I knew an executive of a large corporation who was terrified to ride in an
elevator. He would walk up five flights of stairs to his office every morning. He said that he began to bless the elevator every night and several
times a day. He finally overcame his fear. This was how he blessed the elevator: “The elevator in our building is a wonderful idea. It came out of
the universal mind. It is a boon and a blessing to all our employees. It
gives wonderful service. It operates in divine order. I ride in it in peace
and joy. I remain silent now while the currents of life, love and understanding flow through the patterns of my thought. In my imagination I am
now in the elevator, and I step out into my office. The elevator is full of
our employees. I talk to them and they are friendly, joyous and free. It is
a wonderful experience of freedom, faith and confidence. I give thanks.”
He continued this prayer for about ten days, and on the eleventh day, he
walked into the elevator with other members of the organization and felt
completely free.
Man is born with two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of noise. These
are a sort of alarm system given you by nature as a means of self preservation. Normal fear is good. You hear an automobile coming down the
road, and you step aside to survive. The momentary fear of being run
over is overcome by your action. All other fears were given to you by parents, relatives, teachers and all those who influenced your early years.
Abnormal fear takes place when man lets his imagination run riot. I knew
a woman who was invited to go on a trip around the world by plane. She
began to cut out of the newspapers all reports of airplane catastrophes.
She pictured herself going down in the ocean, being drowned etc. This is
abnormal fear. Had she persisted in this, she would undoubtedly have at tracted what she feared most.
Another example of abnormal fear is that of a businessman in New York,
who was very prosperous and successful. He had his own private mental
motion picture of which he was the director. He would run this mental
movie of failure, bankruptcy, empty shelves and no bank balance until he
sank into a deep depression. He refused to stop this morbid imagery and
kept reminding his wife that “this can’t last,” “there will be a recession,” “I
feel sure we will go bankrupt.” etc.
His wife told me that he finally did go into bankruptcy, and all the things
he imagined and feared came to pass. The things he feared did not exist,
but he brought them to pass by constantly fearing, believing and experiencing financial disaster. Job said, the thing I feared has come upon me.
There are people who are afraid that something terrible will happen to
their children, and that some dreadful catastrophe will befall them. When
they read about an epidemic or rare disease, they live in fear that they
will catch it and some imagine they have the disease already. All of this is
abnormal fear.
Move mentally to the opposite. To stay at the extreme of fear is stagnation plus mental and physical deterioration. When fear arises, there immediately comes with it a desire for something opposite to the thing
feared. Place your attention on the thing immediately desired. Get absorbed and engrossed in your desire, knowing that the subjective always
overturns the objective. This attitude will give you confidence and lift your
spirits. The infinite power of your subconscious mind is moving on your
behalf and it cannot fail. Therefore, peace and assurance is yours.
The president of a large organization told me that when he was a salesman he used to walk around the block five or six times before he called
on a customer. The sales manager came along one day and said to him,
“Don’t be afraid of the boogie man behind the door. There is no boogie
man. It is a false belief.”
The manager told him that whenever he looked at his own fears he stared
them in the face and stood up to them, looking them straight in the eye.
Then they faded and shrank into insignificance.
A chaplain told me of his experiences in the Second World War. He had to
parachute from a damaged plane and land in the jungle. He said he was
frightened, but he knew there were two kinds of fear, normal and abnormal which we have previously pointed out. He decided to do something about the fear immediately, and he began to
talk to himself saying, “John, you can’t surrender to your fear. Your fear is
a desire for safety and security and a way out.”
He began to claim, “Infinite Intelligence which guides the planets in their
courses is now leading and guiding me out of the jungle.”
He kept saying this out loud to himself for ten minutes or more. “Then,”
he added, “something began to stir inside me. A mood of confidence began to seize me, and I began to walk. After a few days, I miraculously
came out of the jungle and was picked up by a rescue plane.” His changed
mental attitude saved him. His confidence and trust in the subjective wisdom and power within him was the solution to his problem.
He said, “Had I begun to bemoan my fate and indulge my fears, I would
have succumbed to the monster fear and probably would have died of
fear and starvation.
The general manager of an organization told me that for three years he
feared he would lose his position. He was always imagining failure. The
thing he feared did not exist, save as a morbid anxious thought in his own
mind. His vivid imagination dramatized the loss of his job until he became
nervous and neurotic. Finally, he was asked to resign.
Actually, he dismissed himself. His constant negative imagery and fear
suggestions to his subconscious mind caused the latter to respond and react accordingly. It caused him to make mistakes and foolish decisions
which resulted in his failure as a general manager. His dismissal would
never have happened, if he had immediately moved to the opposite in his
mind.
During a recent world lecture tour, I had a two hour conversation with a
prominent government official. He had a deep sense of inner peace and
serenity. He said that all the abuse he receives politically from newspapers and the opposition party never disturb him. His practice is to sit still
for fifteen minutes in the morning and realize that in the center of himself
is a deep still ocean of peace. Meditating in this way, he generates
tremendous power which overcomes all manner of difficulties and fears.
Some time previously, a colleague called him at midnight and told him a
group of people were plotting against him. This is what he said to his colleague, “I am going to sleep now in perfect peace. You can discuss it with
me at 10.00 a.m. Tomorrow.” He said to me, “I know that no negative thought can ever manifest except
if emotionalize the thought and accept it mentally. I refuse to entertain
their suggestion of fear. Therefore, no harm can come to me.”
Notice how calm he was, how cool, how peaceful! He did not start getting
excited, tearing his hair, or wringing his hands. At his center he found the
still water, an inner peace and there was a great calm.