Skip to Content

148. Strength of Timidity

For timid persons, social authority is more than real, and psychological authority is a subjective, oppressive Reality. One such person has succeeded in weaving a web of warp of opinions and woof of illusions around him. For several years, he has felt safe within it. It gives him a rare protection in all social encounters. What is a total reality to him outside his house is not without its disillusioning moments. They are the hours when he is with his own family where he is overflowing with the energy of joy more unfettered than most.

This dual personality is almost a split personality. Anyway, he has found the self-defence worthy of survival-value. His shyness is described and understood by those whom he shuns as arrogance. He is discussed as an object who has several secrets to hide. The world to him is a chain of threatening events; and every day he successfully enters into this sea of threats and has been emerging into freedom. Life has shifted him to a far off place where he is totally free of this inhibiting atmosphere. Now a situation arose which was central to his survival. He was urged from inside to return to the old atmosphere in a fashion that would raise impossible questions. Even if one question were raised, he knew, he could not survive psychologically, he would faint.

The hour demanded action. He had already decided to act. There were no two opinions about his visiting the lion's den. No hesitation arose in his mind. He came, completed the work to his satisfaction and returned. After returning, it occurred to him HOW no questions had been asked of him and HOW no questions arose in his own timid mind. It long remained a mystery to him; nor was he willing to analyse and release a ghost that lay there dormant. In a life-threatening moment, the Spirit surfaces on its own. As he is one who has lived by invoking the Spirit, there is no wonder in its rising to his protection.



story | by Dr. Radut