Fear is in no way good. You don't need fear to keep yourself safe. You think I don't put my hand inside the fire because I fear pain? Of course not. I don't put it inside the fire because I know that if I do so it will harm my body. No need for fear. Knowledge and awareness is sufficient to keep us safe. Fear is unnecessary.

I have investigated the subject a little so far and have come to say this... it is hard to say with any degree of certainty what happens after death unless one is to have a personal experience which will be valid proof for themselves, but not for anyone else. Hypnosis, meditation and prayer can be 3 ways in which one can try to induce such an experience upon oneself, however, from my attempts, it is unlikely to be easily successful. Furthermore, fear of death while alive is rational. One fears that one may be unable to fulfill all his desires. It is really not the fear of death that is the thing. It is the fear that one cannot fulfill all of one's desires that troubles the mind, and makes us bear such a heavy burden. An intelligent being knows that whatever setbacks one has in the world, there's still hope for them to fulfill their desires or to make a comeback. But one fears that death will rob one of this capacity to come back and fulfill one's desires. Happiness in life to a great extent comes from the immediate fulfillment of one's desires. A child who wants to play football and is able to go outside and play football is happy. A child who wants to play football and is unable to go outside is sad. A child who thinks his mother may not allow him to go outside and play football is afraid. He is afraid that he may not be able to fulfill his immediate desire.

So clearly there is a link between fear and desire. All fear is fear of not being able to do what one wants to do. Therefore freedom from fear lies in assurance that one can and will be able to do what one wants to do. I remember the very first time I was afraid. It was also the very first time I failed in something. Whatever I had tried before I had succeeded, or if not, I had had the ability to try again and in the end succeed. Nothing deprived me of the ability to try again, so there was nothing to fear in those earlier years of my life. However, one day I fell in love with a hungarian girl. And I loved her intensely but she did not love me back. No matter what I did or what I tried, I could not succeed in making her love me. And that is when my OCD kicked in and my hypochondria. I started being afraid of illness and of ANYTHING that could permanently stop me from doing what I wanted to do. Fear of death troubles no one, it is fear of not being able to do what one desires that troubles one. And the agent of this fear, in the end, is of course death, which for many is the final termination of their will and desire.

So to overcome death, one must overcome the fear that one will be unable to do what they want to do. There are two approaches to this... one is the approach of finding out that death is not the end and you will never be stopped from fulfilling your desires. The other is to stop the desire to fulfill your desires. The desire to fulfill your desires is what causes you fear, not your desires. If just this one desire can be extinguished, man will be free. I have noticed from myself that ever since I suffer from anxiety I am never bored, while before I was bored many times. Why was I bored before as a child? Because I knew that I had to wait for some time before I could do what I really wanted to do. I was bored doing school homework because I wanted to play football outside and knew that in order to be able to go play football outside I had to complete it. So, boredom is the experience one feels when one knows one has to wait to fulfill his desire, but knows that in the end will be able to fulfill it. Anxiety is the experience one feels when one knows that one needs to wait in order to fulfill his desire, but does not know that in the end he will be able to fulfill it.

During a panic attack, why does one panic? Because bodily sensations indicate that one will die, and hence one fears that he or she will be unable to fulfill his or her desires. Whether this desire is to be with his loved ones, have a girlfriend, become financially independent, or whatever. It is important to note that those who have had a near death experience have all been cured from anxiety and fear. They never fear anything because they have had a personal experience that death is not the end and death will not stop them from fulfilling their desires. So, likewise we must also search for a way to experience what they have experienced in their near death experiences without of course putting our lives at risk. As I mentioned before, prayer, meditation and hypnosis are the three ways one can try to achieve this with. However, as I said before, the result of these practices is NOT certain. We are looking to generate an experience which will create faith in the fact that death will not stop us from achieving our desires. No mere intelectual proof can do this, it must be an experience. I notice it is the goal of the Abrahamic religions to create this experience.

There's of course the other way to approach the situation. That is the way of ending the desire to fulfill ones desires. This is the way preached by hinduism, buddhism and all eastern religions. It is somewhat of a deeper way, striking the problem at its very root. These religions label this desire to fulfill ones desires as the ego. Thus destroying the ego means liberation. It is important to note that annihilation of all desires is NOT good or beneficial. We know already of people who are desireless... and they are suffering of a condition called depression. Those who are depressed usually lack any desire. They have not succeeded in doing anything by annihilating all their desires, they have not achieved happiness. I must confess that ultimate happiness is this: having desires and seeking to fulfill them, but not being attached/caring of the desire to fulfill them. In other words achieving a state where you have desires and you do seek to fulfill them, however, you stop believing that their fulfillment is a NECESSITY. You stop desiring their fulfillment. If it comes, it comes, if it doesn't come, then everything is well. This is the state of enlightenment. I have not achieved it, but I can distinguish it after years of suffering from anxiety and struggling to deal with these issues and facing them again and again.

More to come soon...