This is a quote from esoterick’s post Original postThe power of love and the power of fear. Osho

By acting out of love, you will achieve more.

IN

The power of love and the power of fear. Osho

IN

Love and fear are two great forces that move people. Man submits to one of these energies – either one or the other; or they affect us in some proportion.

Fear is nothing but the absence of love. When you are filled with love, there is no fear, but as soon as love disappears, fear arises in its place.

Fear is like darkness, the absence of light. When a light bulb is on, you see the light, but as soon as you turn it off, darkness reigns. What is darkness in essence? It’s just the absence of light. Likewise, fear is not some kind of self-existing substance, it is simply the absence of love.

We need to understand the nature of fear, otherwise we will waste years or decades pointlessly fighting something that does not exist.

The nature of fear is like the nature of darkness – fear has no power of its own, it draws power only from the absence of love. In addition to Osho, other sages talk about this. Darkness also has power, frightening children at night, but when we turn on the light, the child immediately calms down – he sees that there is nothing scary or dangerous around. Therefore, the power of darkness is illusory and groundless, as well as the power of fear, although these forces influence us.

 

How to eliminate darkness? Light up the light. You can’t do anything about darkness without turning on the light – you can’t kick it out the door, make it smaller, move it into another room, or somehow remove it without bringing in the light. Darkness does not exist as a separate substance (it only seems to exist), so something cannot be done with it directly. If we want to eliminate darkness, we must do something about light, because light, unlike darkness, is real and we can control it.

As we have already understood, fighting fear, trying to suppress it, drive it away, reduce it by self-hypnosis is a stupid exercise, because it is impossible to defeat something that does not exist. Moreover, the more efforts a person makes in the fight against his fears, the more he loses to fear, from which the latter is only gaining strength, exerting more and more influence. Thus, we only exacerbate the problem. You cannot overcome fear without bringing in love, because you are at war with a non-existent enemy. IN

 

Love, unlike fear, is a real force. If fear lives in you, you need to bring more love into life, then fears will be forced to recede, just as darkness recedes when we light a lamp. There is no other way to effectively deal with fears than by drawing on the power of love.

Love other people unconditionally, says Osho. But what does it mean to love unconditionally? It means not to put any conditions, otherwise the conditions will become a barrier to love. Giving your love to others, do not expect anything in return, do not make yourself dependent on the responses of other people. If they answer the same, it will bring you joy, if they do not reciprocate, you will not be upset.

Giving love to others, you get rid of fears; with the power of love, you illuminate the space around you, dispelling the darkness – this is how fearlessness arises. When you give the world unconditional love without making yourself dependent on the reactions of others, you put yourself in a position where you can’t lose.

The less we love others, the more we demand love for ourselves; and the less we are attractive to love – it bypasses us. Demanding light from others, we thereby extinguish our lamp, and darkness gathers around, causing various fears. Then someone can illuminate our space, it will temporarily become brighter and not so scary, not so lonely, but if we do not light our own lamp, we become dependent on someone else’s light and begin to fear that this person with a lamp will once us will leave.

There is only one way out – to light your own lamp, to give people your love without expecting anything in return. You don’t have to think that you are doing this for others. You do this for yourself no less: you surround yourself with the light of love, and this beneficent power of love protects you from fears and darkness.

The more you love others, the more love and bliss is available to you.

 

Osho says that there are four stages of love, and at each new stage there is less and less fear – it loses its power until it disappears completely.

1. When beautiful sex happens, fear disappears from the body.
2. When love happens, the mind is freed from fear.
3. When prayer happens, you feel the relationship with the Whole, and then even the fear of death disappears.
4. When meditation happens, even fearlessness disappears.

Everyone goes through these four stages of love if they follow the instructions of the sages.

Source (original article) Osho: Love and Fear

To understand the topic more, read Osho’s books. The article uses materials and quotes from Osho’s book “Courage”