“FEAR IS AN UNNECESSARY EMOTION”

One of the most influential individuals bringing Eastern spiritual teachings to the West in the 20th century was Paramahansa Yogananda. In his book, How to Have Courage, Confidence And Confidence, he tells of a man who approached him asking for help in dealing with anxiety which was so chronic that he was experiencing a serious heart issue. The man explained that after seeing several physicians, “I am unable to get rid of my heart trouble.”

Listening to the man and then sitting quietly for a few moments, Yogananda asked the man to bring him a pair of scissors. Surprised and perhaps alarmed, the man asked Yogananda: “Are you planning to do an incision on my heart?” Yogananda laughed and replied, “I am not a doctor, and you have never heard of anyone using scissors for operating upon the heart.”

Somewhat reluctantly, the man brought Yogananda the scissors and he cut off one of his vest buttons instructing the man not to replace the button and not to touch the place where the missing button belonged. Yogananda asked him to come back in fifteen days explaining that he expected the man would be “healed” from his chronic anxiety. The man returned after fifteen days smiling with great pleasure saying that his anxiety was gone and that physician indicated they could he no longer detect a heart issue. Joyful and curious, the man inquired how Yogananda managed to bring him this healing humorously asking: “Did you dispossess the button of a ghost?”

With a smile Yogananda responded: said, “Yes, I did! Your hand was constantly fiddling with the vest button near your heart.

This button was the ‘ghost’ nagging your heart into a nervous fit. Your heart, freed from the disturbing vest button, has ceased to trouble you.”

Paramahansa Yogananda was born January 05, 1893 in Uttar Pradesh, a state in Northern India. He was the fourth of eight children. Even as a young child, his inclination toward spirituality was evident to his family. Upon completing high school, Yogananda left home on a spiritual search and at the age of 17, met his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. Encouraged by his guru to take the teachings of yoga to the West, Yogananda immigrated to the United States at 27, arriving in Boston, MA. in 1920 and eventually establishing himself in Los Angeles, CA.

His objective was to bring Eastern wisdom to Western minds hoping to provide a balance between the Western emphasis on material growth and yogic spirituality. To facilitate this, Yogananda established the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in 1920 to promote and spread his teachings about India’s ancient spiritual practices of Yoga and meditation. He cited the following as “aims and ideals for Self Realization Fellowship.”

• To disseminate among the nations
  a knowledge of definite scientific
  techniques for attaining direct
  personal experience of God.
• To teach that the purpose of life is the evolution, through self-effort, of man’s limited mortal consciousness into God Consciousness; and to this end to establish Self-Realization Fellowship temples for God communion throughout the world, and to encourage the establishment of individual temples of God in the homes and in the hearts of men.

• To reveal the complete harmony and basic oneness of original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ and original Yoga as taught by Bhagavan Krishna; and to show that these principles of truth are the common scientific foundation of all true religions.
• To point out the one divine highway to which all paths of true religious beliefs eventually lead: the highway of daily, scientific, devotional meditation on God.
• To liberate man from his threefold suffering: physical disease, mental inharmonies, and spiritual ignorance.
• To encourage “plain living and high thinking”; and to spread a spirit of brotherhood among all peoples by teaching the eternal basis of their unity: kinship with God.
• To demonstrate the superiority of mind over body, of soul over mind.
• To overcome evil by good, sorrow by joy, cruelty by kindness, ignorance by wisdom.
• To unite science and religion through realization of the unity of their underlying principles.

• To advocate cultural and spiritual understanding between East and West, and the exchange of their finest distinctive features.

• To serve mankind as one’s larger Self.

Yogananda established himself as gifted spiritual teacher attracting people from every level of society. His widespread popularity among audiences was due in large part of his practical approach to spiritual living. For example, he offered these simple but powerful affirmations for increasing one’s courage and confidence:

• will seek safety first, last, and all the time in the constant inner thought of God-peace.
• I will wipe the dream fears of disease, sadness, and ignorance from the soul’s face of silence, with the veil of Divine Mother’s peace.
• I am protected behind the battlements of my good conscience. I have burned my past darkness. I am interested only in today.
• There is a right solution to every problem.

• I have within me the wisdom and intelligence to see this solution, and the courage and energy to carry it through. * God is within me and around me, protecting me, so I banish the gloom of fear that shuts out His guiding light and makes me stumble into ditches of error.

Many of his books also reflect the same practical approach to the spiritual life. Some examples include How to Have Confidence and Courage, Inner Peace: How to be Calmly Active and Actively Calm, How to be Happy All the Time, Living Fearlessly: Bringing Out Your Inner Soul Strength, Why God Permits Evil and How to Rise Above It.

Paramahansa Yogananda died March 07, 1952 at 59 years of age. One of his final teachings was offered in Los Angeles at a dinner hosting and honuoring the Indian Ambassador to the United States. There Yogananda expressed his hope for a more harmonious planet, one that would combine the best aspects of “efficient America” and “spiritual India.”

• Accept change, therefore, as life’s only constant. Our lives are an endless procession of gains and losses, of joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments.
• Remember, no matter how great your trials, you are able to conquer them. • Meet everybody and every circumstance on the battlefield of life with the courage of a hero and the smile of a conqueror. • Life is change. Remain ever calm within. Be even-minded.
• At any given moment you have all the courage, strength, and intelligence necessary to overcome any seeming difficulty.
• Identification with weak thoughts and habits, and lack of concentration, perseverance, and courage are responsible for the misery that people suffer due to poverty, ill health, and so forth.
• Neglect of one’s duty is a source of evil that can be avoided by wisdom.
• Secret fear creates tension and anxiety, and brings ultimate collapse. We must have faith in our ability, and hope in the triumph of a righteous cause.
• The only limitation on man is imposed by himself, through his thoughts.
• If you are firmly convinced that you are a failure, change your mental attitude at once. Be unshakable in your conviction that you have all the potentialities of great success.
• Instead of being overcome and discouraged when confronted with what you think is

trouble, thank the Father for offering you the opportunity to see what you need to learn and to develop the strength and wisdom to meet the challenge.

• There can be no life that is not full of problems.

• If failures invade you repeatedly, don’t get discouraged. They should act as stimulants, not poisons, to your material or spiritual growth. The period of failure is the best season for sowing the seeds of success.
• The more you improve yourself, the more you will elevate others around you.
• If we want to relieve ourselves of fear, we should meditate upon courage, and in due time we shall be freed from the bondage of fear.
• Life is nothing if not a continuous overcoming of problems. Every problem that waits for a solution at your hand is the religious duty imposed upon you by life itself.
• Many people know the way to peace and permanent happiness but are slow to follow it. They take lessons, then forget. Make use of your spiritual training.
• If you want to live in peace harmony, affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill.
• Desire and anger are the two greatest barriers to wisdom. They destroy a person’s peace of mind, and obstruct the flow of his understanding.
• Exhale poisonous thoughts of discouragement, discontentment, and hopelessness. Inhale the fresh oxygen of success, and know that you are progressing with God’s help. This will recharge your soul battery.