Art of Positive Thinking

SR No.: 006586
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Health Harmoney
Publication Year: 2010
Total Pages: 246
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 11 MB

Page 226

XXIV. CREATIVE FEAR
Day and night, night and day-with the twilight dividing these! There is the day and there is the night and in between is the evening. Likewise there is an intervening stage between fear and total freedom from fear. It is neither fear nor fearlessness. It cannot be called fear because of the absence of any perversions caused by fear in the nervous system; nor can it be called pure fearlessness because fearlessness is the ultimate, transcendent state. Between fear and total absence of fear stands a transitional state called 'creative fear'. Fear is of two kinds-destructive and constructive. Likewisc fearlessness is also of two kinds destructive and constructive. These are the four alternatives.
The thief was fearless, reckless, unheeding. Every time he committed a theft, he was caught and punished, but on his release from jail he would start again. He had no fear. Once the judge remarked, "How utterly shameless you are! You experience no shame in being brought to my court time and again?"
The thief said, "Sir, judge! Every time I come. I find you here. If you come here everyday, why should I feel ashamed to come here occasionally?"
Abashment, discipline and qualms of conscience are forms of constructive fear-we may call these modesty, self-control or scrupulousness. Because of mental hesitation, a man avoids evil. Discipline can exist even when self-discipline has not yet evolved. The elderly people forbid something; so a man does not do it. This is also constructive fear. Another person has scruples about doing something, saying to himself, "If someone sees me doing it, it would bring me disgrace." So he forgoes it. He abstains from the act out of fear. Such a man might possess no pure vision, no spiritual insight which would make him avoid evil irrespective of whether someone sees him or not.
Where there is spiritual insight, the question of someone seeing or not seeing does not arise. He who is blessed with spiritual vision would never commit an evil act.
The worldly-wise are very sensitive to what Mrs. Grundy would say. But there are reprobates who give no thought to what others may think of them. They care a fig for other people and their opinions. Here fearlessness itself becomes a curse. The big bandits, thieves and murderers show no fear. They would commit all kinds of evil without any hesitation whatsoever. But their fearlessness is destructive; it could not be equated with true fearlessness.