Root Yourself Beyond Fear

There is a passage in the Bhagavad Gita that feels almost impossible when you first read it.

It describes a human being so inwardly rooted that heat and cold no longer disturb him. Praise and blame pass through him without leaving a mark. Friend and enemy dissolve into the same essential recognition. Saints and sinners are met with equal regard. Desire loosens its grip. Wisdom takes its place.

At first glance, it sounds superhuman. Unrealistic. Like a poetic exaggeration meant to inspire rather than describe anyone who has actually walked this earth.

And yet, throughout history, we find figures who lean close to this state as living, breathing people with frailties, humor, and limits. One of those figures was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

Ramakrishna was not powerful in any conventional sense. He held no office. He commanded no armies. He founded no institutions. He lived most of his life as a poor temple priest in nineteenth-century Bengal, and was often mocked for his ecstatic states and childlike demeanor. By the standards the world usually worships—status, control, certainty—he had very little. But fear seemed unable to take root in him.