Emotion of fear is protective, but is
damaging, when we use the emotion of fear in the wrong dose at
the wrong time, causing stress. Example, the fear of smoking or eating
unhealthy foods is good. But when we get disease and fear about death, it is
damaging and ridiculous.
Fear of missing the flight helps us to
leave to airport on time to board a flight. But going late and fearing to
miss the flight while driving is ridiculously stressful. Here we use
misuse fear and suffer from its consequences.
Feeling of fear comes when we feel insecure
about ourselves in many situations in life. This baseless fear serves no
purpose other than generating stress. Analyze
with your intellect and you will see that most of the time, other than the
protective aspect, fear is baseless, yet we hang on to fear and generate
stress.
Buddha, says,
"Thus, all fears
And all infinite sufferings
Arise from the mind."
. . . it is not possible
To control all external events;
But, if I simply control my mind,
What need is there to control other things?
it is possible to overcome sufferings and be peaceful. If the mind has to be
peaceful, it has to be fearless and for this the mind should be prevented
from wandering. The legs are symbolic of wandering nature of the mind. This
is why in the picture, the legs are tied with a black strip to avoid
wandering (more details in
the section of festivals).