When you come directly into contact with fear, there is a response of the nerves and all the rest of it. Then, when the mind is no longer escaping through words or through activity of any kind, there is no division between the observer and the thing observed as fear. It is only the mind that is escaping that separates itself from fear. But when there is a direct contract with fear, there is no observer, there is no entity that says, “I am afraid.” So, the moment you are directly in contact with life, with anything, there is no division – it is this division that breeds competition, ambition, fear. So what is important is not how to be free of fear. If you seek a way, a method, a system to be rid of fear, you will be everlastingly caught in fear. But if you understand fear – which can only take place when you come directly in contact with it, as you are in contact with hunger, as you are directly in contact when you are threatened with losing your job – then you do something; only then will you find that all fear ceases. We mean all fear, not fear of this kind or of that kind.

– Krishnamurti