THE FIRST GREAT PRINCIPLE OF FEAR-CONQUEST
Categories:
Chapter I - The Twin-Verses
Books:
Mastery of Self
Timidity, apprehension, fear, alarm, fright, consternation,
terror, panic, desperation, are all false imitations of reason's
interpretation of the warning signals of Nature, to be displaced
by reason itself, which may then determine whether the occasion be
real or unreal, and always to be disregarded and overcome if
evidently refering to causes which do not actually exist
This principle is a
duced in the interest of three things: peace,
health, power You are invited to note how vital these interests
really are
The truest peace, of which courage is a sublime bloom, is a growth
solely of honorable living and robust self-respect
Health is of the following realities: body, mind, soul--the deeper
self Health is soundness A sound human is a triune wholeness
Physical soundness with weak intellect is often the athletic field
of superstitions innumerable Intellectual greed in an unsound
body may breed the direst fears of life A decayed soul is always
a House of Fear The ideal of human existence is--The white life
in the sound mind in the vibrantly whole body
It is because there are so many people who are in some sense sick,
that fears abound in every direction But--it is because so many
fears are permitted and actually nursed as boons that so many sick
people abound in every direction If all our fears could be
removed absolutely, we should no longer require physicians This
world would be a paradise in every respect I do not know anything
wrong with it that cannot be traced to a fear
The causes of fear are weak reason, uncontrolled imagination, want
of self-control, and ill-health And the first three items are
really phases of the last
The ability to master and destroy fear depends, it would now seem,
upon the following factors of our life:
The General Tone of the Individual; The Soul's Power of Will; The
Development and Balance of the Reason
Reason is demanded to distinguish between right and wrong causes
for personal effort in self-protection, and to utterly ignore all
wrong causes
Will-power is demanded to banish fears and to utilize reason's
dictates
But the sway of reason and the force of action are always
immensely assisted by a vigorous general tone of the personal
life Now appear, in view of these considerations,