By Roberto Assagioli from Il Cammino Spirituale, Assagioli Archive Florence, translated by Jan Kuniholm and Francesco Viglienghi
Fear is often the main obstacle in the inner path. Each of us has his own sensitive points, from which arise his particular fears, sometimes conditioned by the past.
Here it is important to remember the statement “Fire burns the past and illuminates the future”. We must burn the past through the fire of the soul — the soul knows no fear.
Generally speaking, fear is karmic in origin. But it is one of the basic instincts, and biologically it has a very important function in animals and to a certain extent in humans as well. So don’t despise fear, and especially don’t despise yourself for being afraid. The problem is how to minimize fear. The techniques to be used are those for spiritual psychosynthesis; the main technique is what we might call “the infusion of the soul into the personality”. Because the soul, as we have said, knows no fear. And, in a sense, fear is the thermometer of identification in the personality.
It is not necessary to trace the origin of fears. Here the psychosynthetic approach is different from that of psychoanalysis. Fear is a basic biological and psychological reaction. The form it takes is not important, so let us not waste time and energy on retrospection and analysis. Everything that happened in the past is deposited in the “memory of the soul”; thus we enter this incarnation with karmic fears, but then there are also fears linked to the present, which we all have to face.
Overcoming fear constitutes a great spiritual victory, so it is worth working hard to succeed at least in part. It is an achievement for eternity. And remember one thing. Fear is one of the weapons of the dark forces, which use it mainly on a collective level; all the collective waves of panic, alarm and “sense of disaster” have this origin. We therefore act “as if” we had no fear until we can eliminate it — which will take some time. But if we can see through the fear, half the job is done. The other half remains, but when we are no longer blinded, when we accept the evidence, half the job is done.
Alice Bailey had to battle fear her whole life. She had fears and acted “as if” she didn’t. We were good friends and she confided that to me.
Remember the process: recognition, acceptance, gradual elimination by various techniques.
And the main thing is: don’t be afraid of your fears. Break that vicious cycle. There is nothing to fear in being afraid. It is a normal condition of the personality.
“In short, fear disintegrates the personality and is a source of the most serious damage, dangers, and pains. That fear is a source of pain, indeed that in every pain there is an element of fear, is confirmed by its close relationship with desire, which, as the Buddha demonstrated admirably and definitively in the first of his four noble truths, is at the root of all pain. In fact, every desire implies the fear that it will not be fulfilled, and every fear implies the desire that the feared thing will not happen. [7]
Desire and fear, therefore, are the rope that binds us to the earth and to matter, in an intimate and indissoluble intertwining; that prevents us from rising to the summit of spiritual consciousness, to bliss, to the conquest of the Kingdom of Heaven, to liberation, to nirvana. Therefore, everyone, but especially those who follow the spiritual path, must overcome and destroy fear.” Two Lectures on The Topic of Fear
Please read the full article by Roberto Assagioli: Two Lectures on The Topic of Fear for a profound reflection on fear, its origin, and how to overcome it.
Read also Assagioli’s definition of instincts in relation to fears:
