The mental representations may be very faint as such, but the idea of hurt to self is surely present.
If,
then, it can be profoundly believed that the real self cannot be hurt;
if the reason can be brought to consider vividly and believingly all
quieting considerations; if the self can be held consciously in the
assurance that the White Life surrounds the true self, and is surely
within that self, and will suffer "no evil to come nigh," while all the
instincts of self preservation may be perfectly active, fear itself must
be removed "as far as the east is from the west."
These are the ways, then, in which any occasion for fear may be divided:
As
a warning and as a maker of panic.
But let us say that the warning
should be understood as given to reason, that fear need not appear at
all, and that the panic is perfectly useless pain.
With these discrimination in mind, we may now go on to a preliminary study of fear.
preliminary study of fear.
Fear is (a) an impulse, (b) a habit, (c) a disease.
Fear, as it exists in man, is a make-believe of sanity, a creature of the imagination, a state of insanity.
Furthermore, fear is, now of the nerves, now of the mind, now of the moral consciousness.
The
division depends upon the point of view. What is commonly called normal
fear should give place to reason, using the word to cover instinct as
well as thought.
From the correct point of view all fear is an evil so long as entertained.
Whatever
its manifestations, wherever its apparent location, fear is a psychic
state, of course, reacting upon the individual in several ways: as, in
the nerves, in mental moods, in a single impulse, in a chronic habit, in
a totally unbalanced condition.
The reaction has
always a good intention, meaning, in each case, "Take care! Danger!"
You
will see that this is so if you will look for a moment at three
comprehensive kinds of fear fear of self, fear for self, fear for
others. Fear of self is indirectly fear for self danger.
Fear for others signifies fore-sensed or fore-pictured distress to self because of anticipated misfortune to others.
I
often wonder whether, when we fear for others, it is distress to self
or hurt to them that is most emphatically in our thought.
Fear, then, is usually regarded as the soul's danger signal.
But the true signal is instinctive and thoughtful reason.
Even instinct and reason, acting as warning, may perform their duty abnormally, or assume abnormal proportions.
And
then we have the feeling of fear.
The normal warning is induced by
actual danger apprehended by mind in a state of balance and
self-control.
Normal mind is always capable of such
warning.
There are but two ways in which so-called normal fear, acting
in the guise of reason, may be annihilated: by the substitution of
reason for fear, and by the assurance of the white life.
Let
it be understood, now, that by normal fear is here meant normal reason
real fear being denied place and function altogether.
Then we may say
that such action of reason is a benefactor to man. It is, with pain and
weariness, the philanthropy of the nature of things within us.
One
person said: "Tired? No such word in my house!"
Now this cannot be a
sound and healthy attitude.
Weariness, at a certain stage of effort, is a
signal to stop work.
When one becomes so absorbed in
labor as to lose consciousness of the feeling of weariness, he has
issued a "hurry call" on death.
I do not deny that the soul may
cultivate a sublime sense of buoyancy and power; rather do I urge you to
seek that beautiful condition; but I hold that when a belief or a
hallucination refuses to permit you to hear the warning of nerves and
muscles, Nature will work disaster inevitably.
Let us stand for the larger liberty which is joyously free to take advantage of everything Nature may offer for true well-being.
There
is a partial liberty which tries to realize itself by denying various
realities as real; there is a higher liberty which really realizes
itself by conceding such realities as real and by using or disusing them
as occasion may require in the interest of the self at its best.
I
hold this to be true wisdom: to take advantage of everything which
evidently promises good to the self, without regard to this or that
theory, and freely to use all things, material or immaterial, reasonable
or spiritual.
I embrace your science or your method;
but I beg to ignore your bondage to philosophy or to consistency.
So I
say that to normal health the weary-sense is a rational command to
replenish exhausted nerves and muscles.
It is not
liberty, it is not healthful, to declare, "There is no pain!"
Pain does
exist, whatever you affirm, and your affirmation that it does not is
proof that it does exist, for why (and how) declare the non-existence of
that which actually is non-existent?
But if you say,
"As a matter of fact I have pain, but I am earnestly striving to ignore
it, and to cultivate thought-health so that the cause of pain may be
removed," that is sane and beautiful.
This is the commendable attitude
of the Bible character who cried: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine
unbelief."
To undertake swamping pain with a cloud of
psychological fog that is to turn anarchist against the good government
of Nature.
By pain Nature informs the individual that he is somewhere
out of order. This warning is normal.
The feeling
becomes abnormal in the mind when imagination twangs the nerves with
reiterated irritation, and Will, confused by the discord and the psychic
chaos, cowers and shivers with fear.
I do not say
there is no such thing as fear. Fear does exist. But it exists in your
life by your permission only, not because it is needful as a warning
against "evil."
Fear is induced by unduly magnifying
actual danger, or by conjuring up fictitious dangers through excessive
and misdirected psychical reactions.
This also may be
taken as a signal of danger, but it is a falsely intentioned witness,
for it is not needed, is hostile to the individual because it threatens
self-control and it absorbs life's forces in useless and destructive
work when they ought to be engaged in creating values.