Brother David Steindl-Rast on the Essential Shifts

To me, the interview with Brother Steindl-Rast is one of the most powerful in the Essential Shifts Series. Taken together, the Essential Shifts interviews teach us how to prevent our extinction during this century. In this interview, he places prime importance on a step we all can take, becoming fearless and eliminating fear. He says:

"Be fearless, because all the divisions [between people, organizations, cultures, countries etc.] come about through fear. And, unfortunately, if you look around yourself and you are alerted to the fact, you see that those who foster the divisions and those that take advantage of the divisions, be they religious or economic or any other way, are fostering fear. The fear-mongering that is going on in our society and all over the world is extremely dangerous and so we can overcome that only by being fearless. And, that means, quite concretely, [there is] something that we can actually do, each one of us can do. We can ‘not repeat things that cause fear.’ When we are told something that is frightening to me, I will not repeat it to others; when we hear somebody who is fearful, to try to help them overcome their fears. Anything that we can do to eliminate fear in our world will contribute a great deal to a more peaceful world."