The way I define courage quotient, in a person, is their capacity to allow fear. True courage is not about some dramatic heroism or a show-off act, it’s simply an ordinary openness to allow fear and not shy away from it. A lot of unnecessary heroics stems out of the inability to allow fear within and hence using some external dramatic acts to fake fearlessness. However, true courage is not “dramatic”, because you are not fighting fear but just allowing of it in you – open awareness is just another name for conscious courage. The higher your courage quotient the more free you are in your being, the lower your courage quotient the more suffocated and imprisoned you feel. Most dysfunctional behaviors and negative realities arise from low courage quotient in a person, where he/she lives in constant inner fear and thus creates a negative reflection in his/her external reality.
Not all minds have the same fears, different minds have different flavors of fears depending on its natural makeup and external conditioning. Some people develop their courage quotient from early childhood, under the influence of guidance or just learning from the hark-knocks of their life experience. Some people grow well into adulthood with a low courage quotient, which causes them to develop lot of resistances, anxieties and hang-ups in their being. However, having a high courage quotient does not automatically mean that you will attract a positive reality because it’s very possible for such a person to be “unconsciously” oriented towards other negativities like an imbalance in hatred – so they may be free of fear but imbalanced in hatred, leading to an attraction of negative realities. When you use your “awareness” to bring a balance to your mind, you develop a high courage quotient while also being rooted in a vibration of wholeness rather than being imbalanced in any dimension of the mind.
How does awareness allow the development of courage quotient?
As you grow in the stability of your awareness you start transcending the fears of the physical realm of existence, as they arise. However, initially, as awareness starts growing in you, you may feel a lot of fear because it’s like suddenly shining a light in a dark room revealing objects that were so far hidden from your consciousness. It’s very normal for people, who start growing in their power of awareness, to keep “unearthing” all kinds of fears in their consciousness for a while, almost in layers – the truth is that you are connected with the entire human consciousness, and hence you are fully privy to all its fears (there is no escaping it), and the path to freedom is to see through all these fears so that you are no longer living in a place of insecurity or guardedness.
As awareness grows in you, you inevitably become aware of all the fears present in human consciousness, there is no hiding, and it can seem quite disorienting initially to sense these fears. But, as your awareness keeps growing, you see through all of them quite easily and you reach a place of stability with a high courage quotient where you are no longer fearful of fear. The experience of living life from a place of strong awareness is completely different than living life in an unconscious daze. A lot of people who start becoming aware think about wanting to become unconscious again, because when they were unconscious they were blissfully ignorant of most of the reality of human consciousness and hence were leading a shallow but joyful life (just like kids who are just joyful with no real awareness of life). But to live life unconsciously is like being in sleep, it’s not really living it’s just being a dazed zombie – there is no real wisdom, maturity, depth or freedom in an unconscious state of living.
When you start waking up from this daze of unconscious living, and start becoming aware, for a while it’s quite disorienting and even disturbing to suddenly become conscious of the depth & diversity in all the aspects of life – it can seem overwhelming to your newly growing awareness to become oriented with all revelations that start coming into you because your are now more conscious of the reality of life. Usually around this point a lot of people find ways to dull their awareness through some means, finding different avenues of distraction, going into suppression based spirituality, taking mind numbing chemicals etc.
A lot of people live their whole life this way, trying to numb their awareness through some means of distraction – trying desperately to go back to unconscious state of living. The truth is that once you start becoming aware, there is no going back to unconsciousness, the way forward is towards “full consciousness”, and it happens very naturally when you stop being so afraid of it, when you stop doubting it and when you stop trying to find ways to numb/suppress this movement. If you just allow this awareness to keep growing, by allowing yourself to be open to the fears that are unearthed, it automatically takes you to a place of stability, developing a high courage quotient in you. Some people just do this naturally, without requiring any guidance, whereas some require to be “reminded” that this is a natural process of growth and to not suppress it.
High courage quotient allows faster manifestation
Fear is the biggest resistance to the movement of your life-stream towards manifesting your desired realities. The higher your courage quotient the less resistance you have in your being because you are no longer holding onto any fears. If you have a low courage quotient in you right now, all that’s needed is that you continue allowing your awareness to touch all the fears that arise in your mind, in a relaxed and open way, until you reach a place of some decent stability in your awareness. From this place of stability you can make huge shifts in your courage quotient because you feel stable enough to face a lot of your fears almost as an adventure and inspiration. You always know when you’ve attained some stability in your awareness because at this place you feel open to allowing fear rather than be in fear of it – you almost start experimenting with fear in a playful way, this is when your courage quotient really start getting high.
The advantage of developing your courage quotient consciously is that you don’t become “reckless”, since your growing awareness brings a field of deep wisdom into your life. People who have low awareness, but high courage quotient, usually end up in reckless activities that can endanger their well-being, as there is a lack of wisdom and maturity in them due to low awareness. Consciously coming to a place of high courage quotient allows for life rooted in a harmony and adventure, allowing a balanced/positive experience of reality.
Thank you so much for this wonderful article.
agreed – once we are in tune with what we are inside, and aware of how we feel / think, then we can breakthrough
strangely, i’m reaping more awareness and calmnesss through my depression
Noch Noch
Noch Noch
I was just curious how this is possible when you stated ” strangely, i’m reaping more awareness and calmnesss through my depression” I’de like to understand this….
Carpe Diem
Gary B
Sen,
Can any negative feeling be classified as fear? It seems that over the past while my mind always wants to be critical of others and myself. When I find myself criticizing others it makes me feel bad but its like my mind can’t help it. What I’m trying to say is, is this a legitimate fear that I should be aware of or is it something that I should work on? When I’m thinking too much I often over analyze people and situations. I wonder if they are good or bad people, why they do what they do, if I am correct in my judgment of them or falsely accusing them. Is there something I should tell myself in my head when this is happening? or is this a legitimate fear that I should just be aware of? A lot of the time I want to say let it be, give everyone the benefit of the doubt and find the positives in them but this was a lot easier in an unconscious state as opposed to where I am now.
Thanks again.
Ryan, fear, hatred and boredom are all low vibration feelings but are part of the mind’s dimensions, you cannot switch these dimensions off from the mind as they are hard wired in it. However, it’s only when you are lost in total identification with them or when you are trying to suppress them that they actual turn into real negativity, because they gain momentum from your identification. If you are simply allowing of these dimensions in your mind, without getting too identified with these movements, they will no longer be able to create any strong/real resistance in your vibration (just the minimal, that’s part of physical living as these dimensions are part of the brain). In simple words, allow your brain the freedom to be fearful or produce other low vibration states like hatred (in the form of criticism, as you mentioned) or boredom, while you stay as a field of open awareness not being totally identified with it or trying to suppress it. Soon you will find stability in your space of being, and the mind movements will no longer be a source of resistance or disturbance.
great article
how do we allow our awareness to completely touch all the fears that arise? just by completely watching them and not reacting? and if we succeed in doing this does this dissolve the fear?
The pointer of “watching” can easily be misunderstood and be made into a technique which the ego uses to protect itself, and finds a new identity through it. In truth, it’s about letting go of using techniques, that’s what relaxed awareness means, when you are not “trying” to be aware but you just let go and the awareness of life just takes over. When you relax and let go, awareness automatically touches all your fears and dissolves them, including the force of your ego. But if you keep “trying” to be aware it’s still come from a place of fear, coming from a place of ego.
Sen, I just can’t believe it! I was just going to ask you what i need to do about these suddenly emerging fears in my mind of late. Your post has given me the answers. What you’ve written is so true. In the recent past, i had found balance within myself but of late, so many fears are coming up in my mind that used to be there years ago and i tried to just be aware of them but they lingered on for almost the whole day. Even I thought of letting go this journey to awareness as i knew these fears are coming up due to this and they were making me very uncomfortable. But after reading this post, I will keep going and try to face my fears head on.
I just want to know why are these fears lingering on in spite of me being aware of them?Why are they not disappearing? Its been around 5 days and each day they surface and disturb me.
A lot of the fears get fueled by the idea of being “separate” from life, where you see yourself as being alone and isolated from the life, where you fear that you have to fight it out in life. That’s basically coming from the perspective of the ego, that always feels separate and insecure. The more you allow the force of ego to dissolve, the more easy it is for these fears to dissolve. You can read this post – http://www.calmdownmind.com/dissolving-the-resistance-of-ego/ for more insights.
Thank you Sen..I have gone through the post you referred to me and it has made things quite clear..These fears that i had years back were of me getting a certain disease and this thought literally made my life hell back then..Now again after so many years the same thought struck me but with less magnitude and i believe its some suppressed debris of my past fears..They really made me very uncomfortable but now i feel those thoughts have lost momentum and I am much better now:)This is something i was never aware of.Now i look at life very differently.Thanks to you..
Sorry, my english is not that much great
It is very true Sen, fear and fear we always live in a fear, situations, life experiences, past, future worries and certain point they all becomes like wall. And you can t jump the other part of wall which is there is a light there. Once we give attention this wall (fear) we are repairing it, but if we just let go of that wall, accept it that is there soon there will be no support and it will crush down. Everything in this life is temporary. Feeling, emotions,even magnificence sunset is temporary. We human still don t understand the concept yet. Why we are still trying figure out who we are? instead of just living this life in a simple way, Because life is a simple and ordinary,life does not ask us how we should live. Does Trees ask how to live winter? with snow? how to handle rain? or dry sun or it will need some water? trees or natures just accept that ,tree knows soon winter will go away without any movement from its part,it knows one day will rain it will get its nutritions.But we human we are inpatient,everything has to come right away, we can stand even in front of fear,emotions,life situations. in a moment. We can t be like a tree. they accept every situations as it is.We look trees only trees,we label them as a trees but in reality there is more then that there is a life that we can just learn from that.We human not very courages,we aspect that every solutions has to come from outside,we always questions, WHY? instead of living and not questioning will be the first place of freedom from our chaotic life. i am saying again everything is life is temporary, great kingdom fell a part,empires,even Steve jobs, great genius and respectful person,what he did, he still died, long time ego you were saying me one word that really effect me: we born in this born empty handed and we die empty handed. it is totaly meaningless existence. I ask everybody here why we still look something that is only temporary in this outside world.Money, prestigious,carrier,love.. they are all temporary, the end we all gonna die some point. We should just wake now in this dream state and act.
to Gary Gutherie
Hi Gary B
Sorry, I didn’t know how to reply from above. I have been doing lots of introspection and reflection in my periods of depression. It wasn’t easy. It was very emotional, and painful. Lots of anger and crying. But in the process of reflecting why I had become so stressed that it caused me to become sick, I started to think deeper about my thoughts behind actions, and emotions behind my thoughts. Through this process, I came to know myself more – i.e. more awareness of self.
I became more calm, because as the year progressed, I slowly learnt that a lot of things are out of my control and I need to let it go. I also confronted past issues and dealt with past regrets and bitterness. I’m also learning to control my ups and downs better in hope to fully recover from depression… the calmness comes with feeling at peace with myself, the good, the bad and the ugly
Noch Noch
Noch Noch
I’m grateful for your dialog with me. Thank you and I wish you peace and awareness to every moment…. I’m quite sure you’re going to do great things….
Carpe Diem,
Gary
“I dont want to face my fears, I am afraid of them”
-Spongebob (When riding the fist of terror roller coaster)