to you is right and proper. It is tailor-made for you, for your complete self. And your complete self won’t settle for a listless, uneventful existence. The fact that life isn’t completely risk free doesn’t change the fact that it’s driven by choices made at the soul level. The voice of fear tries to convince you that you are a helpless victim of chance. The very opposite is true. At the deepest level, the level of the soul, you are the author of everything that happens to you.