HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR - 4
Fear is a poison that quickly circulates through the entire system, paralyzing the will, producing a queer sensation in some parts or the other of the human body. Fear is a great foe of man. Overcome fear the moment it appears or it will overpower you. And fear is a merciless master. Strike fear with the weapon of the Spirit, -the word of God. Utter the sacred Name dear to you, the Name of the Beloved: Krishna, Shyama, Rama, Jesus, Buddha, Nanak. Utter it, again and again. Utter it in child-like faith, and He whom you call will rush to your aid. Say aloud some prayer which has an appeal to your heart. Recite prayer lines which may appeal to you: recite them, again and again, until fear departs and you feel strong as steel.
Is not fearlessness the first essential condition for spiritual growth? Sri Shankaracharya, -one if the greatest teachers of all time, -urged that he who would walk the way must have vajur hrdaya, - a heart strong as a thunderbolt. When Swami Vivekananda returned from his American tour and entered upon his work of regeneration in India, the one message which he delivered, as he travelled from town to town, from village to village, in this ancient land of heroes and sages was: “Be fearless! Be bold!” Listen to his words: “Stand up, be bold, be strong! Strength is life, weakness is death. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill and commit other crimes, because we are weak. We suffer, because are weak. We die, because we are weak. Where there is nothing to weaken us, there is no death, no sorrow.”
I recall a moving incident in the life of Swami Vivekananda. He is in America, speaking to large audience on the wisdom of India’s Rishi’s and Saints. He urges that the way is not for weaklings: the way is for heroes, for those who would be fearless in the face of every calamity, even death.
A few young men wish to put the Swami to the test. They know of so many who are wonderful preachers but whose life, alas! Does not bear witness to what they teach. Does Swami Vivekananda belong to the same class? They invite him to deliver a lecture. Gladly he goes to their meeting. He speaks to them of faith in God as the secret of the true life. And the man of faith, he urges, is fearless in the face of difficulty and danger.
Suddenly there is the sound of pistal-shots. Bullets fly past the Swami, just grazing his ears. Pandemonium reigns in the hall. Men rush out: women shriek in fear, and some of them drop down in transient unconsciousness. In the midst of this confusion, there is one man who stands firm, immovable as a rock, fearless and bold. He is Swami Vivekananda. The bullet that is not meant for him cannot touch him: the bullet meant for him will seek him out even if he is protected by a thousand body-guards.
Soon the shots cease. The Swami picks up the thread of his talk he left it a long minute ago. People return to the hall. Women wake up from their fainting fits. Things return to normal and it seems as though nothing untoward had taken place.
When the lecture is over, the young men meet Swami Vivekananda. “Forgive us,” they say to him. “The shots were fired by us to see how fearless you were. Your courage and your confidence put us to shame. Verily, Swami! You are among the most fearless men on earth. Pray forgive us!”
Why is it that the vast majority of us perpetually in fear of something or the other? Perhaps, one reason is that we are lonely. The deepest tragedy of the modern man is his loneliness. In spite of an ever-increasing number of clubs and cinemas, museums and parks, hotels and restaurants, at heart we feel so lonely. A distinguished visitor to America was taken to a big cinema-house. Throngs of people stood in rows awaiting their turn to get a ticket. Asked for his opinion, the visitor said, “The Americans must be very lonely at heart: else there would not be endless queues at cinema houses!”
Yes, - if we will confess the truth to ourselves we will not deny that we feel lonely. We lack the security of protection. We are like the child who, taken to a fair, lost its mother in the crowd. With this difference that the child rent the air with its cries for the mother, “Ma! Ma!”, but we have forgotten even to cry for our Divine Mother. We are like the orphan who was never tired of complaining that there was no one to care for him in this big, boisterous world. It is this sense of loneliness that leads to a feeling of frustration, and so many of us do not find it worth while to live in the world. Not long ago, a multi-millionaire brought an end to his life after leaving a brief note on his writing-table, “I feel lonely. Therefore, I kill myself!”
Life is become a burden to untold millions. Only a few commit suicide. The rest die what are regarded as natural deaths but which are, in many cases too premature. So many feel lonely: and loneliness sits as a heavy burden on the heart, sapping its strength, eating into its vitals. Heart diseases are on the increase. Hypertension is become a common ailment. Nervous breakdowns take a heavy toll. A heart-specialist said to me only last evening: “Not a day passes but I am called to the bed-side of a dying heart-patient. It was not so a few years ago.”
We feel lonely: we feel lost: we feel abandoned: we feel forsaken and forlorn. Again and again, we lose the sense of security which belongs to us as children of God: we fall into the abyss of fear.
-To be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)
Fear is a poison that quickly circulates through the entire system, paralyzing the will, producing a queer sensation in some parts or the other of the human body. Fear is a great foe of man. Overcome fear the moment it appears or it will overpower you. And fear is a merciless master. Strike fear with the weapon of the Spirit, -the word of God. Utter the sacred Name dear to you, the Name of the Beloved: Krishna, Shyama, Rama, Jesus, Buddha, Nanak. Utter it, again and again. Utter it in child-like faith, and He whom you call will rush to your aid. Say aloud some prayer which has an appeal to your heart. Recite prayer lines which may appeal to you: recite them, again and again, until fear departs and you feel strong as steel.
Is not fearlessness the first essential condition for spiritual growth? Sri Shankaracharya, -one if the greatest teachers of all time, -urged that he who would walk the way must have vajur hrdaya, - a heart strong as a thunderbolt. When Swami Vivekananda returned from his American tour and entered upon his work of regeneration in India, the one message which he delivered, as he travelled from town to town, from village to village, in this ancient land of heroes and sages was: “Be fearless! Be bold!” Listen to his words: “Stand up, be bold, be strong! Strength is life, weakness is death. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill and commit other crimes, because we are weak. We suffer, because are weak. We die, because we are weak. Where there is nothing to weaken us, there is no death, no sorrow.”
I recall a moving incident in the life of Swami Vivekananda. He is in America, speaking to large audience on the wisdom of India’s Rishi’s and Saints. He urges that the way is not for weaklings: the way is for heroes, for those who would be fearless in the face of every calamity, even death.
A few young men wish to put the Swami to the test. They know of so many who are wonderful preachers but whose life, alas! Does not bear witness to what they teach. Does Swami Vivekananda belong to the same class? They invite him to deliver a lecture. Gladly he goes to their meeting. He speaks to them of faith in God as the secret of the true life. And the man of faith, he urges, is fearless in the face of difficulty and danger.
Suddenly there is the sound of pistal-shots. Bullets fly past the Swami, just grazing his ears. Pandemonium reigns in the hall. Men rush out: women shriek in fear, and some of them drop down in transient unconsciousness. In the midst of this confusion, there is one man who stands firm, immovable as a rock, fearless and bold. He is Swami Vivekananda. The bullet that is not meant for him cannot touch him: the bullet meant for him will seek him out even if he is protected by a thousand body-guards.
Soon the shots cease. The Swami picks up the thread of his talk he left it a long minute ago. People return to the hall. Women wake up from their fainting fits. Things return to normal and it seems as though nothing untoward had taken place.
When the lecture is over, the young men meet Swami Vivekananda. “Forgive us,” they say to him. “The shots were fired by us to see how fearless you were. Your courage and your confidence put us to shame. Verily, Swami! You are among the most fearless men on earth. Pray forgive us!”
Why is it that the vast majority of us perpetually in fear of something or the other? Perhaps, one reason is that we are lonely. The deepest tragedy of the modern man is his loneliness. In spite of an ever-increasing number of clubs and cinemas, museums and parks, hotels and restaurants, at heart we feel so lonely. A distinguished visitor to America was taken to a big cinema-house. Throngs of people stood in rows awaiting their turn to get a ticket. Asked for his opinion, the visitor said, “The Americans must be very lonely at heart: else there would not be endless queues at cinema houses!”
Yes, - if we will confess the truth to ourselves we will not deny that we feel lonely. We lack the security of protection. We are like the child who, taken to a fair, lost its mother in the crowd. With this difference that the child rent the air with its cries for the mother, “Ma! Ma!”, but we have forgotten even to cry for our Divine Mother. We are like the orphan who was never tired of complaining that there was no one to care for him in this big, boisterous world. It is this sense of loneliness that leads to a feeling of frustration, and so many of us do not find it worth while to live in the world. Not long ago, a multi-millionaire brought an end to his life after leaving a brief note on his writing-table, “I feel lonely. Therefore, I kill myself!”
Life is become a burden to untold millions. Only a few commit suicide. The rest die what are regarded as natural deaths but which are, in many cases too premature. So many feel lonely: and loneliness sits as a heavy burden on the heart, sapping its strength, eating into its vitals. Heart diseases are on the increase. Hypertension is become a common ailment. Nervous breakdowns take a heavy toll. A heart-specialist said to me only last evening: “Not a day passes but I am called to the bed-side of a dying heart-patient. It was not so a few years ago.”
We feel lonely: we feel lost: we feel abandoned: we feel forsaken and forlorn. Again and again, we lose the sense of security which belongs to us as children of God: we fall into the abyss of fear.
-To be continued
(Author: Sri J P Vaswani)
