How Do You Manage To Get Back To The Balance Of Mind When Intense Fear Disturb You ?

Op

Just my two cents. Those who know any technique and practice regularly they will not have intense fear. For example meditation technique practiced regularly will lower stress taking habit from roots. For simplest technique I will suggest you to do deep breathing whole day and try not to think or read or watch or hear anything unnecessary. Make it habit if it’s not useful why to waste time and energy in that. Death is ultimate destination for all then lead life peacefully as much as possible.

 

There are no "techniques" for this. Some of the so called meditation gurus have also confided that when they had emotional disturbance, they could not control it. Fear comes out of ignorance. When we are born, we are under the protection of parents, they hardly let us know the rigors of outside world. At least for normal children and parents, that is the case. As we start growing we start getting "freedom" from parents and start to explore the world, then slowly things start affecting us. Reality hits us in the face. The more integrity and faith we have, the better. We can face such realities with greater courage. Sticking to rules and principles helps at such times. Meditation without principles, for that any matter, anything without principles, is bound to cause misery. Meditation is not the answer for dealing with consequences that come with lack of efforts. Meditation is for those people who are fighting too many things at once and are getting mentally tired. Meditation helps them to focus on themselves and think calmly.

I know this answer seems more like a rant than an advice, but this is what I have understood after many years.

 

Thoughts arise from the mind are the waves in the ocean. Meditation helps to calm down the waves for everybody. It doesn`t mean after the meditation haunting or fearful thoughts won`t arise. They will, but meditation is not the end, it is a mean to the end. Breath is the bridge which connects the body and the mind. When you start observing the breath, then the thoughts subsidize to a great extent. I can`t say I am very successfull in managing and winning my mind. But now a days I try to focus on my breath whenever possible. Try straw breathing - After you breath in, you breath out through the mouth slowly like blowing a straw. Hope it helps.

 

You

You can look up wikipedia for different types of yoga - Bhakti yoga, Karma yoga and Gnana yoga. Bhakti yoga is a form of strong devotion towards a personal favorite deity. It involves completely devoting oneself to a specific deity - any one God you like and go about doing your daily duties as usual. Vaishnavaites are devotees of Lord Vishnu, they pray to Lord Vishnu. I heard they do not believe in horoscopes and astrology because whatever happens they take it as the Lord's desire and hence they do no see any point in referring those. A very strong belief in Lord Vishnu. Then there are Krishna devotees. They are very similar to Vaishnavaites. Shaivites are devotees of Lord Shiva. Shaktas are devotees of Parvati Devi. In all these cases, the common factor is that the devotee completely surrenders to the deity and do not think of anything/anyone else. Where there is complete devotion, there is no reason to fear. It is like trusting your parent will take care of you no matter what.

Karma Yoga means to do the right action, no matter what. The belief that the right action will bring the right consequences (not desired but right). Karma yogis can be Bhakti yogis or atheists. The problem with Karma yoga is that it is dependent completely on the person - what they think is right.

Gnana Yoga means to do actions in search of knowledge. The ultimate goal is knowledge. I don't know much about this.

I think one who does all the above three forms of yoga is the one that will be the strongest (Bhakti yoga followed by Karma yoga followed by Gnana Yoga). Bhakti yoga is a good starting point. All of them involve some form of detachment and sacrifice and definitely keeping aside fears. That is why I mentioned that unless one is not clear about their goals, about their surroundings, that person cannot get the benefits of meditation. All meditation techniques involve some form of concentration and suspension of disbelief at least for some part of the day, to not think upon what is going wrong, but complete isolation from all worries, fears for some amount of time at least.

Gandhari was a karma yogi - she blindfolded herself to do justice to her husband, he was blind so she decided that she should not have the privilege of sight. She was also a bhakti yogi. But she had an attachment towards her sons, a partiality towards them, a discontentment and a desire for power. She and her husband both had a strong attachment towards progeny. Although she tried to rectify her sons' behavior, her husband did not work in that direction. His logic was he suffered, he was the victim, he deserved to be the king, but was unfairly cast aside because of his disability. What both did not realize is that it is not important to be in power to achieve moksha. One need not be in power to do the right thing. Had they concentrated on doing the right thing (Karma yoga), they wouldn't have suffered.

Lord Krishna/ Lord Rama were karma yogis. Whatever may be the consequences, they completely devoted themselves to do the right actions. Lord Krishna was cursed by Gandhari, He knew she would do it, but he did what he thought was right, and that was to stand up for another wronged woman (Draupadi). Draupadi herself was a Bhakti yogi and Karma yogi. Karma yogi because she did not question her marriage to Pandavas. She was ordered to do it and she did it without any attachments. She had immense belief in Lord Krishna, so that makes her a Bhakti yogi. For Lord Krishna, the war was not about Draupadi, but the entire women/females in the universe. If a virtuous woman like Draupadi could be illtreated, then what of ordinary women? So he did what he thought was the right thing to do.