The Courage to ‘Die’: Abandoning Sleep

The Courage to ‘Die’: Abandoning Sleep

Conquering the lower self takes real courage. — The Teacher

I tend to apply courage to the feats of heroic figures, people who face grave danger with bravery. People who overcome audaciously bigger-than-life obstacles. Movies, comic books, anime, novels, and television shows paint a picture of superhumans whose guts or grit are just as impressive as their super-abilities. Even ancient tales and myths feature characters like Odysseus, Psyche, Hercules, Arjuna, Osiris, or Isis, whose tales might inspire and motivate people to act.

On one hand, I do not want to belittle our myths or the acts of real-life heroes. Legendary metaphors have their rightful place in the canon of human stories. And the selfless acts of heroism shown on TikTok or YouTube by first responders, for example, are impressive and moving in many cases.

On the other hand, there are opportunities for ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Courage is not restricted to heroes and superheroes. I can show my mettle without impressing anyone. I can do the impossible and make real-world impact without attracting attention or eliciting thunderous applause.

When [a man] begins to know himself a man sees that he has nothing that is his own, that is, that all that he has regarded as his own, his views, thoughts, convictions, tastes, habits, even faults and vices, all these are not his own, but have been either formed through imitation or borrowed from somewhere ready-made. In feeling this a man may feel his nothingness. And in feeling his nothingness a man should see himself as he really is, not for a second, not for a moment, but constantly, never forgetting it.

This continual consciousness of his nothingness and of his helplessness will eventually give a man the courage to 'die,' that is, to die, not merely mentally or in his consciousness, but to die in fact and to renounce actually and forever those aspects of himself which are either unnecessary from the point of view of his inner growth or which hinder it. These aspects are first of all his 'false I,' and then all the fantastic ideas about his 'individuality,' 'will,' 'consciousness,' 'capacity to do,' his powers, initiative, determination, and so on.” — P.D. Ouspensky

Psychological courage is indeed the daily bread for people on the Way, people who choose the hero's inner journey. This foundational truth was noted by Plato, a dramatist who turned into a student of self-work, in his dialogues of Socrates. (The following excerpts are paraphrased for clarity.)

Seeing that all men desire happiness, which is gained by a right use of the things of life, the good fortune in the use of them, and is given by knowledge, the inference is that every man should by all means try to make himself as wise as he can. — Plato

What does this pronouncement of Socrates have to do with courage? Among the goods that one associates with happiness, Socrates includes the virtues of “justice, temperance, courage.” In another dialogue, Socrates goes on to say, “So courage is wisdom about what is and is not to be feared, which is opposite to ignorance of these things?” My inner quest is discovering what is real and what is not real, and transforming my emotional responses en route.

Courage is knowing what not to fear. — Plato

From this, I surmise that, like Ouspensky, Socrates sees the dragon as unawareness. I am ignorant of my illusory many-headed hydras and my self-made obstacles to self-knowledge. The human condition is truly Arjuna’s battlefield or Psyche’s many tests. It takes personal courage and perseverance, inner backbone, to pry out the truth from my falsehoods and to find my rightful place in this epic journey. Presence, free of the shackles of deception and pretense, is the hero's destination.

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. — Rainer Maria Rilke

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Saint George and the Dragon, Bernat Martorell