"For all may have, If they dare choose, a glorious life."
--Herbert.
I have received many letters from people who are distressed by their fears. To every such an one let me send this a.s.sured message:
You can grow in your soul a perfect courage.
The methods adapted to this ideal are simple, not impossible to any, and will become less and less difficult as you continue to make them more and more a real part of your life.
I do not say, "Be courageous."
I do not say, "Destroy your fears."
Such advice is common enough, but it is altogether barren unless you know how to carry it out. I hope, rather, to present methods which shall be definite and practical, so that you will be able to do the very thing needful. These methods, in the large, I now announce as follows:
FIRST METHOD: THE INSPIRATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. You are invited, always through the reading of this book and during life, to believe, a.s.sume and realize--
_I_ AM GROWING IN MY SOUL A PERFECT COURAGE.
SECOND METHOD: THE ELIMINATION OF FEAR. This is the negative phase of our work. Specific instructions will be given having to do with every kind of fear. I shall endeavor to suggest practical help to all readers for each particular difficulty.
THIRD METHOD: THE CULTURE OF SPIRITUAL COURAGE. By the word "spiritual" I mean not merely religious in the ordinary sense, but rather that kind of courage which is just the breath and tone of the White Life manifest in the human life. The WHITE LIFE in you is harmony with the White Life which is The Good, The Beautiful, The True, The All-Health, The Father, The Infinite Soul of this wonderful Universe in which we live. If you come to harmony with the White Life, your fears will vanish because you will then share in the Courage of the Eternal Good.
There are two kinds of courage:
THE COURAGE THAT DARES AND WINS; and
THE COURAGE THAT SMILES AND RECEIVES.
"And shall I with a Giant strive, And charge a Dragon on the field?"
In these lines we have the first kind of courage. It is good, but there is a type which is vastly superior:
I AM THE COURAGE OF THE SOUL HARMONIC WITH THE PERFECT WHOLE.
These lines indicate the second kind of courage--than which there is no higher. "Herein is love with us made perfect, that we may have boldness."
These are our methods. They are commended to your approval. I shall try to state them plainly, going on from one fear to another, and another, until the long list is disposed of, and always shall I follow details of procedure similar to those set forth in "POWER FOR SUCCESS," the ideal constantly being
EXACTLY WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO EXACTLY THAT.
FOREWORD.
"There is no limit to the knowing of the mind that knows."-- Indian Upanishads.
I wish to indulge in a little Foreword because in this way may be indicated a warning against contentment with a seemingly very sensible conclusion which will prove, on further thought, to be hasty and incomplete.
Five years ago I wrote in this identical place in our study these words:
"Fear will never go out of this world until pleasure loses value, desire ceases for want of an object, and reason no longer imposes responsibility.
"The best gift of Nature to primitive man, after reason, was fear.
"The imagination is reason"s magnifying power.
"Fear observed and obeyed by reason is a friend.
"Fear and reason take care of man.
"Fear and imagination send him into a panic."
To many minds these statements will have the look of sanity.
But there are others who will instantly perceive that they represent thought on a comparatively low plane. I now observe:
The best gift of Life to primeval man, after love, was reason.
The imagination, void of love,--the feeling of harmony with all,-- forgets reason and permits fear to enter the soul.
Fear is an ALIEN to our life, and never a friend. The real friend is reason, acting amid harmonic conditions.
When you are threatened by some hostile force or event, reason tries to induce self-protection, but you know no real fear if you are saturated with the feeling of harmony. You may believe it is FEAR that seeks your self-protection. But your REASON can do precisely the same thing without fear. Fear is, then, only an extra, a distressing extra, foisted in front of reason.
You are invited now to live the WHITE LIFE, to cast fear out, and to make real reason its subst.i.tute. By so much you will add immeasurably to personal comfort and power.
Love and reason alone can take care of man, so far as his own efforts are concerned. In properly blended proportions these const.i.tute the very life of courage. What conceivable service then, can fear render any man or woman?
If you desire panic and distress, let imagination fill your soul with fears. But if peace, happiness, health and power be your desires, live the WHITE LIFE and hold fast only to reason.
By the reality called reason I do not mean mere cold calculation and hard logic. Such phases of reason are legitimate in their place, if freed from cunning and deceit, but the higher reason is to these as a woman"s love--look is to the glitter of ice. The higher reason is not alone intellection, it is also intuition and harmonic a.s.surance--what religious thought calls faith. The higher reason declares self-preservation to be the first law of life, and then, just because this is true, it cares for self and trusts the White Universe to a.s.sist. I really do not see what a human soul need actually fear when that soul and the White Universe are bent on the same goal, the soul"s welfare.
The Universe is a growing organism. It is forever striving to realize its own best estate. This is the true goal for all individuals. It is saying the same thing if we affirm the goal to be Health--for worlds or man: Body-Health, Mind-Health, Self- Health.
When any form of health is threatened, you say, perhaps, it is FEAR that warns you to self-preservation. But I say it is REASON, and your fear-feeling is unnecessary and hurtful. If you can remember that the White Life or Universe and you have the same desire, your highest welfare, you can banish the fear-element, reserving only the reason-a.s.surance element. All the fears in the world cannot benefit you. Harmony and courage will sublime your whole life.
I have never known a person whose reason has induced self- suffering. Suffer-fear is always a product of diseased imagination. What some may call reason-fear, when they think they are extremely sensible, is simply fear, and nothing but fear, and it is due to imagination, not to reason.
"But," you say, "are there not all sorts of evils in the world, and do they not threaten us, and should we not forefend against them? In this forefending, how can we escape fear?"
These questions show how thoroughly fear is knit into our very lives.
Now this is precisely the point. Fear has no rightful place with any rightful living, because the WHITE LIFE alone is rightful, and in that life reason-a.s.surance only is possible, and, therefore, rightful.