Why do people need to have control over the lives of others? Why this fear of the other? This fear of difference — the fear of change — why this fear of our own bodies? Why this inability to accept our own death? What are the connections between those things?

At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.

Our crises of hope often start with a basic sense that we do not have control over ourselves or our destiny.

Love and closeness often bring a sense of loss of control.

I can state from my own experience that what people fear in death is the loneliness of having to leave this world forever. Though people may not be consciously aware of all the phenomena around them under normal circumstances, the thought that that which makes them themselves will be lost forever is a terribly lonely thing. In sleep, that which is ourselves is not lost, merely forgotten.

If our dreams are to come true, we will have to control ourselves or we will die. We will die because we are not capable of being at the level of the civilization that we have been developing with our efforts. That is our dilemma. We should not spend our time merely correcting the consequences.

Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of unknown things. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality

We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

Much of the fear of death comes from an intuition that we will be revealed as having avoided encounters with the deep self within us.

We are the masters of our fate.

Many people don't allow themselves to love...because there are a lot of things at risk a lot of future and a lot of past.

When a life is too controlled, there becomes less and less life to control.

For all of us, life presents challenges and suffering -- accidents, illnesses, the loss of loved ones. There are times when we are overwhelmed by sudden calamity, natural or manmade. All of us, we make mistakes. And at times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don’t always have control of things -- not even a President does. But we do have control over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat one another.

One of the great tragedies of our present outlook on existence is our attitude to that recurring event which we call death. We approach it, for the most part, with fear and loathing, seeking by every means to resist its call, prolonging, often beyond its usefulness, the activity of the physical body as a guarantee of ‘‘life.’’ Our dread of death is the dread of the unknown, of complete and utter dissolution, of being ‘‘no more.’’ Despite the vast amount of evidence gathered over the years by the many Spiritualist groups that life of some kind continues after death; despite the intellectual acceptance by many that death is but an awakening into new and freer life; in spite of the growing belief in reincarnation, and notwithstanding the testimony of the wisest Teachers down the ages, we continue to approach that great transition with fear and trepidation.
What makes this attitude so tragic is that it is so far from the reality, the source of so much unnecessary suffering. Our fear of death is our fear that our identity will be obliterated. It is this which terrifies. Did we but realize and experience our identity as an immortal Being which cannot die or be obliterated, our fear of death would vanish.(p. 250)