An excerpt of a talk given during satsanga on June 15, 1965, at Self-Realization Fellowship International Headquarters, Los Angeles. The talk, “Courage to Face Our Fears,” was published in 2020 in Self-Realization magazine and will be a chapter in the forthcoming Journey With Paramahansa Yogananda, the third collection of talks by Sri Daya Mata, who served as president and sanghamata (“mother of the society”) of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India from 1955 until her passing in 2010.
Every human being needs to exercise the quality of courage. Courage is not necessarily an absence of fear; an individual can feel great trepidation and still be courageous. The valorous person is one who does not succumb to his fears, but rather makes up his mind to confront and conquer them.
We may be afraid of something without even knowing why, perhaps because of some forgotten traumatic experience in this life or in a previous incarnation. But if we look objectively at our insecurities, we usually find they are unfounded. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”* There is much truth in that statement. Often the major threats to our sense of well-being lie not in the outer conditions we encounter, but in the fact that we haven’t learned to face those conditions with the strength and faith that are native to the soul.
As a child, I had an experience that made me terribly afraid of the dark. I was about eight or nine years old, and one night my mother had asked me to hold my baby brother for a while, and I was sitting near a window, quietly rocking him. It happened that I had just been reading the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and my impressionable young mind was filled with gruesome images of what the thieves had done to their victims. Some of the neighborhood boys decided to play a trick. They crept up outside the window and all of a sudden let out a series of horrible shrieks. I leapt out of the chair, utterly terrified.
For a long time after that, I subconsciously feared what might be lurking in the dark. I have never liked being afraid of anything, so one day I asked myself, “What is wrong with me? Why am I afraid of the dark?” I decided to overcome my fear by purposely walking through all the dark rooms I could. And that is what I did.
“Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you,” as Swami Sri Yukteswar said. It is useless to try to run away from your fears, because they will pursue you until you turn around and face them. The first time you try this it may seem very difficult, but do it anyway. The second time will be easier, and before long you will have conquered that fear. Exercising courage is the way to develop courage.
* Franklin D. Roosevelt.
We invite you to learn about the inspiring life of Sri Daya Mata, beloved third president of SRF/YSS — a life of love, humility, and devoted service to God and her guru, Paramahansa Yogananda.
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