![]() ![]() It is fear that is the cause of our woes, and it is fearlessness alone that brings heaven even in a moment.” It is fear that is the greatest of all superstitions. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in this world. Therefore, said Vivekananda, “Be bold and fear not. ![]() ![]() “The ultimate aim”, he said, “is not to enjoy life, but to conquer it – to gain a supreme mastery over our own self.” This means gaining control over our fears and anxieties, so that no matter what situation we find ourselves in, our mental make up is so strong that we come through unshaken and victorious. The incident left a deep impression on Vivekananda, and later on in his lectures in the United States, he used it as an example to exhort people to face the dangers and vicissitudes of life bravely, and not run away from them. While he was running away, a monk shouted to him, “Face the brutes.” Vivekananda stopped and looked defiantly at the beasts. One day while visiting the Durga Temple, he was attacked by a troop of monkeys. On his arrival in Varanasi the Swami visited many a holy places and met with many scholars of that time. This was in the years after the passing of his guru Sri Ramakrishna and before he went to America in 1893. When Swami Vivekananda was just a youth in his mid-twenties, he traveled to the ancient and venerated city of Varanasi, located on the banks of the river Ganges. The story, which appears in the book “God Lived With Them – The Life Stories of Sixteen Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna” ( World, India) by Swami Chetanananda, goes as follows: “Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.” - Rabindranath TagoreĪ simple yet powerful lesson on the mastery of fear can be drawn from the life of Swami Vivekananda, one of India’s greatest spiritual teachers. We are not necessarily born courageous but through life’s successive dips and depressions we slowly learn to acquire it. “Courage”, Mark Twain once said, “is the resistance to and mastery of fear – not the absence of fear.” Kennedy.Īnd indeed, staying afloat in the turbulent waters of life often requires us, to cultivate courage akin to that of a soldier in a battlefield. “There is in addition to a courage with which men die a courage by which men must live.” These are the bold words of John F. – Rabindranath Tagore quoting a verse from the Mahabharata, in a letter to his wife Mrinalini in 1898. “Whether joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure whatsoever may befall thee, accept it serenely with an unvanquished heart.” ![]()
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