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"Be anchored in fearlessness. What is worldly life but fear!
When you live in the grip of fear, must you not be afraid? It is futile to expect fearlessness there.
That you may be delivered from all sorrow you should endeavour to let God be your one and only support."
Sri Anandamayi Ma in Matri Vani
Devotee: If one realised the Self and acted up to it in the West, one would be locked up in a lunatic asylum.
Maharshi: You will be locking yourself in. Because the world is mad, it considers you mad.
Where is the lunatic asylum if it is not within. You will not be in it, but it will be in you.
Uncertainties, doubts and fears are natural to everyone until the Self is realised.
They are inseparable from the ego, rather they are the ego.
Sri Ramana Maharshi in Talks #612
"Look, in order to pluck a rose one has to put one’s hand into the midst of thorns.
But if the rose is a person’s aim and he has a keen desire to pluck it, he will not refrain from doing so for fear of being pricked.
Moreover, the Great Mother arranges whatever is necessary for each one.
She certainly knows the real need of every individual.
If one has at least this much faith, there is no reason at all to feel fear and distress...
Sustain the flow of God’s Name and no fear of any kind can exist is His Presence."
Sri Anandamayi Ma
From the Mystic Treatises of Saint Isaac of Nineveh
As long as a man is negligent, he fears the hour of death; when, however, he comes near to God, he proceeds firmly and both kinds of fear are taken away. How does this happen? While his knowledge and his behavior are of a bodily nature, he is frightened by death. But when his knowledge is of a psychic nature, and his behavior is steadfast, his mind is moved by the thoughts of Judgement every moment. In the first state he belongs wholly to nature; in the psychic state he is moved and guided by his knowledge and by his discipline. And he is happy in the neighborhood of God. But when he reaches true knowledge by the motion of the apperception of God's mysteries and he becomes confirmed in future hope, he is consumed by love.
He that is bodily fears as an animal fears being slaughtered; he who is rational fears the Judgement of God. He that has become a son, is pleasing to love, not to the staff of him who testifies. 'I and my house will serve the Lord.' (Joshua 24:15). For love annihilates fear. It not only fears but it even longs after departure. Love is the dissolver of temporary life. He that has reached the love of God, does not desire to stay here any more.
My beloved ones, because I was foolish, I could not bear to guard the secret in silence, but am become mad, for the sake of my brethren's profit. For true love is not able to cling to the cause of love apart from friends.
Oft when I was writing these things, my fingers paused on the paper. They could not bear the delight which had fallen into the heart and which made the senses silent. Blessed is he that has constant intercourse with God and has withdrawn himself from worldly things, being with Him only, in intercourse founded upon his knowledge. And if he has to be patient, it will not be long before he sees fruits.
Gladness in God is stronger than earthly life. He that has found it, is not only free from the trial of the affections, but he does not even turn towards his life any longer. Furthermore, he has no other apperception, if he really has been deemed worthy of this.
Love is sweeter than life. An understanding concerning God, from which love is born, is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. What is the sweetness of love which excels life? Love is not spiteful if it has to undergo a myriad of deaths for the sake of it's friends.
Love of God Annihilates Fear
