When we face our fears by gradually exposing ourselves to their sources, those fears decrease. How? By exposing the falsity of the link in our imagination between the source of the fear and the impending disaster. Suppose someone has claustrophobia and believes that if they enter an elevator, they’ll be trapped, suffocate, starve, and die. They cannot deal with this fear by avoiding elevators forever. By gradually getting closer to an elevator, maybe just one foot every day, until they eventually enter it and realize that nothing disastrous happens, their mind’s false imagination is exposed, and their fear goes away.

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18.35 And that determination which cannot go beyond dreaming, fearfulness, lamentation, moroseness and illusion – such unintelligent determination, O son of Pṛthā, is in the mode of darkness.