Fear has its domain, but there is a vast world outside it

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): For a mind that is always fearful, what would sadhana (practice) be?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Does fear remain the same, if it is no more an object to be loathed, an object that is spiteful, that must be gotten rid of?

Listener 1 (L1): One does not remain fearful.

AP: So what starts as a particular movement of chemicals in the brain, can be made to remain, just that much, right?

L1: Yes.

AP: To a great extent, what happens in the brain, is just so automatic, that it is outside the volition of man, right?

L1: Yes.

AP: So, this light that is falling on your face, on your retina, and you have so little control on how the chemicals inside the eye are responding to it. In fact, you probably have zero control. If we have just had the food, a while back, we almost have zero control as to how our body is ingesting it. We, in fact, have no knowledge.

So, there is the physical, the mechanical component of fear, and that depends on one’s conditioning, which has its physical representation in the structure of the brain, right? You have these many cells here…