The culture of courage
a practical companion-book for the unfoldment of fearless personality through the white life of reason and harmony
From the introduction:
"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 one let me send this assured message: You can grow in your soul and act of perfect courage.
The methods adopted 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 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, assume 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 endeavour 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 in 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,
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 primaeval man, after love, was the 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 the 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 substitute. 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 constitute the very life of courage. What conceivable service then, can fear to 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 assurance — 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 itself and trusts the White Universe to assist.
Content of the book
- Chapter I. The World's New Dawn 3
- Chapter II. Fear and Reason 15
- Chapter III. Physical Tone 27
- Chapter IV. Dual Health-Tone of the Self 53
- Chapter V. Fear of Self 33
- Chapter VI. Fear for Others 113
- Chapter VII. Fear of Things 137
- Chapter VIII. The Fears of Timidity 169
- Chapter IX. Some People We Fear 201
- Chapter X. Some of Life's Relations 251
- Chapter XL The Fearful Crowd 311
- Chapter XII. Fear of Events — Old Age 369
- Chapter XIII. Courage for Future Events 411
- Chapter XIV. A Perpetual Tonic 447
- Prefatory Matters.
- "The New Down" 2
- " Fear-Thought and Fear-Feeling " 14
- "The Soul of the Cell" 26
- "A Regime" 5 ~
- "Fear Not Thyself" 82
- "Fear Not For Others" H2
- ' Fear Not Dumb Things " 136
- "The Massing of a Hundred Faces" 168
- "Fear Not Thy Fellows" 200
- "Life's Relations" 25 °
- " The Raw Material " 310
- " Youth is Courage " 368
- "Fear Not Events" 410
- "The Rock of Courage" 446
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