You should learn to examine your fears. Why are you committing the mistake of not examining your fears? Learn to examine your fears. Why think negatively all the time? Do you know what happens, what you are doing to yourself? Fear invites danger, remember this. Don’t put yourself in danger. 

From these four primitive fountains [food, sleep, sex, and self-preservation] arise the streams of emotion. Your emotional problems are related to one of these four fountains, there is no fifth fountain. I am putting before you twenty-five years of experiments and studies. Somehow or other, all your fears, all your emotions are related to these fountains. Those emotions could be converted into creative emotions. Gauranga [Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu] knew how to use emotion and attain a state of ecstasy. All the great men of the world, somehow or other come in touch with this, their emotional power. Wisdom through mind, through thinking, is not complete. Wisdom through emotion can lead you to heights of ecstasy. All the great sages following the path of bhakti or love, came in touch with this power.

So these four fountains, food sleep, sex, and self-preservation, are related to each other closely, very closely. There was an Irish woman, whom I respected very much, I respected her like my mother. She helped me establish the Himalayan Institute in the United States. Sometimes we used to fight with each other. At night she would quietly go to the refrigerator, eat, and in the morning swear that she had not eaten anything. I said, “Mama, it’s not good.” She said, “Son, I Promise I’ve not done anything, I’ve not eaten anything.” She would forget. When habit becomes deep-rooted, then you give up. There is compensation, law of compensation. She was not married, the psychological analysis was this. And in an Irish family, they are very conservative and she used to control all her brothers, their wives, children, and everybody. She was the head of the family. And she did not get married for the sake of the family. Remember this formula, this point, all of the body is in the mind but all of the mind is not in the body. 

We talk of God, we talk of this bible and that bible, we talk of this religion and that. It’s of no use if we do not understand the very basics in our life. Learn to regulate these four fountains, because all your problems come from one of these four. 

You are the victim of your habit patterns. Who are you? You are the sum total of your habits, that’s what you are. And your habits are the result of your repeated actions. Your actions, your deeds, are related to the four fountains. There are no books available for it. There are no books available on practical subjects anywhere, I tell you that. Self-discipline is missing in our educational life. Where are the teachers, the curriculum where children are asked to walk straight, to talk straight, to be gentle and straightforward? There is no such curriculum. These basic points are missing in our daily life. These disciplines should be introduced in the schools, they will be very helpful. Something about food, something about sleep, something about sex, something about self-preservation; these should be taught to our children. It will help them. We have to understand the primitive fountains if we want to lead a free, happy, joyous life


Editor’s Note

This article has been taken from the book Conscious Living, pp 27 – 29, by Swami Rama, published 2005 by the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust.