Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus FearthoughtFletcher, Horace
Philosophy
Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought
Fletcher, Horace
Fear; Happiness
While it is true that "perfect love casteth out fear," it also is
true that there can be no perfect love until there is first perfect
freedom from fear, so that the right way to approach the problem of
creating the harmonious condition in the human mind wherein growth
ripens in happiness, is to take the mind when it is returned to us at
the moment of awaking from sleep, when it has been purified by contact
with Spiritual Cerebration, and protect it from that time forth through
each day, by refusing _to import_ suspicion, anger or worry into it, a
process that is _easier than not_, and pleasanter and more profitable
than any.
Each day, the tendency to import, which is the only part of the process
of eradication that is in any way real, will become less strong,
and, with even the weakest attempts to discourage it; but if you are
sufficiently in earnest to say, "Begone, you tempter," and thereby slam
the door in his face, you will accomplish freedom at once.
The self-infliction of fearthought is a shoveling-in process--all
that you have to do to become free from it is to stop shoveling. It
is easier to stop importing fearthought, and anger, and worry, and
suspicion, than it is to import them; therefore,
_Stop importing!_
THE IMPOTENCE OF PAIN.
During the Japanese-Chinese war, two Japanese students were arrested
in Shanghai on the charge of espionage, and were taken to Ningpo and
tortured to death.
The method of torture was the most cruel known, and included a slow
crushing of the most sensitive parts of their anatomy.
The young patriots displayed such heroism under the torture that the
incident gave rise to considerable discussion as to the relative
sensitiveness of the Mongolian and the Caucasian races to pain. The
consensus of the opinion that I saw expressed, which was, by the way,
Caucasian opinion only, was that the Oriental was less sensitive, and
therefore was not entitled to as much credit for withstanding pain as
the self-adjudged, more-sensitive Westerner.
The truth of the matter is, that there is a limit to actual
pain within the power of any one to endure, if the element of
fearthought-of-more-pain is eliminated, so that the absorbing
heroism of the patriot--almost courting torture for the honor of his
cause--puts the element of fearthought out of the case, and leaves only
the actual sensation to be suffered. Pain is undoubtedly intended as a
warning of disordered conditions, and not as a punishment, and, having
performed its mission, is relieved by a kind paralysis before the shock
is too severe for human endurance.
This is the beneficent provision of the natural law, but when it comes
to the exercise of unnatural fearthought, there is no limit to the
torture a victim may impose upon himself, and, on a basis of a very
little real pain, build up most terrible suffering.
The author has tested the truth of this assertion personally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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